Are the Greens just ‘Labour’s little helper?’

Dr Bryce Edwards is Political Analyst in Residence at Victoria University of Wellington. He is the director of the Democracy Project.

By joining the Government, the Greens promised to give Labour the spine it needed to act decisively on housing, inequality, climate change and other pressing issues. This hasn’t happened. In fact, rather than being the progressive backbone of the current government, some allege the Greens are helping to “greenwash” Jacinda Ardern’s administration. This issue was discussed in secret at the party’s AGM last weekend. One activist even challenged James Shaw for his leadership, claiming the party had simply become “Labour’s little helper”.

What’s happened to the Green Party in power?

The question for those on the progressive side of politics, including some supporters and activists, is whether the Greens are actually achieving enough in power. The party has been taking a very low-key approach this year, decidedly not rocking the boat too much for Labour.
 
This approach, in which the Greens don’t pressure the Government and keep out of some of the big debates (such as the hate speech proposals), is appreciated by the Labour Party. It also hasn’t hurt the Greens’ popularity. Their last two poll results have been relatively high – 8.5 and 10 per cent. Just by existing, the Greens seem to function as a home for progressive voters who are less impressed with Labour’s continued centrism.
 
However, for some supporters, that’s simply not enough. There have been growing questions about whether the Greens have been silenced in Government and have enabled Labour to govern in their centrist manner without any significant gains for the Green agenda. This was what many progressives, especially inside the party, feared when the Greens decided to support the new Government in exchange for ministerial jobs – see my roundup column from last year: The Green Party’s fraught decision.
 
Since then, there have been numerous signs that the new coalition arrangement hasn’t yielded much progress for the party and its two ministers. Co-leader Marama Davidson has struggled in her homelessness housing portfolio. In March, for example, it was revealed that in the first five months during which she had held the portfolio, she had not taken a paper to a Cabinet committee, nor issued a press release, nor engaged with the community – see Jenna Lynch’s Revealed: The multimillion-dollar cost of the Government’s emergency motel policy.
 
Commenting on this, Heather du Plessis-Allan questioned Davidson’s work output. Du Plessis-Allan argues that having Davidson as a minister is all about appearances for the Greens, rather than actually fixing anything for those in need – see: What’s going on with Marama Davidson?. And she draws attention to Davidson’s $250,000 ministerial salary, saying “It turns out that you don’t have to do the mahi to get the treats.”
 
Even now, Davidson struggles to define her role. At times, she expresses unhappiness with progress – see for example, Dan Satherley’s Marama Davidson, responsible for solving homelessness, ‘not satisfied’ with progress to date.
 
Similarly, despite James Shaw holding the climate change portfolio, progress in this area has been derided by many as unambitious. See, for example: Greta Thunberg enrages Kiwis with tweet targeting New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.
 
Yet Shaw continues to suggest that the failures to deal with climate change are someone else’s fault – see for example his opinion piece on Friday: For decades, politicians have failed on climate. Now we face our last chance. Like the old joke goes, once Shaw finds out who the current Minister for Climate Change is, he’s going to give them a piece of his mind.
 
Political journalist Bernard Hickey is clear that the Greens are actually helping to “greenwash” the Labour Government, and have become a “party of government launderers”. He recently argued that James Shaw “is giving Labour an excuse and a means to do nothing significant on climate”, and that “Green voters are belatedly realising their votes were wasted”.
 
Hickey also tweeted this challenge to Green supporters:

“How has the Greens in/with Labour changed the Govt’s policies?” He offered up his own scathing answer: “No capital gains tax. Barely any welfare reforms. Mean policies on temporary migrants. More road building. No light rail. No meaningful climate action. Delayed water standards. Cosy deals with dairy farmers. Massive increase in homelessness. 30-40% rise in house prices. Rents rising faster than wages. Barely any mental health change. Reneging on student fees promise. Less cycling/pedestrian spending. Only major achievement is $20/hr min wage. Which NZ First demanded.”

This article can be republished under a Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0  license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project.  

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