Matthew Hooton: What National, Labour can learn from Greens' co-leader James Shaw dilemma

OPINION

What doesn't kill you, apparently makes you stronger. So it is turning out for the Greens.
Trouble within any party always lies close to the surface, as various factions or points of view compete.

For the Greens, the main divide is between the anti-capitalist fundamentalists — "fundis" — wanting revolutionary economic, social and constitutional change, and the realists — "realos" — who are happy to clean up the environment and help the poor even within current structures.

Like all parties, the Greens' most active members tend to have stronger views than more passive members, let alone their voters.

Making it worse for the Greens, most of its voters are from the wealthiest communities.

The Greens' best electorates are Wellington Central, Rongotai and Mt Albert, where households earning more than $150,000 a year are double the national average - and the Greens win three or four times their nationwide vote share.

In Herne Bay, the country's wealthiest suburb, with a median property value of $3.6 million, the Greens won 15 per cent of the vote in the single polling booth, double their national share.

Assuming they want representation in Parliament, the fundis must accept that the voters who put them there do well out of the prevailing economic, social and constitutional conditions — and that voting on issues like climate change, social justice or even prison reform is a luxury good that the poor and even middle class mostly can't afford.

The fundis hate being reminded, but the Greens won just 3 per cent in Manurewa and Takanini in 2020, 4 per cent in Māngere and Panmure-Ōtāhuhu, not quite 5 per cent in Rotorua, and did worse across the Māori seats than in Epsom and Ilam.

If the oppressed masses the fundis care about had their way, the Greens wouldn't be in Parliament.

Yet the fundis have a point, which deserves to be heard, that non-gendered co-leader James Shaw and to a lesser extent woman co-leader Marama Davidson became detached from the membership's priorities after becoming ministers.

Shaw has achieved more on climate change than any of his predecessors, but the fundis are right that it required watering down their objectives to satisfy the National Party.

Similarly, Davidson may argue things would be worse without her earning $249,839 a year as Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and Associate Minister of Housing responsible for homelessness, but can't point to any improvements in those areas.

The Ministry of Justice's annual New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey reports no significant change in sexual assaults or family violence since 2018.

Ministry of Social Development data suggests the number of people living in cars has quadrupled since the Greens entered Government.

As I revealed in early April, unhappy activists backed constitutional changes allowing Shaw to be replaced by a woman co-leader, with Chloe Swarbrick in mind.

In late July, 30 per cent of AGM delegates removed Shaw from the co-leadership, with him needing 75 per cent support to survive. Another vote will be held in September.

This was portrayed as a crisis, and the rules allowing a 30 per cent minority to create such a fuss were lampooned.

But the Greens since report a surge in lapsed members becoming re-engaged, mainly to Shaw's benefit.

Shaw, having decided to reapply, reached out to the fundis, promising to do better representing their priorities.

Members have had time to reflect and gather evidence. This week's Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll suggested — surprisingly — that realo Shaw is no more popular with voters overall than Davidson, his fundi co-leader, or Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, another contender. They all sit around minus 20 per cent net favourability.

Only Swarbrick stands out, with minus 9 per cent net favourability, roughly the same as Act's David Seymour.

Among Green voters, Shaw, Davidson and Swarbrick are roughly as popular as each other, touching plus 50 per cent net favourability, with Kerekere well behind.

The upshot is that the Greens have a re-energised membership on both sides of the realo-fundi divide, a leadership that was checked by an important party minority and responded positively, and a clearer idea of how their leaders are perceived.

Meanwhile, the contretemps hasn't harmed their support, up slightly to 10 per cent in the Curia poll and stable on 9 per cent according to Talbot Mills.

Shaw should now reach the 75 per cent threshold to regain his job, and probably won't be challenged again until after the election.

When change comes, the evidence argues for a managed switch to Davidson-Swarbrick, shifting the fundi-realo balance a bit towards the fundis but increasing voter support.

The test of a party's constitutional arrangements is not when everyone is happy and things are going well, but when important factions get grumpy and there are bumps in the road.

On that test, the Greens' rules, giving much more power to its members than other parties, have passed with flying colours.

It's not the first time. The party risked a schism in 2017 after the more fundi co-leader, Metiria Turei, tried to promote poverty as an election issue by admitting to benefit fraud as a single parent.

She certainly raised the issue but her confession was a tactical error, being too polarising not just with voters overall, which wouldn't matter, but with Green voters themselves. Two MPs quit and oblivion loomed.

Yet after Shaw won a miracle 6 per cent, the rules worked and the party survived, settling on Davidson as fundi co-leader. Since then, the Greens have become the first small party to enter government without falling below MMP's 5 per cent threshold.

Membership control has also worked with candidate selection. Compared with National's recent selection disasters and Labour's problems with Gaurav Sharma and others over the years, no Green MP has been caught in a major ethics scandal concerning behaviour as an MP.

National, with its failed 2003 centralised constitution, and Labour, with its overbearing head office, have something to learn.

If they won't take advice from the Greens, then they might at least value that from respected former Attorney-General Chris Finlayson in his book Yes, Minister, launched this week.

Points one and five of his five-point plan to address National's mistakes since 2003?

It should rebuild electorate structures to connect more effectively with individuals and communities, and some active involvement in the party, like being a branch chair, should be mandatory before becoming a candidate.

He's right. Parties are no more nor less than their members. Candidates must be accountable to them, not small elites. It's a constitutional principle that has worked pretty well for the Greens.

- Matthew Hooton is an Auckland-based public relations consultant.