Green Party names Hawke's Bay general election candidates

The Green Party's new Napier electorate candidate, James Crow. Photo / File

Two candidates already with campaign experience have been chosen by the Green Party in the two major Hawke's Bay seats at this year's general election.

The two are experienced general and local elections campaigner Chris Perley, who will carry the Green flag in the Tukituki electorate for a third consecutive election, and comparative newcomer James Crow, standing in the electorate after an unsuccessful bid for an Ahuriri ward place on the Napier City Council in the 2019 local elections.

The party, which currently has eight MPs, all from its list at the 2017 election and part of a confidence and supply agreement with the Labour Party in forming a new government, says both candidates in Hawke's Bay will be working hard to grow the party vote as the most effective way to see more Greens in Parliament.

Perley, a researcher and former Hawke's Bay Regional Council staff member, has a background working with provincial communities around sustainable land use, building community values and quality local economies.

Chris Perley, Green Party candidate for Tukituki in the general elections of 2014, 2017 and now 2020. Photo / Supplied

He's also worked in fields, shearing sheds, forests and factories, and says: "My values are centred in the fact that we belong to our land and to our communities, and that treating people and land well creates both a better future and a quality local economy. They all go together."

Crow co-founded ethical food business Nice Blocks in 2010 to bring more organic and fair trade choices, and then expanded into dairy-free milks and icecream with Little Island.

A founding member of Living Wage Aotearoa, it now employs 12 staff in an Auckland factory, and contracts beverage manufacturing to a Whakatu company.

He also advocates for the homeless and vulnerably housed in New Zealand through his own organisation, Gimme Shelter Aotearoa.

In January, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the triennal election will be held on September 19, though the formal process has not yet begun. With the intervention of the Covid-19 crisis, Deputy Prime Minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters has mooted that the election be delayed until November 21.