I was thinking today about Eugenie Sage after reading a column by Dave Armstrong who made a very good point.

Last week the Minister of Conservation made a decision on a Chinese water bottling plant that enraged the members of her Green Party.

In one fell sweep she ran roughshod over iwi concerns and the Treaty of Waitangi, she contradicted her own party’s environmental policy and she gave away water to a nation that is not favoured by her coalition partner New Zealand First.

There were two reasons. Firstly despite being in the job for months, she had not changed the law and secondly, the scheme did add 60 jobs to our workforce.

Contrast that with her decision to turn down a coal mine on the West Coast. Yes, the scheme took 12 hectares of conservation land and it ran against her party’s policy on resource exploitation. But based on her decision last week that could have happened.

But here’s the interesting thing. The West Coast mine was also promising an extra 60 jobs. So apparently 60 jobs is the 40 pieces of silver to get a water bottling plant across the line but not enough for a coal mine.

Minister Sage is learning a tough lesson on what it is to be in government and not opposition where you can say whatever you want.

Meanwhile, I’ve been thinking about the nurses pay offer that was turned down yesterday afternoon. By no measure was it ungenerous. It was twice as much as offered by the previous government.

The DHBs also came out that there can be more mediation but there will be no more money.

It appears the mediation will be on the very edges of the package and that’s the age-old problem with strikes. Often there is a lot of sound and fury about very little at all.

If they can’t come to an agreement then there will be strikes on two days early next month.

The union reps keep saying that the package needs to be bigger to make up for the lack of progress during the nine years of the previous government.

But here’s a thing. Over those so-called terrible nine years under National, the nurses didn’t strike at all. It amazes me that the nurses are now prepared to strike in protest against a government that gave them double what they were offered by the last mob. Talk about biting the hand that feeds.