Editorial: Green Party discontent breaks surface

Climate Change Minister James Shaw can do little more than express disappointment when blocked by the Government on emissions reduction. Photo / Mark Mitchell

EDITORIAL

Not all is rosy in the Greens camp and it's little wonder after a bombshell was quietly dropped on the party just days before Christmas.

Political parties are built on robust debate and finding common causes but the divisions in the left-wing party have little direction to go other than deeper unless simmering discord is addressed.

Ex-MPs Sue Bradford and Catherine Delahunty have

broken radio silence

to declare the current party agreement with the Labour Government makes no sense and that the Greens amount to a failure of leadership.

Delahunty has criticised her former colleagues for failing to expose an "unholy alliance between banks and the government" that accounted for record bank profits, inflated house prices and growing inequality.

Former co-leader and current head of Greenpeace New Zealand Russel Norman cut to the heart of the party's environmental values by calling co-leader James Shaw's climate position "simply not credible".

The Greens' co-leaders have rejected the criticisms, maintaining the party is democratic and making progressive changes in government. As they would.

But the party faithful have been stung in recent weeks on a core issue. The Green Party was left smarting after Labour very late in the piece decided to delay enacting changes to the Resource Management Act that would make climate change a consideration in consenting decisions.

These changes would have come into force on December 31 last year. Instead, after a decision at Cabinet, the changes will come into force on November 30, towards the end of this year.

For the grass sprouts of the party, this is a hard pill to swallow.

Under the co-operation agreement signed in October 2020, Shaw kept the position of Minister of Climate Change and Associate Minister for the Environment (Biodiversity), while fellow co-leader Marama Davidson became Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and Associate Minister of Housing (Homelessness).

The deal's provisions bind the pair to ministerial collective responsibility but allow the Greens to disagree and criticise the Government on issues outside those ministries.

After being told the RMA amendment to consider climate change would be pushed out by another year, Shaw could say little more than he was "disappointed".

The activist element of the party, in particular, must be much more than disappointed. A key climate change plank of the party holds that, "to stabilise the climate for future generations, emissions across the entire economy must be reduced immediately".

The co-operation agreement, which was presented to the party the same day it was scheduled to be announced, has painted Shaw into an unenviably tight corner.

After returning from Glasgow COP16 in November last year, Shaw expressed frustration at countries that were "dragging the chain" on reducing emissions.

Pressed to identify the culprits, Shaw refused to name names. Now, it seems, we may have an inkling why.

The Green Party needs to find a way to make its core messages heard. A party born from the right to activism and a natural instinct to protest is unlikely to rest forever under a blanket of suppression.