I’m agnostic about removing James Shaw as co-leader of Greens before election

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James Shaw brushes off Greens leadership challenge

Green Party co-leader James Shaw is brushing off the threat of a fresh leadership challenge ahead of the party’s annual conference.

Meh.

I’m not sure this is the solution to be honest. I thought they should have moved earlier to give Chloe some time in the role as co-leader, but the naked truth is it doesn’t matter much.

Should Green activists be sickened by the total lack of social policy impact they’ve had?

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Absolutely.

Should Green activists be appalled at the weak environmental progress?

Of course they should, if you think being carbon neutral in 28 years time is a legitimate response to climate change, then you are part of the problem!

Should Green activists be underwhelmed and depressed with the total lack of transformative change?

Yes, just like Labour voters.

But will removing James Shaw be the solution?

I don’t know.

Look, the reality is The Greens are hopeless and have all the offensive capacity of slow growing moss. Don’t get me wrong, misuse a pronoun, suggest feral comedians aren’t funny and don’t own a bike, and they will slice your throat while burring your pets, but outside that they are Checkers players playing Chess.

If it was a Green/Labour Government, the Greens wouldn’t even know what to fight for let alone how to fight Labour for it, thankfully for progressives, John Tamihere, the best negotiator in the game, is now the Māori Party President and has the mana and skills to cut a deal with Labour that is actually transformative.

If the kids want to dump James for Chloe, they need to do it now but don’t think that a leadership change will enable any real change of direction by Labour, JT and the Māori Party will be the ones who do that.

At this stage the Greens are like a foreskin, in that they serve no purpose and everyone just wishes they were cut off.

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44 COMMENTS

  1. The Greens have new leadership criteria.
    He may (or may not) be competent and conscientious but James will probably have come out as trans or start “identifying with” some sort of non European ethnicity to even be considered. The priorities of fools.

  2. On the assumption somehow the left gets up in 2023 – 35% plays 10% plays 5%. They should at least get as much out of Labour as Act would get out of National. They won’t with BMW Jimmy at the helm as “Our Glorious Leader” knows you just need to wave shinny objects and a couple of climate change trips in front of Jimmy’s eyes and he’ll say yes. Davidson on the other hard appears plain lazy or at least interested in other things.

  3. But Martyn! Theyve got a problem. I ‘think’ he is the only male left in the party?

  4. Hey they already got rid of most of the men in the Greens, changed the constitution so Marama can stay on and have two females, so of course James is next. Hopefully Goodbye Greens and a new Green Party formed with real Greens in it.

    If you are a renter, think, were you better off before the Greens ‘helped’ you? Same with the environment, and discrimination and pretty much everything else in NZ. Things are noticeably worse because the Green voice isn’t there anymore.

    • All the attacks on landlords have only resulted in worsening situations for renters. The simple minded first order thinking of Labour and the Greens never allowed them to see the unintended consequences of their stupidity.

        • Community led, corporate and government led housing seems to be a lot worse quality and a lot more expensive and a way to deprive tenants of their rights aka you can’t access the tenancy tribunal in some cases as a tenant so the government has made tenants rights worse as well as lowering the quality while increasing the prices.

          Even the students are dying in university led, corporate owned accomodation. The model does not work! They already knew that from the UK housing reforms that were huge failures, but corporates and their government enablers can make excellent profits and get good career/donation prospects by championing them.

  5. ” thankfully for progressives, John Tamihere, the best negotiator in the game, is now the Māori Party President and has the mana and skills to cut a deal with Labour that is actually transformative ”

    Bomber can you enlighten us on how Tamihere who was from the right of the Labour party pre 2005 is going to do anything progressive or transformative for all of the mutu and not just our long suffering maori brothers and sisters ?

    The Maori party forgive me if I am wrong but did they not vote and support the last Key -English government and never walked away when they were faced with appalling policies and dirty tricks and cover ups by Key and Dunne and the atrocious treatment that many maori and pakeha beneficiaries suffered over Bennetts P crusade which pushed many into living in a van or under a relatives house in the cold and damp.

