Election 2023: Green Party unveils its list for October’s general election
The Green Party’s list for the 2023 election is:
1. Marama Davidson (list only)
2. James Shaw (list only)
3. Chlöe Swarbrick (Auckland Central)
4. Julie Anne Genter (Rongotai)
5. Teanau Tuiono (Palmerston North)
6. Lan Pham (Banks Peninsula)
7. Golriz Ghahraman (Kelston)
8. Ricardo Menéndez March (Mount Albert)
9. Steve Abel (New Lynn)
10. Hūhana Lyndon (Te Tai Tokerau)
11. Fa’anānā Efeso Collins (Panmure-Ōtāhuhu)
12. Scott Willis (Taieri)
13. Darleen Tana (Tāmaki Makaurau)
14. Kahurangi Carter (Christchurch Central)
15. Celia Wade-Brown (Wairarapa)
16. Dr. Lawrence Xu-Nan (Epsom)
17. Francisco Hernandez (Dunedin)
18. Benjamin Doyle (Hamilton West)
19. Mike Davidson (Ilam)
20. Stephanie Rodgers (Ōhāriu)
21. Suveen Sanis Walgampola (Mount Roskill)
22. Dave Kennedy (Southland)
23. Gina Dao-McLay (Mana)
24. Reina Tuai Penney (Northland)
25. Nick Ratcliffe (Tukituki)
26. Dr. Alexander McNeil (Kaikōrua)
27. Richard Wesley (Wigram)
28. Neelu Jennings (Hutt South)
29. Rochelle Francis
30. Sapna Samant (Maungakiekie)
31. Kair Lippiatt
The Green Membership have been saved from themselves by the resignation of Kerekere.
TDB’s Top 5 were:
1: Chloe
2: Golriz
3: Julie Ann Genter
4: Efeso Collins
5: Steve Able
and the Candidates endorsed by The GreenLeft Network were:
- Dr Elizabeth Kerekere;
- Teanau Tuiono;
- Ricardo Menéndez March;
- Lawrence Xu-nan;
- Francisco Hernandez;
- Stephanie Rodgers;
- Suveen Sanis Walgampola;
- Gina Dao-McLay;
- Reina Tuai Penney;
- Nick Ratcliffe.
The wider Party membership have injected some basic sanity but the damage has been done by the new rules that allowed ‘
lived experience groups‘ far too much power.
These ‘lived experience groups’ have block voted into place their identity candidates and were frantically trying to delay the vote as the wider membership looked on disapprovingly at these political stunts being played out in public.
The new constitution adopted by the party in 2022, expanded the guidelines for selecting candidates whilst allocating voting rights to previously informal interest group networks. One effect of this has been to de-prioritise talent, effectiveness and electoral appeal in the list-ranking process in favour of a kind of horse trading over how to fit in the right quota of geography, ethnicity, ability, youth & gender into the various positions on the list.
It is this new network that a far more puritanical woke clique have seized upon and manipulated to ensure their identity candidates have most influence.
Watching The Standard try to cancel Dr Bryce Edwards for pointing all this out is a reminder of how the tribal left are bound by bitterness. Their hate towards him and attempts to have him sacked from his job are driven by his exposure of class dynamics at the Parliament protest rather than agreeing with Morgan Godfrey that they were all white supremacy Nazis. The Tribal Left at The Standard hate Bryce because he reveals their hypocrisy and they hate that more than being wrong.
I have voted Greens most of my adult life and I barely recognise this current mutation.
As the Greens stall in the Polls, the wider political question is will the class Left ride to the aid of the Greens in 2023 they way they did in 2017?
In 2017, as the implosion of Metiria’s confession of taking a benefit she wasn’t entitled to (without actually sorting it out and paying it) self mutilated the Greens, Chris Trotter and the Class Left launched a campaign to save the Greens by Party voting for them.
It was enough to keep them above the 5% threshold.
Will the Class Left do that for the Greens this election as the Greens barely mange to poll above their 2020 result.
I think the answer is no.
The Greens have transitioned from an Environmental Party focused on climate change and Economic Inequality into a middle class identity politics obsessed party virtue signalling the Holy Trinity of Woke Dogma:
In the name of the nonBinary Mother, the nonBinary Sister and the monthly Ghost;
Every white person is an irredeemable cross burning racist;
B-EL-I-E-V-E every woman that every man is a rapist;
and Anyone defending Free Speech is a uniform wearing Nazi who hates the Trans Community.
