As was widely anticipated, James Shaw has called time on his political career. He was never a man whose career was defined by moments in time, good or bad. He was notable simply for who he was - a white male suit co-leading the Greens - and what he managed to accomplish across Parliament - a lot of consensus on climate change legislation, brought about through making himself agreeable to all sides, though of course left and right remain at loggerheads over the issue.
He has been a good parliamentarian, but not an amazing politician. This most recent election saw his best personal performance, probably in part because he felt liberated knowing he wouldn’t have to do this for much longer. He cannot effectively harass the government from Opposition - it's just not his style. Remaining would also present a distinct risk. If he stayed, he would be risking every single year the chance that the Green Party membership would jeopardise his leadership again. That would be really damaging for his reputation and the party to end his career on. To battle through would simply set a pattern of humiliation. The 2022 revolt did not make his leadership totally untenable, but it seeped poison into the promise of stability he otherwise offered.
Make no mistake: besides that unforced error from the members, he proved enormously dependable for the Greens. He saw the party through the utter turmoil after Metiria Turei’s resignation, six years managing an awkward relationship with the Labour-led government, and progressed past scandals like the Green School debacle and the Elizabeth Kerekere blowup without taking any lasting damage. He leaves Parliament without any blemishes on his record, and while he never reshaped history around him, his leading of the Greens into their first ever government, and the legislation he accomplished, guarantees him a place in history. Giving our best wishes to him, we can then move on to looking at who might replace him. (We can also safely assume that Marama won't be stepping down, at least for some time; if she was going any time soon, she would’ve coordinated with James for a full refresh.)
Having controlled the time of his departure, we can expect he likely has some names in mind, discussed with caucus to submit an ideal candidate to the membership. In a more polarised time than 2017, and with the Greens having successfully proven that they can be part of a government, there is not as much need to replicate his dependability. However, his ability to reach out to the centre ground, compared to Marama’s connections to the base, is likely to be a key criteria for his successor.
One final thing before we get into the options. Common misconceptions persist about the literal requirements to be Green leader: that they still require one man or one woman (true in the past, but they rewrote their constitution last year), or boomers horrendously misinterpreting that rewrite as, for instance, an obligation for a non-binary co-leader. (Which is an interesting aside to wonder which major party in the world would be the first to elevate a non-binary leader, but aside from the point.)
Marama fulfils the requirements for one leader to be a woman and one leader to be Māori. Since the Greens recently rewrote their party constitution, those are the only two requirements: if those are met, any other identities can be in play, i.e James’s replacement could be another white guy, a Māori woman, or anybody else. If Marama were to be replaced by a Māori man or non-binary person, then the other co-leader would have to be a woman, but without that on the horizon, the field is open.
Chlöe Swarbrick
Well, this is the obvious one. Chlöe Swarbrick can be pegged at around 85% odds of becoming the next co-leader: there’s uncertainty in the process, but she is the overwhelming frontrunner and any alternative should be measured against her. Chlöe has so much of what the Greens are now looking for. Between her high public profile, the proof in the cannabis referendum that she can perform under heavy responsibilities, and her skills as a vote-getter, she can finally put personal appeal back at the heart of the Green Party without sacrificing one iota on policy credibility.
James and Marama are beloved by most Greens, but those voters definitionally already vote Green. The party needs to hold onto disappointed Labour voters and others across a broader electoral coalition if it is to hope to really set the pace on the left, instead of sliding back into becoming Labour’s junior partner. She will keep the Greens in the headlines, insofar as any Opposition party can, with effective communication on the issues. So long as the left are destined for a long spell in Opposition, unable to truly affect most policy, Chlöe will do well in wandering, vibes-based media profiles alongside appearances on morning talk.
Chlöe faces four challenges in her bid for the leadership. The first is that she is exceptionally young; I don’t know if a 29 year old has ever led a political party before and certainly not in the modern era. Combine that with how young women are often perceived particularly as less capable than young men, and she is bound to inspire some stupid-ass op-eds from the Leo Molloys of NZ.
This will factor marginally into the caucus’s thinking, but no more than that; the Green Party loves youthfulness and it’s more of a virtue than an issue for her, both for her perspective and her ability to turn out young voters. Similarly, the Greens being able to show a co-leadership team of two women likely inspires their potential voters and only aggravates opponents. Old white guys have already made up their minds as to whether they detest the Greens or not.