    Only Hone left and was prepared to fight for and provide a voice with the Mana party. I don’t remember Tamihere ever signing up.

  6. Free speech – not available in NZ.

    Kiwi toy giant Zuru wins court battle to identify and sue aggrieved ex-workers
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/kiwi-toy-giant-zuru-wins-court-battle-to-identify-and-sue-aggrieved-ex-workers/D2JIMYXKBVOCROAUSJTDOSTS6U/

    No wonder NZ is becoming a basket case of toxic culture and nobody wants to work here. You can’t even say on US websites how crap a workplace is in NZ, without some thin skinned, NZ rich lister, alleged exploiter, trying to sue you.

    “New Zealand has stricter defamation laws than the US, where there are far greater free speech protections.”

    “California district court judge Alex Tse wrote in his decision that the reviews refer to Zuru as a “[b]urn out factory” with a “toxic culture,” where an “incompetent” management team “consistently talk[s] down” to employees and treats them like “dirt”.

    The judge wrote that the reviews make Zuru “sound like a horrible place to work”.”

    Glassdoor ordered to reveal identity of negative reviewers to New Zealand toymaker
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/19/glassdoor-ordered-to-reveal-identity-of-negative-reviewers-to-new-zealand-toymaker

    With that in place, there seems to be a long list of media to sue, as migrants rate NZ to work very poorly.

    Cost of living crisis: New Zealand voted second worst country to move to
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/cost-of-living-crisis-new-zealand-voted-second-worst-country-to-move-to/A6QHYJL343H4HM7UVA5FLV6AVA/

    “While Aotearoa ranked 51 out of 52, our transtasman neighbours received a very decent ninth place, with people living there feeling that, overall, they receive fair compensation for their work, among other positive factors.

    New Zealand’s 51st place in the survey was mostly due to lower wages and high cost of living.

    In fact, when it came to the personal finance measures in the survey, the country was the worst performer out of all: 49 per cent of respondents said their disposable household income was not enough to lead a comfortable life – as opposed to 28 per cent globally.”

    Not only is NZ voted one of the worse place to work due to low wages and high costs, apparently we also have little freedom of speech and can be sued just for mentioning a ‘toxic workplace’.

    You would think Labour would have moved to stop NZ’s poor history of defamation and lack of freedom of speech, instead of their pet woke hate speech laws that seems to want to erode NZ’s poor freedom of speech laws even further.

    Labour MP Andrew Little back in court over Hagaman defamation case
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/labour-mp-andrew-little-back-in-court-over-hagaman-defamation-case/VKIX5MT6JP4UWWGUCZ64IRBZF4/

      • The bar for NZ politics is so low, that doing nothing tends to be the most popular.

        It is noticeably worse now that Labeen and NatzACT are in such agreement such as

        build, build, build,
        fuck the environment,
        and bring in as many under paid workers and students as they can to keep wages down

        and pretend they are in a rock star economy as the ram raids and knife/guns echo.

    • we’ve been coasting too long on LOTR and clean and green, the world is sussing out the reality.

  7. Most people, though perhaps not all Green activists, are pretty impressed at the multiparty consensus that Shaw has achieved on climate change policy.
    What were his other options, given a majority Labour government?
    Opt out, do nothing, protest from the sidelines.
    On something like climate change it is critical to have an enduring consensus. There will be multiple governments of different complexions over the next 28 years. Ensuring they are all on board is a real achievement. Probably the most significant achievement of the current government. And without Shaw it would have been much harder.
    It is something that can only be achieved by being in government. As opposed to permanent outsiders, being no more than a vocal protest movement.

  8. All this talk of “transformative” and carbon neutrality is quite breathtaking.
    So let us on in the details: How exactly will you and/or the Greens achieve this transformation to carbon neutrality?

