Jamie Ensor: NZ Herald political reporter on the Greens outlining their policies ahead of the next election

The Greens claim they're leading the opposition, while they push a radical tax shakeup.

The Party's AGM continues in the capital today, which kicked off with a rally from co-leader Marama Davidson yesterday.

NZ Herald political reporter Jamie Ensor explained that Chlöe Swarbrick was due to speak today.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
New Zealand Herald. Political reporter Jamie Enzel joins me.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Now, good morning, good morning, how are you on.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
I'm good, thank you, and I do believe that you're
going to spend the day at the Greens and your
general meeting today.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
That's right, the Greens big kind of come together event
is happening today in Wellington. Co leader Madame Davidson spoke
yesterday and as you were talking with Chris Sikins about
she was really emphasizing this point about wanting to lead
to the next government rather than just being a little
bit of part of it. And it's gonna be really
interesting to see the move of the room today because

(00:46):
you remember, it's just a year since the Greens are
in the middle of a really troublesome eraror. They had
resignations of the likes of Golriz Gurriman and Darlene Tanner,
they had the loss of Afesso Collins, but the party
seems to have moved on fairly confidently since then. There's
no real sign of dysfunction or any internal issues and

(01:07):
Chloe Swarbrick is going to give a speech today where
I think she's going to really emphasize the ways that
her party, and this is very much her party, it's
a different Green Party would implement some policies if it
was in government. And I spoke with Chloe earlier this
week and we talked about the likes of the Greens
alternative budget, it's fiscal strategy, and how it's really taken

(01:30):
the government to task over some of the issues in
its own budget. And she really made the point that
she felt that her Green Party was leading the opposition,
that she was the one and her co leader was
the ones putting out policy while Labor hasn't really put
forward anything. It's not really too hard for the Greens
to say that they are leading the opposition when Labor

(01:51):
hasn't put forward any particular policies just yet, and so
it's really made some veiled critiques of Labor over that.
She said that, you know, responsible political parties would be
putting forward solutions to tax issues, and the only party
who's done that so far as the Greens. So interesting
to hear how she continues that kind of theme that
today's are meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, massive NCAA changes we're announced this week, and I
know that you've been across the story for a long
time now. I've already expressed my thoughts on Labour's engagement
when it comes to this policy and things. As we
sort of get to the end of the week, Jamie,
how do you sort of sum up the reception to it.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
I think the response has been very interesting in what
it's been focused on. You know, we've had a lot
of teachers and unions and opposition parties come out and
speak about the NCAA changes, but the focus has really
been more on how it's going to be implemented in
the speed of reform, rather than the actual substance of
the changes. The Green Party is actually the only ones

(02:55):
who have come out that I've seen who have said
that they don't like the changes. You know, Labor has
pulled back and it's been focused on that consultation period
rather than the move away from a standard space system
to a subject spased system. Or they haven't really made
any criticisms of moving from the excellence merit achieved grading
to out of one hundred, and I think that's really telling. Obviously,

(03:17):
Labor recognizes that making changes to NCAA is needed, and
it's probably going to be popular with parents. So they
don't want to be seen as just opposing for opposing sake.
They want to be seen to be constructive. But of course,
the issue that we had at the end of this
week is around below jan Prime and her consultation, and
I know you've spoken just with Chris Sitkins about that,

(03:39):
but it really was a terrible look for the party.
It's been calling for cross party consultation and bipartisanship, and
Primes told us that she wants to speak with teachers
and parents before speaking of the minister. But you can
do both things at the same time, exactly. There's really
value when being in the room and just listening.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Since much she should have been doing both. Anyway, I'm
going to move on now. Tell me how's Queenstown treating
Anthony Albanesi and our prime, mister crystall Well.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
It looks pretty frosty. They went up for a bit
of a walk and it looks like there was some snow.
But the relationship, i should say, is not all that frosty.
It looks like they are giving along quite well. There
wasn't any major announcements coming out of this meeting, it
was a bit more of.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
A catch up.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
There was some talk of aligning or harmonizing some of
our regulatory systems, so you know, things can go across
the border a bit more easily and that helps trade.
But even though this was more of just a catch up,
it really does come at a pretty critical time globally.
You know, there's probably some fairly intense conversation behind the
scenes about the crisis in Gaza. Both the prime ministers

(04:42):
said afterwards that they wanted Israel to de escalate and
that any attempt to take over the rest of Gaza,
as has been indicated by the Israeli Prime minister, would
be wrong. Interestingly, the question of when the two countries
may recognize the Palestinian state came up, and both Prime
ministers gave a fairly similar answer of it being a

(05:03):
matter of when, not if. And even though both leaders
spoke of how their own countries would make their own decisions,
you would imagine that if Australia was to recognize Palestine,
New Zealand wouldn't be too far behind. And there's going
to be some conversations across the Tasman about when the
best time for those to those types of announcements would
be to make sure there's some sort of alignment.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Jamie Enzil, thank you so much for your time this morning.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
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