Final Green Party List – powerful vote for the future

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
55
5

The final Green Party List is out and they have listened to some advice and promoted the young blood up the list as TDB suggested…

… the brilliant Chloe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman are the winners and their promotion up the list gives the Greens a chance to activate the under 30 voter electorate who do the least voting and who won’t vote if they don’t see their representative leading.

This is the best thing to come out of the Green Party for some time after a series of self inflicted cock ups.

Let’s hope the Greens can limp to the election without damaging themselves and the chances of getting rid of National.

The target market the Greens are chasing now are middle class urban millennials who are angry that they aren’t having the same wealth opportunities as Boomers. The Next Gen ‘me too’s’ who demand urban reform so they can buy a house too. The selection of the candidates they have put forward do that perfectly.

The grim reality is that aspiring middle class millennials will vote, those trapped in poverty haven’t voted and won’t vote. The Greens will appeal to those who are voting, and pay lip service to those who won’t.

In that sense, the Greens have grown up and become the same cynical Political class as the one we currently have.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

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55 COMMENTS

  1. If they get 10 – 11 % of the vote (which is what they are polling) then they have 5 Male MP’s to 8 Female. I thought they were meant to try and ensure equality in gender representation

  2. Looks like a good list, tbh,…

    Good to see Marama Davidson and Gareth Hughes up there as well.

    I’ll never forget that incisive speech delivered by Gareth Hughes ,…

    In fact it was so damn good , – here it is again:

    Gareth Hughes on the Prime Minister’s poor leadership, 11 Feb 2016 …
    Video for gareth hughes speech you tubeâ–¶ 5:04
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO3kgvayZhQ

    • Thanks for that link WILD KATIPO, I felt a bit down when I saw the list of the Greens, but listening to Gareth Hughes speech made me feel a lot better about the Greens, and how relevant they are.

    • Would you rather look at bill english, steven joyce, peter dunne, paula bennett, judith collins, hekia parata, anne tolly, gerry brownlee?

      If so, then you’re not of this earth.

    • Yes, Dave, they’re a fine looking group of New Zealanders. They will get our vote in September.

    • Is that the sum total of your political nous, Dave?

      If you don’t like them (or their “looks”), vote for someone else.But keep your chauvinism to yourself.

  4. I was thinking this is a bit of good news after the past bad strategic decisions and then noted that it was a decision made solely by party members and not the party’s strategists. On the other hand, it was also party members who voted James Shaw as co-leader of the party in their desire for change and the hope that he would have a strong media impact. I think with James and his key advisors there is a bit too much over-thinking going on, and they also haven’t fully comprehended that post Brexit and Trump, big policies strongly stated are what is needed, not a move to appear more mainstream by watering down messages to make them more palatable. The hope has to be that strategists in the party are starting to realise this now.

  5. It’s a winning List; ethnically diverse; gender-equal; representative of society; and with a strong inclusion by younger generations.

    In short, it looks like much of New Zealand.

  6. Barry Coats should have been much higher than Chloe, who has done nothing socially worthwhile as far as I can see… But I guess being a good networker and getting good press from pro developers is considered priceless these days…

    But where are the environmental activists…

    • @ Savenz … Although she seems to be popular, I’m not completely comfortable with Chloe Swarbrick. I think you have outlined clearly why. She comes across as being pro privatisation, which unsettles me, particularly being placed at nine on the Green party list, which means she is likely to enter Parliament if the party gets enough votes.

      Shaw, Swarbrick … hmm not too sure about that combination …! And as you say Savenz, no prominent active environmentalists there! Why I wonder would that be? Greens becoming another party of “suits” perhaps?

        • @ERSTLING …Yes Eugene is very strong on environment issues and so is Gareth Hughes. But they are only two Green MPs coming across as champions for the environment. Catherine Delahunty was another, but she is retiring at the end of this term. I feel there should be more of the same in the Green Party and to me, it seems the party is giving less attention to the environment, when there should be more thought and effort given to this issue, considering some of the problems affecting the planet at the present time, particularly through climate change.

  7. Thank Christ! Maybe that’s what they’ve been preoccupied with the past few weeks.
    @Frank (above sums it up well).
    Good enough hopefully to keep the James ambition in check.
    Now all they need is to promote more of the MT and a little less of the JS (he says as he removes the trainer wheels from the grandson’s 2 wheeler)

  8. So far so good, but where is the ordinary “worker” on that list? Where are service workers, low paid and so forth represented, and beneficiaries, who Sue Bradford once stood up for?

