 Ko leader Russell Norman online. He joins me now. Kia ora Russell. Kia ora Willie. How are you? Good mate. You see my predictions for your polling. For the election I was a bit too high. I remember I was telling you 11%, 11.5%. I got the closest to what you got. Wow, we'll see what we get after the specials. That'll be a bit closer. What are you at the moment? 10? 10 or something. Disappointment? We held our own against a tide that was flowing the way in the National Party. So yeah, we pretty much held our own. What do you put it down to? You were averaging about 13, 14% in polls going into that election. Well, I don't know. It was a really difficult election. The main problem was intermata. In terms of a change in government. With them there it just made it very difficult to change the government. They created problems for Labour, but it also created problems for us. What do you mean? Did you think they confused voters? No, no. If you think about what was the intermata campaign, they basically spent $3 million to try to convince potential Green Party voters to vote for intermata. That's basically what they were doing. And they were pretty much unsuccessful at that. But in the process they tainted Labour because basically a lot of people went, I don't want to vote for Labour because I'm going to get haraian.com if I vote for Labour. So that was a big problem for Labour. And then for us, for the Greens, it was a problem because they occupied so much airtime with their nonsense. So intermata occupied all this airtime that would have otherwise been available to talk about the issues, was just to put up the nonsense from the intermata thing. So it just made it incredibly difficult to change the government because people went go, I don't want that a lot. I'll stick with John Key, thanks very much. Yeah. The other side of it is if you think if there had been some proper engagement or liaison with them, you still might have changed the government because they were heading for between 4% and 5%. They're five weeks before the election and TV1 poll, they were 4%. I mean, where they did, where they went wrong, they must have run the worst campaign I've ever seen in politics and the whole thing collapsed and the whole left collapsed. I mean, you think if there had been some meaningful engagement with them from Labour or from you guys, that in fact, you might have got across the line? It was pretty difficult. I mean, basically intermata was a guided missile attacking the left. I mean, that's what the thing was. So it was always going to make it really hard. I mean, we had enough trouble with John Key standing up there every day telling all his nonsense about us. And then on the other hand, we had to deal with these crazies. I mean, it was, you know, having them on the radio and TV all the time, talking their nonsense was like, oh, God, so it did, you know, make it incredibly difficult to change the government at that point. Because, you know, I mean, a lot of people who might have voted Labour went, if a vote for Labour means a vote for dot common hara, I'm not going to do that. And so they lost a lot of people because of it. And then for the Greens, it was like a free airtime in that last week to talk about. And all we got was the ridiculous moment of truth and all of that. So it just made it very, very difficult for those of us who are actually trying to change the government. So you think Laila Haare and Hone Harawira and them because they were the main spokespeople for Internet Mana crazies? I don't think they're crazy. I just think it was a ridiculous strategy. I mean, you know, so imagine, you know, having list place number two for $3 million, which is what, you know, the Mana Party did. So they sold it to kim.com and kim.com then appointed Laila to put in that spot. And, you know, it's just, it's not a starting point of integrity, is it? I mean, you know, that's not how you go about changing the world for the better. Well, you wouldn't give her a list spot. So she had to look somewhere else. I mean, she was working for you guys. Well, here's the thing, Willie. If you want to get high up on the list, you've got to convince the Green Party members that you're a good person who should be high up on the Green Party list. If you're above that, you know, you don't want to do that kind of thing, then I guess you go to kim.com and you say, why don't you appoint me as your employee and we'll buy list place number two and put me in there. I mean, that's the other option, right? Yeah, I suppose. We're a Democratic party. We're the real deal. Yeah, but I suppose she was so celebrated particularly by the media. I mean, the reality was when she became internet leader was heralded as a master stroke by all the so-called political experts out there, Russell. You know, I thought it was brilliant. You remember all the razmatas? Not me. You didn't say much at the time. I can't recall you saying it was stupid. What would have been the point of the election campaign for us to get stuck into end mana? That's right. See, the other side of it is the Haarei side or their side is if Labour had of linked arms with them or you guys maybe you'd be deputy prime minister today. No, we would have been destroyed even more. It was a catastrophe from beginning to end. It was a stupid idea. Well, you know and I know you know, as I said, they were polling well. Everything was going well. And then they had the most dopiest campaign around. And some would say you were stupid and Canla for stupid for not embracing them a bit because you needed every little bit of chance that, you know, every chance that you could get to get up there. You needed a party like them to maybe get 4% to get you across the line. Surely no. Well, look where you are now in opposition to that guy. As I said from the beginning, when I went and met.com, whatever you do, don't go ahead