Chlöe Swarbrick tells Greens to ‘evolve’ as Darleen Tana hangs over AGM

Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. Photo / NZME

Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick has told her party to be ready to become the largest party on the left and get ready to lead a future government, but only if it can stomach inevitable “growing pains”.

In a speech to members at the party’s AGM in Christchurch this weekend, Swarbrick set the stage for delivering on a promise made during her campaign for the party co-leadership, which was to grow the Greens into the largest political movement on the left.

Though ex-Green, now independent, MP Darleen Tana was not mentioned once, she appeared to hang over the speech. Swarbrick conceded in a media stand-up afterwards that some of her references to ensuring a high standard of behaviour on the part of MPs, could be read as an allusion to Tana, who resigned from the party shortly before caucus would have kicked her out, after a damning report into her connection to alleged migrant exploitation at her husband’s business.

Swarbrick argued the party and its MPs needed to evolve and hold itself to a high bar if the party were to grow into a party that could “lead the Government in the not-too-distant future”.

“I believe the vast, sweeping majority of New Zealanders care for each other and the planet that we share…

“…if I’m telling you most people believe in the same things we do, why don’t we currently command the Treasury benches?” she asked.

The answer to this question, Swarbrick argued, was that the party needed to evolve and not be bound by its history if it were to grow, calm internal differences, and reach out to non-traditional members.

The argument the speech appeared to make was that in order to reach these members, the party did not need to move towards the “frankly made up ‘centre’ of politics” but it might need to reconsider how closely it hews to historic positions.

As the party debates whether to compromise on its historic opposition to the “waka jumping” law in order to eject Tana from Parliament, Swarbrick argued the party could not be bound by its history if it wants to grow.

In the home city of Rod Donald, one of the original Green co-leaders who waka jumped to create the first independent Green Party in Parliament, Swarbrick said that while it was “critical” for the party to “remember and celebrate those who helped get us to where we are today:

“But,” she said, it was “also crucial for us to understand that right here and right now, we are the ones making that history”.

Swarbrick said that the Greens needed to build trust with people who thought politics had given up on them. She said this trust was often broken by poorly behaved MPs.

“[T]rust is broken when someone doesn’t come through with what they’ve promised. You don’t have to be a psychologist to understand this is why many communities across our country long ago gave up their trust in politicians.

“If we believe we’re different from the other guys, we can’t just say it. We’ve got to prove it again, and again, and again,” she said.

After a period over fractious argument over everything from the leadership of former co-leader James Shaw to the fallout from scandals involving various MPs, Swarbrick called on members to be content with the disagreement between themselves.

“We can and we will have different opinions. That’s actually a really bloody good thing,” Swarbrick said.

The party will this afternoon discuss what to do about Tana, and whether it will “waka-jump” her. The outcome of these discussions will not be a straight up or down decision on whether to boot her from Parliament, but whether to begin the first step of a process to come to bring the Tana drama to some kind of resolution, probably through a nationwide vote of Green Party branch delegates.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.