    I see “professionals”, well educated, graduates and so, not any ones that would get many votes in South Auckland, Porirua and the likes.

          • ASPIRATIONAL, but in part watered down from what the program used to read like:

            https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/policy-pdfs/Yes%20We%20Can.pdf

            https://www.greens.org.nz/policy/fairer-society/faster-into-homes

            https://www.greens.org.nz/home-for-life

            Jim and Metiria, the builders:
            https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/policy-pdfs/Home%20For%20Life%20Policy%20Paper.pdf

            So rent to buy, affordable loans, easier access to credit for social and community housing providers, I read. Where is the provision for STATE HOUSING?

            Here we are:
            https://www.greens.org.nz/policy/fairer-society/homes-not-cars

            Pfff, 450 homes per year? Is that it?

            I think we need to push and punch Labour more into the corner, to deliver policy we need, as the Greens seem to be trying to overtake Labour on the right lane towards right of centre.

            • First off Gareth Hughs some ideas around biofuels or alternative energies and so on I’m sure he’ll be looking to help if circumbstances aford him a vote budget and education and public health reform and so on and so forth will quickly grow to 70-82? billion so lets not down play the orders of magnitude. Its understandably difficult to fore tell a new generation of politicians who’s names will be synonymous with the Greens Party for the next 4 years. Its only natural to look for safer waters in past performance but it is not a very good indicator of future performance and heres why.

              The Green Party has put alot of stock into the Green Party youth membership I suspect is whats causing some looking in to hold there breath. I myself have told many Green members to not mock ideas but come up with many so you are spoilt for choice. Learning from this perspective of trial an error does have its draw backs but in an environment of western capacity to create that is far beyond what Jennette Fitzsimmons Green Party could dream of. I just look at it and it makes perfect sense to me. These cherry farmers on the right. Oh man. I can’t even say it because the stomp is just to graphic. Its an R18++ version of a well mannered question:

              Hubby: hun, if you get me a glass of water every day for the rest of your life I’ll give you this ring but you get your own water.”

              Green Party: Trick get the fuck out here.

              So you will learn the value of youth who salute you.

              The Labour Alliance are prepared to stake there reputations on the next 4 years and invest some serious cash and the paper work as for as I can tell has been filled out and put in the outbox. The Labour Alliance in my opinion is ready all they have to do is take it one issue at a time because the national coalition are so awful and go through the process. Advertise offers, select ones that interest you and accept offers. Rinse and repeat. Before you know you’ve secured your a billion dollars portfolio.

              So long as Grant Robertson does as he says and borrows for infrastructure instead of using what joyce toy does and borrows for tax relief. We should be fine and I’ll have to look for other excuse to call him roger.

        • Website might look pretty – but it’s all about them.
          When might we see a political party website that’s about its constituents?

    • Jesus ! Why not? Better than the eye borax the National line up is.
      Close your eyes and imagine gerry brownlee having sexy times with paula bennett ? Bill english and nick smith ! ? peter dunne and himself ? Bahahahahaha ahahah aha aha a !

      See, there ya go.

    • Not so much that, it is evidence of the Greens having moved well away from it activists’ image, to now a mostly career professionals’ party. Welcome upper middle class voters, here is your new home, and you can wear a sticker saying you are ‘Greens’, that makes you an environmentalist, even if you participate in the day to day consumerist lifestyle of most modern Kiwis.

      A feelgood party, where you combine aspirations and personal endeavours to stand for some environmental concerns to be heard, while not all that much else will change.

      • So cynical, but i can’t argue against it. The days when people like Nandor and Keith Locke receives prominent positions in the Green party are long goooone.

    • One consolation is that there are a fair few with legal knowledge, with parts of their careers where they have stood up for the disadvantaged, discriminated and disabled, so combined with their graduate lawyer and business skills, they can perhaps offer a formidable “professional” alternative and opposition to the professional and business mercenaries that sit on the National Party and ACT benches.

      The days of activism are surely over, it seems. You need smart ties, suits and executive style office attire, to get any attention now.

    • I have some misgivings about my comment here ,though the theme is consistent with the North South photo. But it could be seen as denigrating the ability and qualifications of these girls which I don’t at all. They all have a most impressive cv and I’m sure they are all very able.
      D J S

  10. If the Greens think they can capture the youth vote with Chloe Swarbrick and Golriz Ghahraman, they’re dreaming.

    With a 22 yr old son I get to meet a lot of youths, especially on Friday night, Kai Nights at my place, where 9 or so of them regularly turn up. It’s a thing I started a couple of years back after one of their group committed suicide to offer support and for a couple, probably the only hot meal they get each week. They talk to me a bit, so I try to raise issues like voting with them. Only about three in the group are going to vote, a couple won’t, and two aren’t even registered. Most of them know who Chloe is, they’ve seen her on TV – “she’s the poncy rich #@*” says one of them.

