It is understandable that Jacinda Ardern considers James Shaw to be the best person for Climate Change Minister, because he clearly is, but it was a mistake for her to insist he will stay in the job whether or not he retains the Green Party co-leadership.
The Prime Ministerhad options, given the Labour Party she leads has an outright majority and is not dependent on the Greens to govern.
She could have said that there were MPs within her own party who could fill the job of Climate Change Minister if Shaw was forced to relinquish it.
She could have said that the ministerial appointment in November 2020 had been based on a mandate that Shaw had as co-leader and that without it, she would want to renegotiate the co-operation agreement with the Greens.
That would not mean any person who replaced Shaw as co-leader would necessarily get any ministerial job.
Green MPs from left: Chloe Swarbrick, Jan Logie, Teanau Tuiono, Golriz Ghahraman, Marama Davidson, James Shaw, Elizabeth Kerekere, Ricardo Menendez March, Eugenie Sage and Julie Anne Genter.
Instead she gave Shaw and the Labour Party comfort that his position as Climate Change Minister was unthreatened by moves within the Greens to unseat him as co-leader. That simply reinforces the perception of Shaw as a lapdog of Labour.
And that is not going to help Shaw's chances of keeping the co-leadership in the next ballot.
Ardern gave the assurance so swiftly as to suggest that she did not give other options any consideration.
Anticipating that Shaw might be challenged during the term, she took out insurance on November 1, 2020, by baking into the co-operation agreement between Labour and the Greens the names of the two co-leaders and their ministerial responsibilities.
There is no tradition in doing so. In the agreement between the Māori Party and National in 2008, names were named. But in Labour's agreements with New Zealand First and the Greens in 2017, portfolios, not ministers were named.
And no matter how daft she believes the Greens to be, she needs to respect the agency of the party.
It is clear there is a dedicated faction within the Greens who find Government suffocating and would rather have the Greens agitating from outside than have them sacrifice the good for the perfect on an ongoing basis.
But there may just be a "grumpy Green" faction who would not again vote to "reopen nominations" at the next ballot.
Jacinda Ardern and James Shaw on their way to a climate change press conference in June 2021. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The vote to re-open nominations for Shaw's co-leadership position was taken on Saturday when it was not known how that would affect the Greens position in Government.
Some may have thought it would create the chance for Shaw to remain a minister while having Auckland Central MP Chloe Swarbrick co-leading the party from outside Government. Swarbrick has since ruled herself out.
The best outcome for the faction opposing Shaw is that someone credible from outside Parliament challenges Shaw, or that he again fails to reach more than 75 per cent threshold if he turns out to be the only candidate. And such a result would put Ardern is a very difficult position.
Because despite Shaw and Ardern's assurances that he will keep his job no matter what, it would be difficult for him to remain a minister if he were rejected twice.
The options for Shaw's future may have been simpler if instead of the ballot paper offering the option of "re-open nominations" it had offered the more definitive description "no-confidence."
You don't see Boris Johnson contesting the Tory leadership against Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss after the confidence vote. You didn't see Judith Collins contesting the leadership of National last November after a vote of no-confidence. "No-confidence" has a finality to it.
But the Greens do things differently and the party's more woolly processes give Shaw a second chance.
The Prime Minister ultimately can decide who serves as a minister and who did not. Jenny Shipley made that clear in 1998 when she kicked out some New Zealand First ministers and kept some. John Key demonstrated that in 2009 when he stymied a coup attempt against Rodney Hide by Heather Roy by saying he would ditch the deal with Act unless he remained leader.
Stability of the Government is not at issue for Ardern. The perception of stability may be at issue if Labour and the Greens plan to campaign as a going concern in next year's election.
But if Shaw were unable to muster enough support on his second chance, Ardern would be extremely unwise to ignore the internal wishes of the Greens.
That would cause even greater division in the Greens.
