The Green Party is leading the policy debate so far in the election campaign, and could play a starring role in the formation of the next government if its polling continues to rise.
Despite leaving its campaign launch until last Sunday, a week after the launches of National and New Zealand First, the Greens are scoring points with the other parties.
On current polling, 12 or 13 Green MPs could be in Parliament after the election.
Labour has mirrored Green policies on lifting the minimum wage to $15, introducing a capital gains tax and eradicating child poverty and National has been forced into the game, with Prime Minister John Key wanting to find a way to reduce administration fees for KiwiSaver.
The Greens want a public KiwiSaver fund to lower costs and boost the savings of people on their retirement. Mr Key does not appear to be ruling that out.
Tomorrow, the Greens will release its Christchurch plan right in the middle of the city's biggest week of the year - the spring racing carnival and A and P show.
Mr Key announced yesterday the Government would underwrite a $20 million temporary stadium to house the Crusaders, the Canterbury ITM Cup matches and an All Black v Ireland test in June next year.
Green co-leader Metiria Turei said in an interview it was unlikely the Greens would go into a coalition with National. It was more likely the party could enter into a memorandum of understanding with National to achieve its policies.
Green MP Catherine Delahunty has indicated she would resign if the Greens do a deal with National. Ms Turei said that was Ms Delahunty's personal view. However, the view of the party was that it wanted to get its policies adopted and implemented and it was her job to get that achieved.
Already, by working with the Government, more than $320 million had been spent on the Greens' home insulation scheme, nearly $10 million had been secured to clean up the former Tui Mine site, near Te Aroha, the party had worked with Mr Key on the New Zealand Cycle Trail and a $4 million pilot project had been established to protect New Zealand's forests and native species.
National had been given the Green Party priorities for after the election, Ms Turei said.
National had already agreed to extend the home insulation programme as part of the Greens' job policies, Mr Key had not ruled out a public option for KiwiSaver and there was still room to move on child poverty by extending the training allowances.
"We are leading the policy, but I am stressing to everyone that, while we can work with both Labour and National, the only way to get these policies is to party-vote Green," she said.
National and Mr Key are in danger of having to try to either govern alone or cobble together an arrangement with a minor party given the falling support of Act New Zealand. It can rely on United Future leader Peter Dunne but, at the most, he will only take one MP into Parliament with him.
The Maori Party will have three, possibly four MPs.
Having a memorandum of understanding with the Greens could prove invaluable for National after November 26.
Mr Dunne has taken umbrage with comments yesterday that alerting voters to his State of the Family scorecard was highlighting how badly the Families Commission had done since it was established by his party in 2002.
"The scorecard assessment was mine, to highlight how a report card could work in the future. I suspect that, had I scored the period from 2002 to 2010, and not just the year 2010, I would have pointed out significant improvements."