    This group of kids, typical of youth in my area, see her as a representation of ‘white rich privilege’ – she represents everything they aren’t and will never be. I can’t imagine them thinking any different about an Oxford graduate. “Are there any politicians they do like?” I ask. Yes, they’re all agreed “that Winston Peters has some Nads”.

    The Greens couldn’t have got it more wrong – dissing the older generations to rub wealthy privilege in the faces of many youth voters! I don’t doubt wealthy ‘rebellious’ Auckland kids and maybe a few similar around NZ will support them. But the kids here in poverty struck areas won’t, if they bother to vote at all. It’s really hard to be interested in politics when you work 20 hours a week in a car wreckers yard and sleep in a station wagon at your grand parents place, because your fathers ‘somewhere’ and your Mum died of breast cancer when you were 12.

    • This a very valid interpretation but I think you miss the target market the Greens are chasing now – they are not trying to reach out to the poor and provide a voice for them – they are trying to engage directly with middle class millennials and the selection of the candidates they have pit forward do that perfectly.

      The grim reality is that aspiring middle class millennials will vote, those trapped in poverty haven’t voted and won’t vote. The Greens will appeal to those who are voting, and pay lip service to those who won’t.

      In that sense, the Greens have grown up and become the same cynical Political class as the one we currently have

      • Totally agree. The Greens have moved to the opposite of the spectrum from their beginnings. But I don’t see that as good. I remember the parties origins and its feisty female MP’s, more than willing to burn a bra or do whatever it took to make a point and stand up against inequality in it’s many forms.

        I just wish the Greens could be honest about who and what they are, instead of pretending to be a Left party. They stand for wealth and privilege. Be honest about it. However, I do think Metiria is different, I don’t see this shift to the Right sitting well with her, although for Shaw, it’s right up his alley. He’s always come across as more Blue than Red.

        • Well put JUST RAVING, re the Greens, particularly James Shaw. Since his emergence in a co leadership role, the Greens have changed, going from their environmental/social origins, to something more centrist and mainstream.

          I’ve said this before, but as far as the present crop of Greens (with perhaps the exception of Meteria Turei, Eugenie Sage and Gareth Hughes) are concerned, they are beginning to turn into a very murky shade of blue, courtesy of Shaw!

          You are doing excellent work supporting NZ youth. Your generous kind are thin on the ground.

          Kia Ora.

          • Hi. Excuse me, all this fiary dust is making me ill. Could you please stop littering this site with your filth.

            Question #6 James Shaw: Why did the minister not mention climate change in his budget speech

            Cyber cuck: cuck cucck, cyber, cuck cuck cuk.

            James: because of the drought?

            Clip continues | https://youtu.be/w3kDzYG7Yqk

            Just go back to sleep will you ur sleep walking

      • “same cynical Political class”
        Perhaps they’re just becoming ‘more realistic’ as the many advocates, especially on the left, have long chastised them for not doing.

      • Only will middle class millennials vote for Greens? I’m not sure about that at all. Chloe does not stand for anything Green, just networking and a following that seems more like male admirers.

        Chloe’s parents are probably well off, and property owners and she will inherit property, just like many other millennials. Millennials are just as likely to vote National or just not bother voting as they think everyone is the same.

        How I rate people is there actions. Not just what they say and who they know. Chloe seems to know all the ‘right’ people, but what has she ever done for the community? What has she done for the environment? She did not come first in the Mayoral elections, she did not come second, she came a distant third… gee is that really all the Greens are aiming for???

        Chloe is the young Clinton of the Democrats. Appears to tick boxes but she is a dividing personality, just as many people are repulsed as keen to vote for her. And plenty of Green voters don’t like her and my guess is, especially in Auckland, because Green voters used to be against development at the expense of the environment,

        Chloe seems to believe in the ‘trickle down’ effect of development, you build as many houses as possible with little regulation in the hope that eventually poorer people can afford them and the MSM can’t get enough of her as this is National and Act policy. Maybe this is just her age and she does not know any better.

        So who knows what will happen this election, but relying on privileged millennials to give Greens their votes, might do a “Labour” where they gained a few new votes, but lost a lot of old ones.

