The Greens Are Mean To Tania & Steve: A Look At The List

Our politics has been thrown into chaos by the Prime Minister calling a vote of confidence from his own caucus. I’ve already said my piece on where they were before Tuesday, and who can say with any confidence what will come next? So much depends, after all, on what the next wave of polls will have to say. 

Instead, I’d like to take a no-frills look at one detail of politics that snuck under the radar in a very busy, quite ugly day: what’s up with that Green Party list?

The Green Party draft list prompted a fair bit of outcry, and while I drafted up my own list, I reserved comment until it was finalised, expecting the issues to be fixed. The final list is here and…very little has changed. Basically nothing is better.  

The median Green Party polling result this year has been 10%, which would net them twelve MPs. Given their tendency to underperform polls, and that party only won 11.6% of the vote last time despite their competitor on the left being in a state of utter collapse, the Greens should not expect their best case scenario to look any better than a dozen MPs. So who’s in that top dozen? And who of note is not?

Given the collapse of the Māori Party, however, I incline towards the Greens using this year to take a punt on pushing in the Māori electorates. With that in mind, chucking former TPM candidate Heather Te Au-Skipworth down at 21 - where she can only enter Parliament if she defeats Labour's Cushla Tangaere-Manuel - is perhaps justified in getting voters to consider her, but in the likely event of her loss, it won't help the party to build strength in those electorates for successive elections. I gave her 12 for my own list but one can argue back against that. 

Sitting MPs like Mike Davidson (#20) and Scott Willis (#15) being on their way out seems at first blow to be striking. However, it’s hard to see what unique skillset they bring to the party - I concurred with #19 and #16 respectively on my list - as well as figures like Craig Pauling (#14 on theirs and #15 on mine) who are not yet in Parliament and simply triple down on providing more local government members from the South Island. That’s not the priority for the Greens. (This is also why, unlike the Greens, I absolutely nuke Ricardo Menendez March down from #9 to #17 - when there’s such competitiveness on talent, I simply don’t see a reason to keep around a lightning rod who biffed his miracle opportunity to win Mount Albert last election.)

Our first substantive point of disagreement is around Rohan O’Neill Stevens, who I essentially count out at #16 even as I give him a slight chance at #13. A 25 year old Deputy Mayor might not be a Parliamentary heavy hitter, but for a party looking to appeal to the youth vote and looking enviously at Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke’s superb presentation, it does seem a bit odd to cut his career off at the knees. Can he pose a significant threat to Rachel Boyack in Nelson? I doubt it.

The real shocker on this list drops at #13 - #10 on mine, a small but meaningful difference - with Tania Waikato. On the TPM front, she has raised her profile representing them on Treaty issues and, while nobody has a hope in hell of dethroning Rawiri’s operation in Waiariki, she could snatch a lot of party votes away. She could be the party’s voice on these complex legal and constitutional issues around Te Tiriti, the principles of, and what this governing bloc has done to hit that. Why are they counting her out? I haven’t the foggiest. It’s a baffling decision.

Another absolute shocker hits at #12 with Steve Abel, who I have placed at #7. Let's not overcomplicate this: it's fine and good for the Green Party to play a part on all issues, they can’t bring in every single environmentalist (e.g although it pains me, I place Kahurangi Carter at #14 on my list), but they are a Green Party. They ought to value their best voices on the environment. He is one of the best and he has been handling the significant ongoing issue of live animal exports. Again: why on earth are the Greens willing to see this guy drop out of Parliament if they get a middling result?

We finally align again with Francisco - #10 on their list and #11 on mine. He's become a diligent Parliamentary operator, and he is clearly the next-best prospect of the Greens to win an electorate. Get those Dunedin students out. The same logic of ensuring rising Parliamentary talents stick around applies to Lawrence Xu-Nan (#8 on theirs, #9 on mine). 

Past this point, we are largely in concert. Aside from a meaningless 6-7 distinction on Hūhana Lyndon, our only remaining difference is that we swap Teanau Tuiono and Lan Pham around. I don’t get the Tuiono hype yet - they clearly see something valuable in him and he brings not just a rare Pacific perspective but legal qualification, so he should certainly return as an MP, but #3 putting him above two of their electorate MPs seems like a heck of a strong signal to send. I’d rather get a much simpler point across: to the bluegreen waverers, chuck down Lan Pham at #3 and make it abundantly clear that the Greens really do prioritise keeping our rivers clean and our gold in the ground.

So the Greens intend to return largely the same caucus, but are randomly okay with losing Steve Abel and conspicuously disinterested in elevating their Māori electorate candidates outside Hūhana Lyndon in the perfect year to do so. Speaking of electorates, then, there’s only one more question. Where should the Greens be looking to target to beef up their resources and connect with the voters?

I made a list of ten electorates - largely but not entirely composed of electorates where they did best in the party vote last time around. I don’t actually believe they’ll win a Māori electorate - Hūhana may bring mana in Te Tai Tokerau but with a mere 9.6% Green vote against Mariameno, I doubt even that can be done.

The place they should urgently hunt for some candidate who need not be on the list is Te Tai Tonga. I must stress: this is the Wellington electorate! Otago University, University of Canterbury - these are in Te Tai Tonga! 16.4% of Māori roll voters here voted Green last time! Mananui Ramsden from Labour looks like a good candidate and a clear favourite to me, but surely the Greens should try their hand at being the ones to get to oust Tākuta Ferris.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the ones that they can fight to keep. The Greens got 24% in Auckland Central, 37.8% in Wellington North and 32% in Wellington Bays. While Craig Renney might put up a real fight in Wellington Bays against JAG, who doesn’t particularly impress me, I would be surprised if there's enough of a backlash to Tamatha Paul's strongly progressive rhetoric to hand Wellington North to Ayesha Verrall, and no shot does Naisi Chen push Chlöe out of Auckland Central. 

So what’s next to target? Dunedin, obviously (27%). There’s Mount Albert with a 25.3% Green vote, but I don’t know who the Greens could produce as a better candidate than RMM there and he can't get it done. As I've touched on, there is Nelson, but at only 14.4% Green vote last time that looks like a real uphill battle. 

So I think only two more plausible targets are on the map. The first is Christchurch Central (19.5%). Kahurangi Carter is there while Duncan Webb is on his way out, opening up a target. It’s yet another central urban area. Christchurch is a good combination where it’s on the upswing and can thus afford to think beyond Labour’s affordability mantra, but is also plenty mad at the government. And the second is Banks Peninsula (19.7%), where the people looking for the quieter life - in an area with very little of the agriculture that so stymies the Greens - might feel better about forking it over to a true Greenie like Craig Pauling than just flipping back to Labour again. I’m kinda mad they’re not running Lan Pham, but then Pauling does have extensive success in local politics, so fair play.

So which electorates do I think the Greens will win? Auckland Central; probably Wellington North; maybe Wellington Bays. Dunedin if they really put in the effort for it, and Banks Peninsula has a chance. I wouldn’t be absolutely caught off guard if they put in a miracle run for Christchurch Central. And…that’s it. Fair enough. It’s tough out there for minor parties. The party vote’s where it’s at. So the party just has to hang onto hope that they can squeeze out enough of it in a close year to actually bring back Steve Abel and bring in Tania Waikato, instead of leaving this term somewhere poorer than they entered it. 

EDIT: SHES RUNNING IN KENEPURU???

Lan Pham will be co-leader of the Green Party by 2033 you heard it here first