Analysis: Chlöe Swarbrick has set herself an ambitious goal if, as seems likely, she is chosen to be the Green Party’s new co-leader on Sunday morning.
The Auckland Central MP says the Greens are already the leading party on the left in terms of originality, commitment to their values, and advocacy for causes like poverty and climate change. Her mission, she tells Newsroom, is to convince the electorate of that so that their numbers in Parliament actually reflect it.
She says she’s been described as “not only a conviction politician but a convincing politician”.
“The tone shift that I would hope to see if I have the opportunity to be co-leader is to ensure that the party genuinely resonates in a much more mainstream way. I don’t want this to be misunderstood because it frequently is. There is a notion that in order to appeal to a voter base, you need to somehow water down your values. I don’t think that that is the case,” Swarbrick says.
“Most New Zealanders that I speak to resonate really strongly with the things that the Greens are saying; they just haven’t had it represented to them in a way that makes sense to them.”
There are some implicit and explicit shots here at Labour as well.
“I see us very clearly as the leading political party of the left. In contrast to the Labour Party, I can’t think of any area of policy where Labour would push the Greens. It’s always in our areas of policy where we’re hoping to go further and faster.”
Swarbrick believes Labour is reactive, determining its policy in response to focus groups and polls. The Greens take a different approach, developing policy based on their values and working to convince the electorate to support it.
“I see the role of politicians to genuinely be the leaders that they profess to be and that means making the case for something even if it’s not immediately and obviously popular, because it’s the right thing to do and aligns with one’s values,” she says.
“Reflect on the fact that, at the point in time the Labour Party ruled out a capital gains tax under the leadership of the Right Honourable Jacinda Ardern ostensibly because of the loss of the popular mandate, it was still polling as a majority of New Zealanders supporting it.”
The mission is complicated a bit by the tumultuous start to the year for the Greens. First, longtime MP Golriz Ghahraman resigned in the midst of a shoplifting scandal. Ghahraman entered Parliament in the same year as Swarbrick and is a well-known member of caucus. Public perception of the party will have dipped in light of the allegations.
Then Shaw announced his own resignation, followed a few weeks later by the tragic and unexpected death of new MP Efeso Collins. After a successful election campaign and an extended political purgatory while National, Act and NZ First worked up a coalition, the party started the year ready to dig into Opposition but hasn’t had the chance to find its footing. Swarbrick’s first job may well be to simply stabilise the ship.
So far, her broader pitch has been well-received by the Green Party base, according to party members who have spoken with Newsroom.
The past few years have seen a flurry of commentary about the party’s conflicting factions. The annual general meeting two years ago, where enough delegates defected to briefly put James Shaw out of a job, highlighted this divide.
Those in the ‘pro-Shaw’ faction argued that their opponents were a minority of radical left activists with outsized influence in the party apparatus. Shaw was eventually restored in an uncontested vote a few months later.
Those who supported his ouster, however, said there was a core of longtime Green members who felt the party had become too comfortable in government, in corporate settings and with compromise on a range of policy issues.
Swarbrick, by all accounts, appeals to both sides of this divide. Many of those who worked to unseat Shaw hoped she would take the opportunity to challenge him, though she ultimately demurred. But she is also something of a mentee of his and is well-liked by his supporters as well.
Given all of that, she is widely expected to be chosen to replace him on Sunday, despite the presence of a smalltime challenger in Dunedin activist Alex Foulkes. There’s also no real chance of a vote to reopen nominations, like the one in 2022 that did temporarily ouster Shaw, Green members say.
The question for Swarbrick is not whether she can get the party on board. That’s basically a fait accompli. Instead, it’s whether she can accomplish her ambitious vision of reaching out to an even wider swathe of the electorate.
The Greens got their best ever election result in October and returned a record caucus of 15 MPs. But some credit that to Shaw’s ability to reach beyond the party’s usual base.
In 2017, North and South magazine ran a pre-election cover story asking whether the “once ‘loony left'” was ready for government. Swarbrick was one of six candidates on that cover. With Shaw’s departure, she’s the only one still in Parliament.
For six years, at least, the party seems to have shaken its ‘loony’ reputation. And Swarbrick’s talk of getting the party to “resonate in a much more mainstream way” sounds like a promise to continue that journey. But she is also outspoken about her self-description as a “researched radical”.
It’s a different political pitch than Shaw’s – embracing both the need to reach beyond the party’s core supporters and the need to be more outspoken in advocacy for traditional left-wing causes. Can both be done at once?
Swarbrick intends to find out.
The Green Party will never be mainstream until it focuses on the environment rather than social policy. That would, I believe, put it at the centre making it the go-to coalition partner left or right. Then we might see some real environmental progress in NZ.
Her challenge is clearly that the values and policies of the Green party are ‘Socialist/Left’ and therefore not ‘mainstream.’ If anything, the ‘mainstream’ of NZ is moving more to the Right as economic issues bite. They have been excellent at reflecting this ‘Left’ sector of NZ society and therefore have a rock solid 10% voting support. They have never been like a German ‘Green Party’ occupying a centre-left position and if they try they will be fighting Labour over votes.
The article still says Shaw was ‘ousted’ which is and was clearly untrue. Why this misinformation, Marc. Are you afraid you won’t be considered mainstream? The vote only failed to quietly confirm Shaw as leader, leaving the selection for a main selection vote a little later.
Commentators so far appear to accept the status quo and pour scorn on any proposal to lead the NZ voters in a leftward direction. Chloe appears to want to take the fight head on and be unapologetic about support for both environmental and social justice issues. Go Chloe.
I have always trended towards blue-green but the new government’s actions to suppress indigenous cultural identity have upset me more than any other political action in my life. Go Chloe.
It wasn’t so long ago that the Greens were criticised for being only about environmental issues. Now they have come up with policies on social and other issues, which is necessary for any party wishing to govern and they are being told to stick to the environment!
What seems to be regularly missed when talking about the Climate Crisis and the environment is that it is as much an issue of inequality as it is of the environment. Even in New Zealand it is and will be the poor who will be most affected. Labour appears unable to understand this, so it is left to the Greens. Chloe is right the Greens need to become radical mainstream.
Not sure you can be radical and mainstream!! As a previous Green supporter I would really like them to focus on Green. That is their branding, point of difference and the climate / environment is the most important crisis we as a human race are facing. A high % of kiwis (more than 11%) do care about the environment and want to see Govt action, (though taking action themselves is more problematic!). I think if Greens came up with some less radical changes (most people dont like change) and actions that people can more easily take, then they can attract more people. Eugiene Sage did an excellent job when Asso Minister for Enviro, with waste, plastic and we are all now making changes.
Labour, National, NZ First and Act have presided over an inexorable shift of wealth to a small minority of elites. Nothing mainstream about that. A party standing on principle and wanting to alter that course IS looking to the interests of the mainstream. Go Chloe.
Chloe has summed up the current political landscape in a nutshell when she says the Greens are the ‘leading political party on the left’. This is true. It has been a long time since Labour has been a party of the left. Jim Anderton’s efforts in the 1990s at swinging them back to the left saw him start up and lead an alternative left-wing mainstream party, NLP. I think he saw what many of us didn’t, that neoliberalism had basically swept the left away. Now the global ‘left’ (not the right word) is in turmoil and more than ever before is in desperate need of revival. Most citizens of the world need there to be a vibrant left, whether they understand that or not. There is no pathway to social or environmental sustainability via the political right, and citizens who are relying on them to help them through the looming crises need to start thinking a lot more seriously about what we’re facing in the not too distant future.