Shaw wants to diversify and grow the party, so I am pleased I already have friends contacting me saying they're going to join the party because of his appointment. Shaw wants more of all types of people - although he quipped: "National can keep the tobacco lobbyists".
However, during the same weekend I was challenged by my young cousin, who has recently got interested in politics. He was quizzing me with crazy hypothetical situations to tease out what Green Party were positions on different issues, although he admitted his current preference was the Act Party.
I've tipped him off on some great books that underpin progressive thinking around inequality and climate justice, like The Spirit Level and This Changes Everything.
Anyway, my cousin also warned me he didn't like the preachy approach that sometimes went with liberal commentators, and that got me thinking about this column: is this a bit preachy? Was he trying to gently critique my style? No, it turns out he hasn't ever read my column.
It's a funny thing putting your thoughts out into the ether. Unless I've written on fluoride - the closest I've got to "click bait" - comments are few and far between. I mean, my Mum says she likes it (as she should!).
But it's hard not to write about politics when you've come away from an inspirational weekend hearing James Shaw slam the assumptions underpinning our current operating model - he really did nail his speech.
He talked about his time working in London for big business and how governments stepped in and rescued the financial sector when they failed in the global financial crisis. In New Zealand, too, more than a billion dollars of taxpayer money was spent bailing out investors, he said.
"I am not a hero of free-market capitalism, because free-market capitalism is dead. It has been dead for seven years," he said. "The reality of politics in the wake of the global financial crisis is that there is no longer a struggle between capitalism and socialism. What we have now is a hybrid model that takes some of the good but most of the bad elements of both systems.
"We have an economy where profits are privatised but the risks - and the social and environmental costs of that profit - are socialised."
He went on to say: "There is no name for this system. Nobody speaks for it. Nobody voted for it. It happens in the spaces between speeches and elections. It happens behind closed doors or over dinner with lobbyists.
"We have a political economy of friendly deals and whispers; of overnight polling and focus groups. The Government is supposed to help those who need help the most, not those who need it the least."
Strong words from the man who some had suggested was a closet right-winger. James Shaw is a fantastic appointment from where I'm sitting. The future looks bright - a bright shade of Green.
-Nicola Young has worked in the government and private sectors in Australia and NZ and now works from home in Taranaki for a national charitable foundation. Educated at Wanganui Girls' College, she has a science degree and is the mother of two boys.
