The Green Party was already feeling pleased with itself: on election night they won three electorates and an additional list MP. Then, when the official results came out earlier this month, the special votes awarded them an additional seat in Parliament making 2023 their best election result ever.
Which is unusual because they’ve been part of the government for six years. Sort of. From 2017 to 2020, they entered into a confidence and supply arrangement with Labour who formed a coalition government with New Zealand First. This gave them three ministers outside of Cabinet, most prominently their co-leader James Shaw took the climate change portfolio. After the 2020 election Labour was able to govern alone but Shaw was widely regarded as one of Jacinda Ardern’s most capable ministers. He held onto climate and his new co-leader Marama Davidson took on the role of minister for the prevention of family and sexual violence.
Voters almost always punish minor parties in MMP governments. New Zealand First, the Alliance, United Future, Act and the Māori Party have all suffered humiliating defeats after acquiring political power. How did the Greens escape a similar fate?
Being on the periphery of things seemed to have helped. When Winston Peters goes into government he likes to serve as deputy prime minister and either Treasurer or Foreign Minister. The problem with taking such a prominent role is that minor party voters who like the government tend to switch their vote to its major party while those who dislike it side with the opposition.
The Greens might have demanded similarly high prices for their support if they had the leverage, but they never did so they didn’t. Instead, they mastered the subtle art of complaining when they didn’t get their way, loud enough for their supporters to hear but never so vigorously as to question the stability of the government and their role in it. And their co-leaders also demonstrated their value to Labour, with Shaw attacking National and Act on climate issues and Davidson routinely denouncing them as racists.
The research firm Ipsos regularly surveys voters to determine which political parties they trust most on specific issues. Unsurprisingly, respondents trust Greens on climate and the environment so those were major areas of focus in government. There’s no obvious connection between New Zealand First and foreign affairs. It’s just a prestigious position Winston Peters likes to occupy. United Future leader Peter Dunne campaigned on “common sense” and family values, then took the Revenue and Internal Affairs portfolios. Act’s interest in education makes a little more sense: they believe the system is failing because it is dominated by the state and the education unions. But it’s not an issue the public trusts them on. It shouldn’t surprise us that the Greens have succeeded by taking government positions that adhere to their political strengths - it is a little odd that so many other minor parties fail to do this.
But a large part of the Greens’ current strength is an accident of Labour’s weakness. The archetypal Green voter is a young university educated woman living in Auckland or Wellington who identifies climate as a key concern. This cohort loved Jacinda Ardern: surges in her popularity correlated with slumps in Green support. When Ardern stood down at the start of the year, she gave her old friend James Shaw the best parting gift a Green co-leader could have hoped for: she made Chris Hipkins her replacement.
An unglamourous centrist who self-identified as working class and who immediately started dumping climate and environmental policies to focus on the cost of living crisis, Hipkins couldn’t have been less attractive to the educated and urbane voters that form the core of the Greens’ voter base. They went from just under 10% in the polls in early January to an average of 15% in the weeks prior to the election. Their final result was 11.60%. The Green Party nearly always underperforms their poll numbers when the votes are counted. Younger voters are the lowest turnout demographic by age while the retirees New Zealand First pitches itself to are the most likely to show up and vote.
The Green MPs that entered parliament in 2020 have failed to distinguish themselves: they were creatures of the Green Left, a radical faction of the party that imploded after a failed leadership challenge against James Shaw in 2022. This year’s intake is more promising: there’s a shift back towards environmentalists and climate activists. Many of the new MPs have been cultivated and promoted by Chlöe Swarbrick who will almost certainly take over as co-leader when James Shaw retires from parliament. At that point it becomes Swarbrick’s party in all but name.
But there’s always been a tension within the Greens: do they remain a radical activist party or can they replace Labour as the major party of the political left, and deliver the change Labour pretends to stand for but never delivers? They’ve tried to do both, simultaneously, with some success - the current team of technocrat Shaw and activist Davidson symbolising their party’s dual nature.
But the weakness of Labour, the current strength of the Greens and the ascension of Swarbrick creates an unprecedented opportunity - while also provoking awkward questions about what concessions the Greens would make to acquire the stature and power of a major party and how it would wield that power if it succeeded.
