Which side is TOP on?

So The Opportunity Party is throwing everything into winning the Mt Albert seat. Their rationale is if they get an electorate seat they get a lifeline into Parliament.
They have an interesting policy mix.
Arguably their policy positions are close to the Greens and to the left of Labour. Their slogan is “Unity, Innovation, Nature”.
Their specific policy positions are very progressive. For instance:
Tax – they propose essentially a universal basic income, a land value tax and enhanced kiwisaver.
Education – they want to level the playing field between Community ECE centres and profit driven corporate centres, seek pay parity with teachers, teach civics from year 6, pay more to qualified teachers including for additional duties and invest in professional development, and support lifelong and flexible learning including funding for night classes.
Healthy land – they propose an increase in biosecurity and conservation funding, improving water quality through strong regulation, supporting landowners to transition to high value low impact land use, and design a curcular plastice economy.
Crime – they want to reduce remand prisoner numbers by increased funding for courts and probation services, decriminalise possession for personal use and transition to a health led response, raise the Youth Court jurisdiction to the age of 25 in line with developmental science, and expand drug and mental health court pilot programmes.
Housing – they advocate for housing proces to drop and for a lot of houses to be built, including tiny homes, a simplification of the zoning system, and “incentivising quality with low-cost loans and refunding GST collected during construction to Councils for high environmental standard builds.”
Climate – they say that “[c]limate change is real, is caused by human activity and is already here. The decisions we make today will shape how we, our children and grandchildren adapt — or not — to a warming world.” They propose to strengthen the ETS by adding agricultural emissions into the mix, support all sectors to reduce emissions, support Local Government to implement nature based solutions for resilience and heat stress, presumably trees, and support programmes that reward carbon sequestration but not by pine trees.
Clean up politics – they propose to limit political donations and build up transparency, regulate lobbyists, introduce a register of beneficial interests, create an anti corruption, limit the use of urgency, and strengthen the OIA.
Honouring Te Tiriti – they promise to repeal the Treaty Principles Bill (not needed thankfully) and the Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Amendment Bill, include teaching of Aotearoa’s history at all levels of the education system, support growth in the numbers of te reo teachers, support devolution of services particularly in health and justice and support equitable Treaty settlements.
Healthy Oceans – they support the return of abundant fish stocks through increasing marine reserve areas and restored coastal habitat and 100% transparency and accountability for commercial fishing operators.
Abundant energy – they propose a lowering of electricity prices, more renewable energy and a significant cuts in carbon emissions by boosting renewable generation, ringfencing government profits from power generation into renewable energy investments, and low interest loans for household and community electification and the electrification of public transport systems. They will not support the proposed LNG terminal because it “locks us in to long-term reliance on imported LNG. In addition to the environmental impacts, this puts us at the mercy of potentially volatile international prices.”
I must say this is an impressive list of policies, UBI, increased support for community preschools and pay for teachers, improved water quality, increased funding for justice and more therapeutic treatment of young people and drug addicts, more housing, increased urgent action on on climate change, a limit on political donations, honouring Te Tiriti and increased devolution particularly in health and justice, larger marine reserve areas and restored coastal habitat, and a significant reduction in carbon emissions by boosting renewable energy and ringfencing Government profits from power generation into renewable energy investments.
I find my head nodding as I read this list.
But I wonder who is the Opportunity Party and why should good lefties support them?
My first response is that these are important issues, especially climate change. But where have these people been in the last 20 years? Why haven’t they already joined Labour or the Greens to push hard on these issues?
And my second response is why are they claiming that they can work with any party including National? This list of policies is an anathema to what National has done over the past two and a half years.
If they were a Teal like party they would be targeting National or right held seats in the inner city and forcint the right either to get with the game or face oblivion as their support base is reduced to a climate change denying rump.
The motivation is often shown by who the backers are.
Who are their backers?
Recent large donations have been received from Ian Kuperus who is a board member, Alajamber Limited, a start up incubator company, Phillip Mills who supports all things progressive, Matthew O’Connor and Brian Cartmell who donated the party $100,000.
This last donation is interesting because Cartmell has also donated about half a million dollars to National, Act and NZ First over the past few years. Strangely the donations to the other parties do not appear in the Elections website.
Cartmell is an interesting character, an American who has relocated to Queenstown and someone who was an early adopter of Bitcoin. He currently wants to invest in “innovative startups that challenge existing boundaries in space, energy, agritech, advanced transportation, artificial intelligence, and other transformative technologies”.
And looking at Cartmell’s twitter feed he looks like a Elon Musk Fan boy, not someone who is concerned about the environment.
Some progressives will be tempted to support Top. Can I urge you to resist the urge?
There are two possible scenarios. If they do not cross the threshold or win a seat then progressive votes will be rendered ineffective. If they do cross the threshold or win a seat then there is no guarantee that they will support the left. Their naievity in thinking they can meaningfully negotiate with National is clear.
As for running for Mount Albert again I would have to question the strategy. The Greens are already making a run for the seat and Labour’s core vote is pretty solid. I cannot see TOP having any chance of winning. In a worst case scenario they may let National through although this is unlikely.
TOP is an interesting concept but a dangerous one. Can I urge progressives to avoid them. I can pretty confidently say that if you support their policies then a vote for them will lessen the chances of those policies being enacted.