The second is that she’s Pākehā, and this presents more of a challenge. One of the leading political storylines of 2024 is the perceived hostility of government rhetoric and policy towards Māori New Zealanders and their world. Yes, Marama Davidson can speak as a Māori woman, and Chlöe isn’t barred from having her views on these matters either, but a 29 year old white woman associated with uni students and cannabis is not exactly the picture of gravitas on the marae.
A white co-leader won’t be taken as a negative sign given Marama’s presence, but the Greens will continue to lag behind other parties for their footprint in te ao Māori. Nonetheless, by the nature of what I’ve said in the past about the Greens membership, this won’t be front of mind for them. I suspect that the caucus also won’t put a heavy emphasis on this, particularly because other groups besides whites and Māori don’t seem to factor much into their thinking.
The third is that she may not appeal to the membership. I’ve spoken about this before: they are hard to assess by the nature of their anonymity. Let’s make a sweeping statement nevertheless. If you are deep in the world of left-wing politics, you most likely ascribe heavy significance to the perceived dividing lines between those who are left enough to effect transformative change, versus those who represent acceptance of an unacceptable status quo.
Prioritising that highly, and the general nature of Twitter et al. that lie beyond the scope of this article, leads you to looking carefully for any signs of ideological deviation, and insofar as any Green MP throws up warning signs for centre-leftness, Chlöe is next after James: a white businesswoman who can reach the centre. There’s always the chance that, whatever caucus can agree on, the membership rebel against her like they did with James.
Remember, the Greens are not a democratic party of the majority. A minority can exercise a veto - all it takes is left-wing activists whipping a third or so of the party into concerns about her, and the risk immediately flares up that continuing to press her candidacy for the time being would be disastrous for public perceptions of the Greens. Even if Chlöe could build bridges and make it happen some other day, she might conclude this isn’t the right time to strike.
The fourth reason is that she may just not want this. She has publicly discussed her struggles with depression and other mental health issues. I believe her when she says she didn’t get into politics out of ambition but instead to make a difference. Maybe ego is a part of things, but it surely can’t crowd out weighing the cons for somebody who has been open about wondering whether she should even remain in Parliament, period.
She just watched her friend, Golriz Ghahrahman, leave Parliament really struggling and on a sour note. We have seen years of blunders with MPs like Todd Muller taking on responsibilities their mental health challenges hold them back from meeting. This, in my view, is by far the likeliest thing to stop her becoming leader: the Greens may simply not have been able to talk her into jumping on the grenade. So, if she doesn’t run, or if the membership upset her candidacy, or just to be prepared for whenever Marama does go, who else do we need to consider?
Julie Anne Genter
Okay, we're over the hump now. Chlöe was the big name to talk about. Working with relatively scanty profiles for some of these other MPs, I can quickly summarise the case for each, and in Genter's case it's continuity Swarbrick. She's another moderate white woman high up in the party and with experience. If Operation Swarbrick is, surprisingly, a no go, she would be a way to slot in an acceptable replacement and move on without making a real statement about a new direction, beyond having a leadership team of two women.
I mention Genter next because, besides her high position in the party - #4 on the list and surprise victor in Rongotai, lending her legitimacy as somebody who can win the Greens votes - she’s the only one we know has ambition for it. After Turei’s resignation, she ran in 2018 against Marama Davidson. Being willing to risk the party having two white co-leaders is a bit weird from the perspective of a Green, and one can only conclude she genuinely thought she was one of the party’s most capable MPs for such a role. (Slash ego, slash ambition.) Maybe she’s fixated now on Rongotai or other matters - she has a kid now, for instance - but if Swarbrick doesn’t become co-leader, and particularly if that comes as a surprise, she’s the next likeliest name to toss her hat in the ring and give it a go.
Teanau Tuiono
I know very little about Tuiono and so won’t comment much on him. I shout him out for one simple reason: he's the party's highest-ranked Māori MP, and the only one with any experience in Parliament. His selection would be a clear statement of intent from the Greens: the critical issue of the next term will be Crown-Māori Relations, and the Greens need credibility and representation on the issue to stand side by side with TPM and ahead of Labour.
