Greens co-leader James Shaw announces he is standing down from his role in March.
Video / Mark Mitchell
ANALYSIS
Nominations to succeed James Shaw as Green Party co-leader open on Wednesday morning.
Every party’s rules for electing their leadership are different, but the Greens are fairly unique in that they allow all members to vote and run for the leadership.
The rules that Shaw and his co-leader Marama Davidson were elected under mandated there be one male and one female co-leader, but a rule change in 2022 means that the party only requires one of the co-leaders to be a woman and one of the co-leaders to be Māori.
Because those criteria can be filled by one person, and Davidson is wahine Māori, the position Shaw vacates can be filled by someone of any ethnicity or gender. Green Party rules mean the co-leader doesn’t even need to be an MP when running for the leadership. Anyone from the party’s literally thousands of members could run, so long as they had five current members nominate them and pledge to run in good faith (Russel Norman was not an MP when he became co-leader in 2006 and co-led the party for two years from outside Parliament).
This could be an opportunity for James Cockle, the activist Green who unsuccessfully challenged Shaw for the leadership in 2021.
In reality, there is only one candidate people are talking about: Chlöe Swarbrick. When the rule change was made in 2022, and strongly supported by Shaw and senior members in the party hierarchy, it was widely seen as ensuring a smooth succession for Swarbrick, who, had the change not been made, would have to have waited for Davidson to quit in order to run.
She enjoys broad support from the party members, caucus, and the public at large. She regularly features in Preferred Prime Minister polls, and often polls higher than Shaw or Davidson. She doesn’t poll very high, but simply appearing in that poll as an MP from a minor party who is not already leader is a feat.
Party members are twisting Swarbrick’s arm, and indeed when some of those members ejected Shaw from the leadership in 2022, Swarbrick was their preferred candidate to replace him. Unfortunately for them, Swarbrick decided she wouldn’t run - though not before spending a bit of time apparently mulling it over. Swarbrick is the “it’s hers if she wants it” candidate. But whether Swarbrick wants the co-leadership is a legitimate question.
She’s a strong parliamentarian and dominated the high-profile Finance and Expenditure Committee for years (to great effect), but she makes no secret of the fact that she has no great love for Parliament. Swarbrick might decide, against the urging of her party, that she just doesn’t want it.
Do we think that’s the case?
Shaw confirmed on Tuesday he had spoken to MPs about his decision to step down, though he would not divulge with whom and what was said. One of those conversations was almost certainly with Swarbrick, and you don’t need to be a betting person to imagine the idea of her candidacy might have come up in such a meeting. The pair sat side-by-side in Parliament hours after Shaw announced his resignation.
One could speculate that Shaw might stay on for a little longer, were he not convinced he had a suitable replacement. At the time of writing, Swarbrick had not ruled herself in or out.
Green co-leader James Shaw and Chlöe Swarbrick hours after Shaw announced his resignation. Photo / Mark Mitchell
There are other names of course. Julie Anne Genter ran against Davidson for the co-leadership in 2018 on a platform of reconnecting with voters who had fled the party in the 2017 election.
Genter could put her hand up again, and has also not ruled herself out. She ticks many of the same policy boxes as Swarbrick, with interests in the financial portfolios and climate change. She was an associate transport and health minister in the last Government.
With Shaw gone, the Greens may be looking to have someone comfortable with numbers in the co-leadership. Swarbrick and Genter would both fulfil this, having held a number of financial portfolios for the party.
The third name in the mix is Teanau Tuiono. Some in the party are keen for Tuiono to put his hat in the ring. Tuiono openly pondered a tilt at the leadership when Shaw was briefly ousted in 2022, but in the end decided not to run.
Tuiono recently became Assistant Speaker, a job he appears to enjoy, and one he would probably need to give up were he to become co-leader. His class of 2020 colleague Ricardo Menendez March could also be a contender, though he did not express any ambition during the 2022 race.
Nominations are open until February 14. All Green members are entitled to vote for their preferred candidate at local meetings. Each vote contributes to the vote of Green Party branch - and it is the number of branch votes that decides who wins the contest.
Each branch, which represents a geographic area of the party, has votes proportionate to the number of members who live in that electorate.
The new co-leader is expected to be announced on March 10.
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.