with this stupid idea. You told that to him. Yeah, I mean, I'm on the public record. I said right from the get go, don't do this stupid thing. Anyway, they went ahead and did it and then they made it stupider by doing the end mana thing, right? And so poor old Hone got dragged into the mess as well. And you know, how do you think this thing is going to end when you go down that kind of path? Well, I think it ended it a bit earlier than what they thought it would. I mean, I think they thought they were heading for Parliament, so did everyone else. Not me. I thought it was a bad idea. I said it was a bad idea. I accept that, but I'm sure you were surprised with the way they collapsed. No, no. So you put together the Hone Harawira and keep it up.com and you think it ends badly and you're surprised. It's not a commentator in the last month who didn't think they were heading for Parliament. All right? What we saw was a terrible... I mean, they just collapsed under their own stupidity in the last month with a buyer thing, the marijuana arguments with the moment of truth which turned out to be a sham. And he's just ridiculous. But if anybody else was running that campaign, they would have just said cool heads and they would have cruised into Parliament. Yes. No. Go back and read Armstrong's stuff. I don't believe a word Armstrong says. Well, you never said anything. Well, that's because... Hang on. You said nothing and all the top commentators had thought there was just no way they were going to be stopped and who would have predicted the stupidity over the last month or you're saying you would have but you couldn't say anything. You did not do it. There's no record of you saying anything, Russell. There is a total record. I am on the total public record when I visited dot com. Everyone said what did you talk about? I said I told him not to do it. Go on, look at it. You go google it. All I'm hearing you say is those crazies and you're not specifying who the crazies are. So here we have, right? So you have kim.com Is kim.com the crazy? Is he the crazy? Who are the crazies? You have kim.com who's, you know, terrible things happen to dot com, right? What the New Zealand Government did to him was wrong and I said so and I've continued to say so. But starting a political party in order to get vengeance is not going to work. And then going to the mana party and saying, well, what's our common ground? Well, there isn't really much because what on earth is the internet party. It's like it's just dot com and his money. So, you know, I mean, are you surprised it turned to custard? I was surprised that it turned to custard so early. I expected it to turn to custard a bit later on. I always expected it was but I thought that it was, they were cruising as did every other political commentator who could see that that people were sort of almost duped, weren't they? In terms of what was happening. And, yes, so I did expect it to turn to custard. I never expected that they would self-destruct over that last month the way that they did. You know, when that video happened, you know, and they had the F John Key, right? The chanting, which the inter mana party promoted, right? It wasn't an accident that appeared in public, they were promoting this thing, right? When Middle New Zealand saw that, what do you think they thought they said, we don't want these people in Parliament, we don't want the Labour Party in Parliament who are associated with them. It was gold for John Key. When were you guys ever Middle New Zealand? You've only become Middle New Zealand in the last election. It's not, we were trying to win an election, really. No, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. When did you guys make the switch to Middle New Zealand? I'm talking about the Greens. I get that, I get that but I thought that was always the main of Labour and National. When did the Greens become so fixed on Middle New Zealand? Tell me. We're not fixed on Middle New Zealand. What I'm saying is that if your objective was to change the Government, you had to win a lot of people to that idea, right? You just have to. And so when inter mana were doing that kind of stuff, you were alienating the very people you had to win over. And the Labour Party, poor old countless to give him his due, what on Earth could he do at that point? He tried to distance himself from it but John Key, who quite wisely just kept saying Nana, Kim.com, David Kamlet there together and everybody who saw that went, ah, no. And so they just, poor old Labour, just lost people, heaps of people because of it. It was a disaster. It was. It made it incredibly difficult to change the Government. I don't even think internet mana were after Middle New Zealand though. That was the point. They were after the disenfranchise. They were after those people who never voted. You heard them all the time. Ah, what was their advertising like? But hang on, you used to be like that when you were a more principal politician before you became more respectable and wanted to change the middle vote. You used to be like them, but you're a changed man now. You just want power. So they went around. The Green Party don't go around saying if John Key, we go. Let's talk about the policy. Hang on, you used to, all right? No, he didn't. Ask that meteor two days when she was with her stupid whatever what were they called? Makali Serious or whatever they called themselves. Well, that's not the Green Party. Hang on, she's got a background in terms of if the Prime Minister, you know that. It's not the Green Party, Willie. But don't tell me your activists don't have backgrounds in terms of being particularly active against the government, surely? You know, and this is an interesting take for you from you today, although that's not why we were actually ringing you, but... We're activists. We're activists who like campaign on