        And in spite of any misgiving’s about Chloe I’d like to see the Greens go well this election and be co leaders in the next government with Labour.

        I’m just not sure their strategy is very sound way to do so. In fact I think it’s very risky not to be concentrating strongly on the environment and having solidly Green candidates, not fluff.

        • Well, I doubt she is known for her male following, she is though rather pro establishment, that is pro business, entrepreneurial, career focused, but has also some values, which is, I suspect, why she has gone into politics.

          If you really want to learn about where she comes from, read this perhaps:
          https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/aucklands-youngest-mayoral-candidate-didnt-win-but-will-she-make-it-to-parliament-v24n4

          She has had struggles in life, but also mixed with Pakeha privilege, a child of cosmopolitan kind of professional parents.

          While she seems to be very pragmatic, and down to earth, I sense, she is still a typical urban dweller, whose awareness and understanding of nature, at the coal face, is very limited.

          I come from a coal face to nature back ground and have a bit of a dim view of urban careerists, graduates and professionals, who go on about the environment, because many only know about it through books, mags, story telling by people, and academic teaching.

          The real challenges of our world are far greater than what the Greens now offer for ‘solutions’, it is another band aid approach by the party, which has long lost touch with true environmentalists and activists in the field. Maybe Russel Norman saw this coming, hence he left early, did a John Key kind of, within the Greens?

          • I think Russel had to go because of his unacceptable views on money and banking, having made a study of same.
            D J S

  12. Having looked at this:

    https://www.greens.org.nz/sites/default/files/policy-pdfs/Home%20For%20Life%20Policy%20Paper.pdf

    And this:
    https://www.greens.org.nz/policy/fairer-society/homes-not-cars

    And at the rest of what the Greens now offer as rather vague and watered down policy, on their new “savvy” website, I have decided, I will NOT party vote Greens again.

    This has been a very difficult decision for me to make, and I have party voted Greens for many elections before, but the way they present themselves now, I have not enough faith in their message and integrity, and a lot of that is due to James Shaw and his influence on what the party now does and stands for.

    As difficult it may be, I will not only give my electorate vote to Labour, but also perhaps my party vote, but if they do not shape up some time soon, it may go as a PROTEST VOTE to NZ First, which I thought I would never bother vote for.

    That is while I am an immigrant myself, but who has lived here many, many years, and having observed the immigration sham or rather scam that goes on here, it is time to at lest send a firm message re that to the next government, and opposition in Parliament.

    Auckland is a fucking mess now, traffic is so strong and starts so early now every day, I struggle to get sleep on a somewhat busier road now, which used to be average for traffic.

    We pay rents that are extortionist kind of rents, we have house prices that only millionaires can afford now, and a Chloe Swarbrick, who supported the useless, developer and investor friendly Unitary Plan, she will NOT have the answers to get us out of the shit.

    I know that Winston cannot be totally trusted, but bear in mind, he is nearing his end in his political career, he will this time NOT settle for getting a Gold Card for the elderly, or a foreign ministerial kind of job to travel at the taxpayers expense, he will demand real change from whosoever he considers going into government with.

    I hate some of their policies and positions, but while other parties are either sell outs to the Nats, or hangers ons, I see no chance for Mana to get many votes, and I see no reliance on the Greens now, only Labour can offer more opposition, but where are they?

    So there you go, Labour and Andrew, provide us a real alternative, to vote for, or we will simply have to protest vote. Some may consider TOP, but I cannot see them get in, I have never been less enthused about the forthcoming election this year, NZ politics are depressing, very depressing, faces and young age do not make up for poor or lacking policy and action, I regret.

  13. Despite of my misgivings with the Greens under James Shaw, do not under estimate Chloe Swarbrick:

    ‘The Making of Chloe Swarbrick’:
    https://www.vice.com/en_nz/article/aucklands-youngest-mayoral-candidate-didnt-win-but-will-she-make-it-to-parliament-v24n4

    “When the global financial crisis hit in 2008, her father, who works in finance, lost everything, and Swarbrick felt she had to fend for herself even as she descended into depression. “This is absolutely something that all the political advisers I talk to would tell me not to talk about,” she said of that period of her life. “I was basically drinking myself to death to forget.” She became suicidal, “just wanting to change everything about my life.” And so she did. She was granted special dispensation to enter college at 17, began a bachelor of arts, and met Alex. She worked as a journalist—her first live interview was with former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark—on student radio, and after the BA, she pursued a law degree. The ink was still drying on her law degree when she began her mayoral campaign.”

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