The Green Party rank and file would have been excused if they were seeing red as they gathered for their first annual general meeting since the election.

The first, since signing up to its confidence and supply agreement with Labour.

Which none realised at the time, would see a stow-away rat die aboard their waka, that they would feel they had no choice but to swallow.

In the Greens' ideological eyes, the Electoral Integrity Amendment Bill is a disgraceful threat to democracy that goes against their core values and principals.

But for its MPs - it's unfortunate, but a necessary evil to remain in the corridors of power.

The so-called waka jumping bill was meant to be done and dusted before Green Party faithful met in Palmerston North over the weekend but stalling by the Nats saw it successfully pushed until the next sitting block of Parliament.

So the AGM in Palmy was a chance for party members to make another impassioned appeal to their co-leaders not to support the bill or to insist on it having some sort of sunset clause.

But as former co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons put it, they've run up against a brick wall and the Greens won't be rocking the boat over this one.

It always pays to pick your battles and it seems for most of the Greens contingent in Palmy wins in the environment sphere are the battle worth fighting.

And it seemed the Party was keen to get back to those environmental roots this weekend.

The other stark reality of the limits of power the Greens had to face over the weekend, was its approach to water.

In June, Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage had to swallow another kind of rat, by signing off on the expansion of a Chinese water bottling companies operations, as it met the Overseas Investment Act criteria, this is something the Greens strongly oppose, and it led to a lot of backlash online but legally, she had no choice.

So this weekend came the announcement that the Greens had confirmed that this issue would be on the Government's agenda, not an announcement they're actually making moves on this just that they're going to look into it. So some promise of action, but no action yet.

Then came the big announcement of the weekend, a Government announcement that Eugenie Sage made sure she had permission to announce at a Party Conference.

But this too was a bit of a fizzer.

An announcement of a programme of work to take action on our long-neglected waste problems. Floating ideas like an increased landfill levy, a way to improve our waste data, analysing where investment is needed.

So a working group. But no action yet.

But for the party faithful, it seems "not yet", is still a stream ahead of fighting for environmental wins from opposition and it being more like "maybe in three years?".

So the dead rats, and the maybe slower than anticipated progress is still worth the payoff.

And when you consider that had the King Maker Winston Peters looked to his right, there would still have been that big dead rat just someone else would had to swallow it.