Georgina Campbell: New Green MP Tamatha Paul should think again about snub to Newstalk ZB radio host Mike Hosking

Tamatha Paul on election night after winning Wellington Central. Photo / Azaria Howell

OPINION

New Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul will need to represent everyone in the electorate, including the people who didn’t vote for her - and Mike Hosking’s listeners.

The Green Party team declined to give Hosking an interview with Paul on Saturday night. Paul said some of the Newstalk ZB broadcaster’s comments can be “inflammatory” for the communities she represents.

”There is a bit of distrust from particular communities about some of the things that he says that can be really quite hurtful,“ she told Newstalk ZB Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills.

”That doesn’t really align with what we stand for with the Greens and so that call was made.”

In 2021, then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern cancelled her regular weekly interview with Hosking.

Instead, Ardern said she and other ministers would appear on the country’s top-performing commercial radio show “as and when issues arise”.

No doubt Paul’s Hosking snub will go down well with some party faithful who already support her.

But it would be politically wise for her to make herself available for interviews with any high-profile host going forward.

If this is the start of a lasting career for Paul, it will be important to take as many people as possible with her to get meaningful change.

Being a local MP means keeping up with local issues and arguing on behalf of local causes in Parliament.

MPs must make themselves available to constituents for any queries they have, including queries that don’t relate to Green Party policy.

Paul said she wanted to put her head down for the first few months to understand the system and then get straight into it.

She has acknowledged the incoming Government has different values to what her party believes in and says she is preparing to “stand up for what’s right”.

Paul and Green colleague Julie Anne Genter may have flipped Wellington Central and Rongotai respectively, but they also find themselves in Opposition.

In 2017, the Greens negotiated a supply and confidence deal with Labour which secured them three ministerial positions outside of Cabinet and one undersecretary role.

In 2020, the party accepted a deal that saw their two highest-ranking MPs receiving ministerial portfolios. Marama Davidson was the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and James Shaw was the Minister for Climate Change.

However, some Greens feel the past six years have been a lot like being in Opposition anyway and that the ability to make real progress on the things they care about lies in other portfolios such as finance, transport, and energy.

The fact the Wellington election result is at odds with the blue wave that’s engulfed most of the country shouldn’t be ignored, not to mention the election of Green-endorsed mayor Tory Whanau last year.

Genter has consistently argued for years now that other transport solutions like light rail need to be prioritised over a second Mt Victoria tunnel.

The National Party has promised to kill light rail and start building the second tunnel in its first term.

Yet the electorate that would most benefit from a second tunnel, Rongotai, has just voted in Genter.

The Greens secured 30 per cent of the party vote in Rongotai and 36.2 per cent in Wellington Central, where they were ahead of Labour. National secured 22.2 per cent and 22.5 per cent in those electorates respectively.

There is an argument to be made that the Greens have a mandate for what they want to happen in the city.

But at the end of the day, it’s the Government that calls the shots and it’s a National-led Government that these local MPs have to work with.

Georgina Campbell is a Wellington-based reporter who has a particular interest in local government, transport, and seismic issues. She joined the Herald in 2019 after working as a broadcast journalist.