CHLOE SWARBRICK AND THE GREEN PARTY: A SEA CHANGE IN NEW ZEALAND POLITICS?

The election of Chloe Swarbrick as Green Party co-leader may signal the beginning of a political movement for change, no longer constrained by a centrist Labour Party.

WHILE CHLOE SWARBRICK acknowledged James Shaw's work as co-leader of the Green Party, that's as far as it really went. In announcing that she was standing for the co-leadership position left vacant by Shaw, she also made it clear that she was not interested in continuing to hug the centre line as the Green Party has done throughout the nine years that Shaw remained at the helm. In her brief comments to the assembled reporters, she said that she wanted the Green Party to play a major role in a reinvigorated 'left movement' focused on bringing a Green led - and left wing - Government to power. After years of a dour and miserable centrism that has only protected the status quo, it was certainly refreshing to hear a potential political leader talking about 'real-world, people-powered change.' It's not entirely surprising then that the right has already sought to undermine her. In evoking 'Chloemania' the right seeks to associate her with the empty spectacle that 'Jacindamania' proved to be. But Swarbrick is made of sterner stuff than the feckless and centrist Ardern.

The differences between Swarbrick and Shaw could not be greater. Shaw pursued his corporate environmentalism and blamed climate change not on the exploitation of the planet by an economic system driven by profit, but on 'people'. Swarbrick, in contrast, has always objected to the view that the very economic system that is chewing up the planet can be harnessed to save it. She told reporters that government decisions 'have been often constrained by systems designed to give power and privilege to the few. But this system is man-made, and it can and must be remade.'

And while Shaw irritated many Green Party members by boasting of minor tweaks as major victories, Swarbrick's rejection of incrementalism will be welcomed: 'Conventional, incremental politics has failed to rise to the challenges we face - those intertwined climate, inequality, biodiversity and housing crises.'

We live in a country where politics has been interpreted as what governments do to us, and it has been of little benefit to ordinary New Zealanders. Swarbrick also recognises that the ability to bring about real change will be limited if it's not coupled with an organised movement that has the ability to shape politics from the bottom up. She told reporters that, in her view, the development of a grassroots movement means:

'...more Green members across the country, running local campaigns and implementing local solutions. It means more Greens Local Body members, Councillors and Mayors. It means more Greens MPs in Parliament and, ultimately, our nation’s first Green-led Government....I am stepping up, and I am asking everyone across this country to realise their power to do the same because bad things happen when good people stand idly by.'

Grassroots activism can form the basis of a democratic socialism built from the ground up but, if it's going to work, it has to focus on the issues that are of concern to ordinary people. It would not have escaped Swarbrick's notice that the Green Party had a successful election campaign largely because it focused on the economic issues that resonate with ordinary working class New Zealanders, such as the rising cost of living and the lack of affordable housing. That means ditching the identity politics that have only served to sow division among the very people that Swarbrick wants the Green Party to represent.

It's unlikely that any Green Party co-led by Swarbrick will prostrate itself before Labour Party, as it did during the James Shaw-Marama Davidson era. Her comments that Labour is one of the 'legacy parties' that 'do not represent the future of the country,' should be taken as a clear warning to Labour that the Green Party under Chloe Swarbrick plans to supplant it as the natural party of the left. Labour is in danger of sliding into political irrelevancy. 

But the Labour leadership has been unwilling to accept that it was its limp centrism that led to its heavy election defeat. In December, leader Chris Hipkins told RNZ: 'Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. The tide comes in, and the tide goes out.'  

It's almost as if Hipkins still believes that neither he nor Labour can be held responsible for its defeat. It just happened. Just like that. Hipkins may well still believe that it's business as usual, but with the Green Party led by a young and popular new leader who has vowed to shake things up, Labour may well find that the tide has gone out on it permanently.