Green co-leaders reflect on a year of being between Opposition and Government – Stuff.co.nz

At one level, the Greens are clearly in Government.

Their leaders, Marama Davidson and James Shaw, are both ministers of the Crown. They vote for the Budget and support Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern continuing in her role.

At another, they are basically in opposition railing against Cabinets decisions on Covid-19, or campaigning to obliterate benefit sanction and impose rent controls two ideas way outside the ballpark Labour is playing in.

Stuff spoke to the two co-leaders after a year where the party basically stood still in the polls.

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Shaw said he didnt quite feel that the Greens were in opposition, despite campaigning against the Government at times.

The position weve taken is consistent how we actually worked while in opposition, because weve already tried to be constructive in that position of testing the Government in areas where we felt there could be an improvement. But we are doing it on the back of a really solid relationship we have with the Labour ministers.

When you compare us to the actual opposition parties some of what they do is constructive, but a lot of it is just trying to trash the Government so that they can have a go, and thats not our objective.

Davidson said she saw the Green Partys role as pushing for Labour to do better, go faster, and go further something that could be done from both within Arderns ministry and from campaigning outside.

ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff

Green Party co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson.

There is one party in the Opposition she could see sharing a Cabinet table with, however the Mori Party.

We have a lot in common on a number of issues. Of course, especially with Te Tiriti [The Treaty of Waitangi] based government as a vision.

As he always is, Shaw is frustrated by the idea of flirting with the National Party to try to get more leverage with Labour.

You're talking about a scenario in which we're in a position to choose between working with Labour or working with National. And the question would be given the work that we've been doing with Labour and the affinity in a policy sense that we have with Labour, why would we choose National? They would. They would have to move in ways that I don't think that they would find comfortable.

One of the areas the party differs from Labour on is housing Ardern is still wary of ever saying that she wants house prices to actually drop, while Shaw is happy to say they should.

If house prices fell theyre unlikely to fall anything like to the extent to which theyve rocketed up, he said.

Those of us who are lucky enough to own houses wouldnt see any kind of material reduction because their house would still be valued at considerably more than it would at the point they bought it. There is a small group of the most recent buyers who have bought at the height of the market but that comes down to whether they can maintain their mortgage, and thats income.

Shaw said he was wary of putting forward some kind of support package for those homeowners as it could create a moral hazard.

As climate change minister it was extremely frustrating that his Emissions Reduction Plan had to be pushed off into 2022.

It was ultimately a function of Covid, which caused chaos across Government. But it was something I really wanted to do.

He was also frustrated by the attacks on his trip to the Glasgow climate summit.

The attacks by certain media outlets and certain National MPs were hypocritical, because it was only directed at one minister, not the three that have been making trips. It was personal, not principle.

I was attacked for taking up a spot in MIQ and then for not taking up a spot in MIQ by the same people.

Shaw and Davidson both said they did understand the strength of feeling against MIQ, however, even as they have been more enamoured of the Covid-19 elimination strategy than Labour.

Its a terrible experience for people who are separated from their families. Beyond just the inconvenience there are people with sick parents, missing weddings, pregnancies, special times. All to be stuck in a system that is random, Shaw said.

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Green co-leaders reflect on a year of being between Opposition and Government - Stuff.co.nz