issues. That's what we do. We're serious about it. We don't take $3 million and go, oh, why don't we try to get the Green Party vote so we can get into Parliament. We go and we campaign on issues. We're serious about it. We take John Key on every day in the House. We do it seriously. It's not some kind of game. This is politics. It's about the future of the country. We take it seriously. That's what the Greenies are about. The reality is you're looking at changing your philosophical position, aren't you? Because there were murmurings about you guys sort of looking towards national about a week before the election, right? So the reality is you don't really want to just be classified as being Labour Party people. Is that true? So try to get your head around this, right? We're a third political party in New Zealand. There's a Labour Party. We're not them, right? There's the National Party. We're not them, right? Then there's the Green Party. We're that party. We're the third party, the independent party that campaigns for social justice and sustainability in particular environment. That's us. We're a different party. Sure, I've got that, but you need to just be clear to us going forward for the Green Party. We're not going to see a Green Party that's just fixed to the Labour Party. Is that what you're saying today? Well, we have never been fixed to the Labour Party because we're an independent party. Remember the 2002 election? Remember when Labour tried to kill the Green? I remember it well. I've always thought your strategy was stupid the way they answered. I've always thought there were a number of stupid people in the Greens that the way that thought, no, seriously, because you were so fixed on being lapdogs for the Labour Party. Did you back this into anything, will we? Yes, I did. You were a catastrophe, right? You stopped us changing the government. Willi Jackson was John Key's secret weapon. You and Laila.com John Key's secret weapon. I'll take my share of blame. I was one of the people who recommended they do the deal. What a disaster you are. What a disaster. The National Party's secret weapon, Willi Jackson. No, you're very good in retrospect. What I'm saying to you is that you're confirming on Māori radio today that going forward you can do deals with National, which I think is a good idea. That's a good idea because you're coming up 20 years in the opposition, right? What we've said and we've always said is that we'll work with anyone on issues but when it comes to forming a government and we said this last time and the time before that our preference is to form a government with Labour and it's highly unlikely that we could form a government with National because of the policy differences. It's about the policy differences between the Greens and National. That's the problem. Next time out when National becomes the government again, you'll have the same but I think you should be open. Winston's open to this sort of stuff. He's got three years of doing what. He doesn't know what to do with himself. He's got 10 other people in the parliament. He came fourth in the election, right? The Greens beat him. He came fourth in the election. He's got 10 people he doesn't know. Nobody else knows either except maybe Ron Mark. So they're going to go in the parliament and do what? The Kingmakers. That didn't work out, did it? What do they do now? Here's the difference. At least he's been in a position to be a member of the opposition. That's what your position is. He seems a lot of expensive, I tell. At least New Zealand first can say they got something for the old people. At least they got the gold car. What do you get? We got 250,000 homes retrofitted with insulation which is a lot more than when he's ever got. You see that doesn't convince the old people out there. Hey, just before we finish because you deliberately hijacked this interview. The oil and gas industry. Just before we finish I've got to do this because my producer said so their acknowledgement their fossil fuel days are numbered you'd be happy with that? Yeah, I mean the fact that climate change means that you can't burn all the fossil fuel we've already found and so the National Party strategy we're going to be this big oil and gas and coal country actually we can't even burn all the oil, gas and coal we found on the planet if we want to avoid out of control. Climate change is a stupid strategy. And National, they're the only ones haven't realised that right? National don't even know. National aren't living in the 1950s they don't even know we're in the 21st century they don't realise climate change is a real issue so they're like subsidising giving they gave like $800,000 to the oil and gas and coal industry to have a big conference they gave $5,000 to the wind energy association to have a conference but clean energy is the fastest growing sector in electricity generation in the world right now it's the fastest growing part of energy electricity generation is clean energy renewable and that's New Zealand's kind of thing we could be leaders in this but the National Party goes no no we're not going to look at that clean energy stuff we've got to dig stuff out of the ground so yeah I mean we've got a government that's living in the 1950s 1950s you know I'm going to be talking about your future coalition partner that way Russell you know if they want to come into the 21st century maybe we can have a chat hey well well I gotta say I enjoyed our chat today even though yes I see you hijacked our interview and you were very rude to the others can you promise me one thing Willie can you promise me a good day out of the next election just don't get involved right I was hoping for a list position on the Greens last week if you can convince the members because we're a democratic party good on you Russell good to talk with you today mate alright cheers thank you mate bye