Deep Green

Since I’ve just posted below just some of the dopiness promoted by Hard Labour activists, I thought it only fair to update my on-going study of their coalition partners favourite word: “ban.”

I first examined this back in 2006 when a a commenter took issue with my claim "that the Greens always want to ban things." Turned out my commenter was right. The Greens didn’t want to ban everything, and they still  don't. Just this lot:

• Californian grape imports
• ferrets
• trade in cat and dog fur
• trade in furniture and timber from China
• imports of all Chinese milk-related products for children
• trade in tropical timber
• kwila outdoor furniture
• trade in tobacco products to the Pacific Islands
• trade in live sheep exports
• TV ads for kids
• ads on TVNZ
• television advertising of high fat and high sugar foods to children
• gangs
• fizzy drinks
• diet sodas
• endosulfan
• bisphenol A (BPA)
• fossil-fuel power stations
• foreigners owning coastal land
• foreigners owning farms
• foreigners owning “our assets”
• foreigners
• building of new prisons
• European beef and sheep imports
• European baby foods containing beef and sheep
• Californian Douglas Fir
• tobacco displays
• direct to consumer advertising of drugs
• growth hormones
• party pills
• embryo selection technology
• native wood chip exports
• native logging
• deep-sea oil drilling
• on-land fracking
• the powerwall
• all advertising of prostitution
• television and radio advertising of sexual services
• pig swill
• xenotransplantion trials
• smacking
• GE
• field trials for GE
• import of tissue for sheep cloning
• pesticides
• property rights from the Bill of Rights
• quick-fire logging
• logging
• fishing for toothfish
• fishing for shark
• sale and distribution of shark fins
• whaling
• set-net fishing
• gill-net fishing
• fishing
• bottom trawling
• cluster bombs
• land mines
• plastic bags
• anti-depressants
• 'toxic timber'
• methyl bromide
• cell-phone use in cars
• feeding animal remains to farm animals
• battery cages
• “perilous poultry products”
• “the screening of programmes which sensationalise violence”
• Barbie
• Ken
• CCA-treated timber in playgrounds
• direct to consumer advertising of drugs
• "the screening of programmes which sensationalise violence or use violence"
• "the routine feeding of antibiotics to healthy animals"
• GE maize
• seed sterility technology
• commercial releases of genetically engineered crops
• waste incineration
• "nuclear shipments from New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone"
• sow crates
• the dry sow stall
• "weapons of mass destruction"
• nuclear powered vessels in our waters
• beef imports from Britain to other European countries
• "Japanese fishing boats from New Zealand waters"
• "the importation of all timber and timber products not certified as sustainable"
• open-cast mining
• gold mining
• coal mining
• mining
• human cloning
• food irradiation
• spray drift
• all ships carrying nuclear weapons, wastes and fuel from the EEZ
• "backyard burning of rubbish such as plastics and treated timber"
• "smoking in all workplaces including bars, restaurants and offices"
• smoking in cars
• smoking in clubs
• smoking outside clubs
• smoking
• "new uses of coal for energy"
• "factory farming"
• "project-based approvals for the development of GE organisms"
• "all further building of prisons"
• free trade with China
• junk food advertising to children
• alcohol advertising to anybody
• "the sale and long-term lease of New Zealand property to foreign investors"
• "the sale of toy tobacco products to under 18s"
• GM wheat
• "environmentally destructive fishing methods"
• "uranium shipments"
• "the use of the antibiotic avoparcin in animal feed"
• "imports of cars older than 7 years"
• amalgam use in dentistry
• the incineration of unsorted waste
• 'trade in hazardous wastes"
• "'super baby' selection"
• shopping bags
• inorganic farming
• dihydrogen monoxide

So, you're right. Apart from those very few things the Greens are pretty much live-and-let-live, and I was very unfair to say otherwise.

It could be argued (and it has been) that the Greens don't wish to have things banned, that they only want to discourage things through additional taxes or education campaigns, or minimum standards or suchlike.

Well, let's do a rough check on the Greens's website. It's a fairly unscientific study (like much of the Greens's own literature). A quick check shows that in 2006 the word 'ban' appeared 165 times. It now appears 2030 times. The phrase 'additional taxes' appears not at all, but 'eco taxes' shows up 56 times (16 in 2006); 'minimum standards' 101 (7 in 2006); and 'educational campaigns' brings up the rear with only 2 appearances (down from 6 in 2006).

So it looks like my commenter is still absolutely right, for which I guess I can only apologise.