    • Good question Andrew. One i have long ago ceased to ask because to anyone who understands the reality of climate change knows we will never do what needs to be done.We will never have methane capture from waste sites and generate electricity. we will never use our mountains of wood waste to generate biofuel, we will never use the waste ethanol from Dairy to add to our petrol( no refinery no tech) we will never use CNG again to power our vehicles we will never upgrade the Cook strait cables to transmit the electricity from Tiwai Point ,we will never up grade the transmission cables to carry the electricity from many proposed solar farms, we will never have a carbon capture plant and South Pacific plastic waste burner at Tiwai Point, we will never develop anything new or affordable to solve our problems because we have alienated all the workers and scientists with the nous to do these vital change over infrastructure projects. The Helen Clarkes and John Keys who created this fucking disaster should all be incarcerated for their criminal greed.The greed of free market economics short term planning and privatisation.The type of economics Grunter and Jacinda understand. They are too intellectually indolent to do much else.

  9. Whatever the sheep shagger contingent think, the Greens have a solid core vote including me–unless Te Pati Māori take a definite Mana direction and the numbers look likely. Ms Swarbrick and the Greens did a good job this week advancing a campaign for Student rights–and there are many thousands of them who get ripped off terribly while trying to become the nation’s future!

    If the Greens add free public transport and dental and other demands working class people will support they may even grow their vote. Chloe does not have to be leader, she creates her own headlines and public profile anyway–but she would be a good leader if interested.

    • There is no such thing as free public transport unless the bus manufacturer gives away the bus for free, the driver takes no wages, the fuel company provides fuel at no cost, etc. Why not say it as it actually is – taxpayer funded fare exempt public transport – but that’s too many words. How about free beer……..

      • Quite correct Thomas, any Government subsidised scheme is not free but the consumers don’t care if it helps their back pockets.
        Just as well dreams are free though, National and act would be bankrupt( morally now and financially then.).

      • no thomas but there is socially owned bus services that cut out the capitalist middleman private operators, there’s a saving right there.

  10. The Greens have a constant voting base, and that excludes grumpy old do nothing tory men and woman dinosaurs. The Greens have a following of the younger demographics who will give them 12 – 15% at the elections. The Act party will be lucky to get 10% and Luxon’s popularity and effectiveness will be half of Jacinda’s. Like last election I may vote for them if they are struggling for 5% otherwise it will be labour all the way – any parties except NATZACT with their dirty politics teams.

  11. You seem to have conveniently forgotten that Labour had the numbers to form government on their own after the last election. I had serious reservations about the deal achieved by the Greens, but I have come to accept that it was the best outcome in the circumstances. Without James and Marama, Labour would have been even less transformative and more cautious than they are at the present time .

  12. At this stage the Greens are like a foreskin, in that they serve no purpose and everyone just wishes they were cut off.

    Read up about foreskins before you make such dumb comments Bomber!

  13. Keep Shaw Swarbrick a populist only.
    Do you know what her policy platform is apart from sarcasm?

    • Me, me, me, my sad life being a twenty something politician with a law degree on a 6 figure salary, after running a cafe called Ollies, being given an MP seat with the Greens, having gender issues, depression issues, ADHD issues…. life is soooooo hard for youth like me as I write about in my book….

      Life is so hard being a talkfest mostly around me and issues I read about and my experiences of poverty from my thousands of FB & Welly friends who are also like me.

      • Very good, saveNZ 🙂 Though you forgot to mention Chlöe’s bad case of diaeresis.

  14. Having been a former Greens voter in the distant past, but not now (Labour for me all the way), it seems to me at present, the Green party needs to get over itself and return to its roots, focusing on its original aims, objectives and purpose.

    It also need to stop acting so damn PC (woke?) and quit putting leaders there as useless ornaments, to satisfy gender/race/sexual orientation and what ever else there is to balance the equality factor! In its present form, the NZ Green Party has become ridiculous. A joke. I’m sick of it.

  15. I disagree. I feel that, like most political parties in New Zealand at the moment, the Green Party should maintain some stability within it’s leadership team, which means that James Shaw should stick around for as long as he can.

    The Green Party have had, and continue to have, some valid policies in a range of areas as well as a good solid leadership team and the support of some well respected personalities.

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