I don’t think that’s a winning strategy for votes or for effecting political outcomes, but maybe they disagree or maybe they just get swept up in the narrative or the moral cause of these times. Anyway, when James’s chances were in the lurch in 2022 he wasn’t willing to rule out running for leader - he’s clearly given the matter some thought and it’d be easy for him to justify taking a stab at the job against Pākehā contenders.
Lan Pham
Enormously unlikely as a brand-new MP, but they did choose to place her way up at #6 on the list. Pham's selection would represent a step towards what outsiders typically demand from the Greens: she would sidestep any question of Māori versus Pākehā selection to point towards the idea that the Greens can be for all voters, and she would have the strongest environmentalist credentials of any candidate.
Coming in with local government experience to boot, she’s the dream draft for “the Greens should stop blabbering on about social justice and just focus on the environment”, but as we all know that’s not who the Greens currently are and there’s nothing that suggests that this will allow them to capitalise on Labour’s current weakness on the left. Better to let her develop her experience as the Greens’ spokeswoman on the environment and speak to those issues as the situation demands.
Ricardo Menéndez March
Asides from doing surprisingly well at vote-gathering last election, he’d be the likeliest candidate in my view for a surprise socialist uprising amongst the Greens membership. The caucus, on the other hand, would probably frown on elevating a candidate who would have to relitigate travelling abroad to sick family during the COVID-19 pandemic. We all know, though, the real reason to nominate him would be to incite Helen White into initiating a showdown that would rival Burr and Hamilton.
Hūhana Lyndon
I won’t repeat myself here: this is your other option for somebody with mana on the marae, with the tradeoffs that she’s newer but has more of a stature in that world. I’m really fumbling in the dark here with my limited knowledge, but I’d wager she’s probably second best known and respected after Marama, and not by a whole lot either.
Fa'anānā Efeso Collins
This is the banger dark horse take: instead of swinging to either the uni-educated socialist left or the bluegreen environmentalist centre, the Greens should be co-led by a man who can appeal to the true working class, brown voters in South Auckland and elsewhere. The problem is…he hasn’t really demonstrated that appeal. He lost the Auckland mayoral race and it wasn’t close, and then he didn’t do much to achieve votes in South Auckland in 2023 either.
Between my constant complaint about the Greens as a party of the uni-educated white left condescending to and out of touch with the working class brown left, and his having only recently come to the Greens from Labour and thus having the taint of ideological heresy about him, his chances are vanishingly, remotely small. Nonetheless, I had to highlight the option: if the Greens are serious about doing what no other Green Party has, by utterly demolishing their centre-left counterpart and replacing them permanently as the main party for all voters left of centre, they need to crack Labour’s ~25% of core voters, and they cannot do that if they cannot reach brown, working class and NCEA Level ≤3 voters.
Tamatha Paul
Genter may be continuity Swarbrick, but Paul is the true heir to the Swarbrick model: a woman in her 20s with a strong power to personally appeal to voters and inspire trust and hope, who has progressed from involvement in local government into winning a central urban electorate. Indeed, she’s coming in with more political experience than Swarbrick started Parliament with, and beating Ibrahim Omer and Scott Sheeran by so much is an impressive feat. Being so new, and so young, will really hold her back in ways that it doesn’t for Swarbrick, who has several years of national-level experience under her belt. Still, if the party can’t get Swarbrick and they’re hoping to really set a fire alight under young voters everywhere and a narrative of the Greens as a fresh new change, they couldn’t do better than her.
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So: those are the options! Overall, this looks like a field that the Greens shouldn’t overthink. They should have done everything possible to talk Swarbrick into being leader, and unless she really wouldn’t be able to shoulder the challenge, they will have committed political malpractice if they fail to make her leader. These other candidates are interesting to explore and have potential, but need years to develop experience and build their profiles.
Any appearance of another membership revolt will hobble the new co-leader from day one, particularly if the expectations are set that they must pander to the left to the detriment of a broader appeal. So, Greens, here’s what you should do. Make Swarbrick co-leader now; lean into the refresh of NZ’s first major political party co-led by two women, and with the youngest leadership ever put forward; and put your long-term strategic thinking into the following question: when Marama steps down and the party requires a new Māori co-leader, will Teanau, Hūhana or Tamatha stand alongside Chlöe?
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