Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick has announced she will run for the Green Party’s leadership. Video / NZ Herald
Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick has announced she will run for the Green Party’s leadership.
Swarbrick confirmed she would contest the co-leadership position from Parliament today, saying that in the three days since James Shaw announced he was stepping down from the role, people had asked her to put her name forward for it.
“I’m stepping up,” Swarbrick said, after acknowledging she’s had conversations with all of her caucus alongside family and friends.
Swarbrick is the only declared candidate so far. Green MP Julie Anne Genter, who ran for the co-leadership in 2018 confirmed to the Herald, she would not be running. Other members of caucus had not put their hands up.
The co-leadership is decided by Green Party members. By convention, MPs do not say who they are supporting or endorse particular candidates.
She promised to grow the Green Party and revealed her ultimate goal: “the nation’s first Green-led government.”
“I am a proud member of the Green Party. More than any other party we understand that there is far greater leadership out there in the community than there is in the so-called halls of power. I am here to serve my communities. Over the past three days, they have asked me to stand up and put myself forward for this role,” Swarbrick said.
Swarbrick noted her wins in Auckland Central and other electorate wins in the latest election as examples of the party’s achievements, and that “bad things happen when good people stand idly by.”
She promised to continue to grow the Green vote and work across the aisle in Parliament.
“I have proven that we can not only mobilise but win concrete change.”
“We will grow,” she said.
Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick announcing her leadership bid at Parliament, Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Swarbrick said the focus was not just on the 2026 general election, but on next year’s local body elections. She promised to help get more Green-aligned people into local government positions next year.
She repeatedly called for a radical change in how people think about politics.
“Mark my word when I say we are going to build the biggest Green movement you have ever seen.”
Swarbrick had spoken at length about not wanting the leadership when it became available in 2022 when Shaw was unexpectedly ousted. She said at the time she did not want the leadership.
Asked about those remarks today, she said her colleagues and friends had asked her to step up.
“They do not represent the future of this country,” Swarbrick said of the “legacy parties” when asked how the Greens relationship would continue with Labour.
Swarbrick said “reflecting on our values” would aid the Greens in avoiding trouble within the caucus having lost Elizabeth Kerekere and Golriz Ghahraman from the last caucus.
Swarbrick said she understood her co-leader partner Marama Davidson would be in the role through to the next election. Photo / Mark Mitchell
On James Shaw, Swarbrick admired how he was a “consensus builder”. She said she had that ability but also how she could build the Green movement within and outside of its support base.
“This isn’t about me, it’s about the movement,” Swarbrick said when asked if she wanted to be Prime Minister.
Swarbrick said she understood her co-leader partner Marama Davidson would be in the role through to the next election.
When asked if she was proud of how she would be the youngest co-leader and part of an all-female leadership duo if selected, Swarbrick replied “I think my Dad’s probably pretty all good with that”.
Nominations close on February 14 and then on the 16th, candidate information will be sent out ahead of party Zoom calls and a conference. Then branches would hold internal discussions and ballot papers would be returned on March 8 before a formal announcement of the new co-leader.
Swarbrick wouldn’t say whether she’d received any indication that any of her colleagues would run against her.
Stopping “cruelty of people and planet” committed by the Government would be her key focus.
Climate change and equality would be central areas she would look to work in as co-leader. She referenced her earlier calls for the need for a fairer tax system.
Asked if her goal was to bring about a Green Prime Minister, Swarbrick said she saw the potential for the Greens to lead Government and that the party wasn’t just about tinkering.
“I’m not here to speak on behalf of the Labour Party,” Swarbrick said when asked if she felt Labour wasn’t going far enough in advocating for the left.
She accepted that her comments about the need to stop tinkering and make real change was an indication of her belief that Labour hadn’t done enough.
She described herself as a “well-researched radical”.
Swarbrick made it clear she was keen on holding the climate change portfolio but said those decisions would be for the caucus.
“I’m a nerd and a policy wonk when it comes to the detail of this stuff,” she said in reference to the Zero Carbon Act.
Speaking on abuse women get in Parliament, Swarbrick said she had been reflecting on how she could address it as co-leader.
She thought the abuse was not only for one leader to deal with but all members of the precinct to reflect on. She said she had been concerned of late by conspiratorial narratives being turned into legitimate questions.
As an example, she said being asked about any involvement in Ghahraman’s shoplifting, which she described as a rumour on Twitter, had resulted in a volley of abuse in her inboxes.
Photo / Mark Mitchell
Swarbrick said she will be spending the next few weeks talking to Green Party members about her vision for the future of “our movement” and “to ask their trust in me”.
“If I am elected to work alongside Marama Davidson, I will grow the Green movement to achieve tangible, real-world, people-powered change - as I have since I first signed up - but now, at even greater scale.”
She said that would mean getting more Green Party members running local campaigns and setting up local solutions to problems.
“It means more Greens Local Body members, Councillors and Mayors. It means more Greens MPs in Parliament and ultimately, our nation’s first Green-led Government.”
She said her shorter-term goal would be to tackle the National-Act-NZ First coalition government, saying it had a “cruel agenda.”
“I will challenge this Government’s cruel agenda and communicate the imagination, potential, and the necessary hope to mobilise for the sustainable, inspiring and inclusive Aotearoa that I see reflected every day in our communities,” Swarbrick said.
