THE PROBLEM WITH MARAMA DAVIDSON

Marama Davidson's continued fixation with identity politics can only have a negative impact on the Green Party's election chances.

MARAMA DAVIDSON has become a symbol of the Greens’ long-running identity crisis, and not in the way her supporters imagine. Her fixation on identity politics—particularly her narrow framing of Maori sovereignty—has crowded out any serious class analysis inside the party. What should be a movement capable of articulating a structural critique of capitalism has instead been funnelled into a politics of symbolic representation, moral signalling, and internal factional comfort. The result is a Green Party that speaks fluently to a small, already-converted activist base while struggling to reach the broad, economically stressed electorate that will decide the 2026 election.

Davidson’s approach to Maori issues is a case study in this narrowing. She speaks of Maori rights almost entirely within a capitalist framework, as if tino rangatiratanga can be meaningfully realised while the economic system that dispossesses Maori remains untouched. This is not a radical position; it is a managerial one. It treats sovereignty as a cultural or constitutional matter rather than a material one. It avoids confronting the corporate interests that profit from Maori poverty, land loss, and environmental degradation. And it places her in direct conflict with Greens who want a class-driven approach that understands colonisation as inseparable from capitalism, not something that can be addressed through representation alone.

As Dr Bryce Edwards has observed:

'When Marama Davidson was asked last month what the focus of the election campaign would be, her answer was telling: “always, there’s going to be upholding the wellbeing of people, tangata, the wellbeing of environment, taiao, and that that is only possible through upholding Te Tiriti.” No mention of naming corporate villains. No mention of making polluters pay. No simple, repeatable message about power bills and grocery prices.'

The tragedy is that Davidson’s rhetoric is often presented as the party’s moral compass, even as it alienates the very people the Greens need to reach. Working-class Maori and Pakeha alike are dealing with rising rents, insecure work, climate anxiety, and a political system that feels increasingly indifferent to their lives. They are not looking for lectures about identity. They are looking for a political project that names the forces making their lives harder and offers a credible path to change. Davidson’s messaging rarely speaks to them. Instead, it reinforces the perception that the Greens are a party for the university-educated, the culturally fluent, and the politically initiated.

This dynamic is not new. Davidson’s record as a minister in the last Labour government remains a liability. She refused to criticise Labour even as the government abandoned transformative climate policy, entrenched the housing crisis, and continued the same cautious, centrist governance that has defined New Zealand politics for decades. Former Green MPs Sue Bradford and the late Keith Locke—hardly right-wing critics—publicly expressed frustration at her unwillingness to challenge Labour’s failures. Their criticism mattered because it came from people who understood the Greens’ original mission: to be a force for structural change, not a decorative appendage to Labour’s managerialism.

Voters remember this. They remember a Green Party that talked about transformation while enabling a government that delivered very little of it. Davidson’s silence during that period is not easily forgotten, and it undermines her credibility now when she claims to speak truth to power. The electorate is not naïve. They know that if the Greens enter a Labour-led coalition again, Davidson will be expected to play the same role: loyal, compliant, and careful not to embarrass the senior partner. Her track record suggests she will oblige.

The deeper problem is strategic. The Greens cannot win an election by appealing only to the progressive cultural left. They need to build a coalition of renters, workers, young people, climate-conscious families, and disillusioned voters who feel abandoned by both major parties. That requires a politics rooted in class, material conditions, and economic justice. It requires confronting corporate power, challenging wealth concentration, and articulating a vision that goes beyond representation and symbolism. Davidson’s leadership has not moved the party in that direction. If anything, it has pushed it further into a niche that feels righteous but electorally limiting. Unfortunately, for reasons that are hard to fathom, fellow co-leader Chloe Swarbrick appears to have fallen in behind Davidson.

This matters because 2026 is not a normal election year. The country is facing a climate emergency, a cost-of-living crisis, and a political landscape increasingly shaped by reactionary forces. People are desperate for alternatives that feel real, not rhetorical. They want a left that speaks to their material lives, not just their identities. They want a party willing to challenge the economic orthodoxy that has failed them. The Greens could be that party—but not if they continue to prioritise internal ideological comfort over broad-based political appeal.

Davidson’s influence risks locking the Greens into a losing strategy: one that energises a small base while leaving the wider electorate cold. Her insistence on framing politics through identity rather than class makes it harder for the party to build the alliances necessary for real change. And her record in government raises legitimate questions about whether she is capable of challenging Labour when it matters.

The Greens face a choice. They can continue down the path Davidson has carved—symbolically bold, materially timid, and electorally constrained. Or they can reclaim the class-rooted, system-challenging politics that once made them a genuine force for transformation. The stakes are too high for another cycle of moral posturing and political retreat. If the party wants to be more than Labour’s conscience, it will need to confront the internal dynamics holding it back. And that conversation must include an honest assessment of Marama Davidson’s role in shaping the Greens’ current trajectory.