Remember, there ain’t no wriggle room in that Holy Trinity of Woke Dogma, and this decides policy in the Green Party now.
The naked reality for genuinely progressive voters concerned with the horrific inequalities caused by neoliberal capitalism now is to force the Labour Party into being actually Left wing by a minor Party forcing them to.
Labour is still hostage to the exact same neoliberal straightjacket that National is and if we want to get Chippy and Grant to pass Left legislation, it will be by forcing them to do it.
The problem with the Greens is that they are so feckless that they will fuck up any post negotiation and flip flop around. Their entire strategy of taking vacant baubles in the form of powerless Ministerships tells us they are so incompetent they couldn’t;t get laid in a monkey brothal wearing Banana costumes.
Don’t get me wrong, misuse a pronoun and they will cut you from society, they managed to gerrymander sexual assault laws so that anyone accused of rape are found guilty and passed extreme legislation to imprison a person for 5 years for praying gay ghosts away.
Half a decade in jail for praying to a God that doesn’t exist about gay ghosts that don’t
exist. Hilariously no one has used the law yet, despite attempts by the HRC to drum up some business for them to try and advance a case, so 5 years in prison for praying to a God that doesn’t exist, about gay ghosts that don’t exist for victims who as of yet also don’t exist.
That’s a remarkable amount of effort for very little actual gain, which in of itself sums up the Greens.
The woke are great when it is a Vegan Militant Cycling Mummy Blogger Free-the-nipple rallies or mob violence using the thugs veto to shut down gender critical feminists in public spaces, not so good at challenging the neoliberal hegemonic structure.
Chloe will win Auckland Central and they will probably take Wellington Central as well, so even if they slip below 5%, they will be Green representation, so the Class Left don’t need to ride to the Greens this election because they are getting in anyway PLUS they just don’t fucking deserve it.
If the Class Left want real change this election, they should consider voting for the Maori Party.
The difference between the Greens and John Tamihere, is that when John Tamihere says he will take GST off food and tax the rich, you fucking know he is.
When Marama and James went to beg Jacinda for crumbs, Marama had a piece of paper with the question ‘why not’.
JT is going to roll into that room, kick arse and take names.
If we on the Left want real change, not the woke garbage the Greens have spent 3 years harvesting and not the incremental slow death of Labour’s caution, then a vote for the Maori Party to remove GST off food and tax the rich would do more to help the poorest and generate the revenue we need for our social and physical infrastructure than anything else.
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Te Pati Kakariki will still poll over 5%,they do cater to the woke in fact that’s all they cater for.
It would be a shame to lose their voice in Parliment but I would hate to see the have any real control especially if it was in bed with the Maori Party as back up to the Labour Party
In present state they are just a lap dog for Labour anyway. Unless they can make them selves a blue/ green party and be able to have policy wins with Nat’s also.
Greybeard pundits and tory blokes may hate the Greens with a vengeance, but the fact is the brand is strong and they will be back in Parliament on current figures.
A lot of what Martyn says is correct, but nonetheless strategically and tactically Greens need to be there to keep the nasty Natzos, and deadly spawn of the Chicago Boys and Douglas–ACT–well away from Parliamentary office.
If the Parliamentary right can be squashed this year they will not be back in a hurry as time waits for no one.
The entire Green Party Movement internationally is headed in the same direction as The Greens in Germany — an assortment of rabidly pro-war, pro-N.A.T.O, anti-socialist, Third Way liberals dressed up in multi-coloured woke leisure suits.
J.T. won’t be able to attract broad support either, due to the divisive racialist nationalism that his entire party is based on.
This should be an election where local independents begin to emerge (both Corbynite and Trumpian), but apparently the country is far too brain-dead (and brainwashed) for that to happen.
@Kristoff R. Agreed, modern progressive politics seems to have become a fashionable activity for urban middle class. Having voted Labour/Green since I could vote, I’ll be sitting this one out. With their focus on economic issues, if TMP dropped the woke identity politics (which is not the same as championing Māori issues) I could vote for them, but for now they are too enamoured with the intersectional bandwagon.
People vote for their brand – hardly for their ability to ever go through with any policies.