Adam Pearse: NZ Herald political reporter on the Greens celebrating 25 years in Parliament

The Green Party reached a significant milestone this weekend, off the back of a tough year for the party.

It's been a year full of controversy following the arrest of Golriz Ghahraman, the referral of Julie Anne Genter to the Privileges Committee and the Darleen Tana saga that ended with the Greens using the Waka-Jumping law to oust her.

The Party's also had to deal with leadership changes following James Shaw's retirement - but the sudden death of Efeso Collins and co-leader Marama Davidson stepping aside following a breast cancer diagnosis have also impacted the Greens.

NZ Herald political reporter Adam Pearse says co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick is determined to move forward - as the party has big plans for 2025.

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Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Edb's time to talk politics now and I'm joined by
New Zealand here political reporter Adam Pierce.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Good morning, Adam, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
This weekend mark's the twenty fifth year of the Greens
in Parliament and I believe that you caught up with
Chloe's Warbrick recently to talk about the year, which is
possibly one of the toughest they've had. Would that be
fair to say yes?

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I mean, I think that's something that Chloe herself has
kind of accepted that probably in the party's history, it's
been one of the toughest that the party has had,
you know, and it's important to draw a distinction here.
You know, there are, I suppose, the two different kinds
of challenges that the party has faced. You know, if
we recall in February the tragic, tragic passing of Offessa

(00:57):
Collins and then we had the co leader Madame and
Davidson reveal her breast cancer diagnosis. So they are very
very chalm ranging things to deal with, especially for such
a new party in terms of the MPs that joined
them in twenty twenty three. But I suppose in and
around that they've had several several MPs that have got

(01:19):
into trouble with your goal as government resigning from politics
after the shoplifting allegations, Julian Genter being disciplined by the
Privileges Committee there around her interim of datory behavior in
the House, and then a whole Darling Tanna situation which
forced the Greens to kind of flip flop on their

(01:40):
position on this wacker jumping legislation to try and kick
her out of Parliament, which they eventually did. So yeah,
look it's been a tough time for them. Chloe and
her kind of traditional style is kind of grinning through it,
and her cat phrase at the moment really is forged
in fire, referencing the party and where it's been this year.
But you know, they're looking ahead and they're promising some

(02:02):
pretty big things in twenty twenty five, twenty six. You
know when she came in as co leader, this is Chloe.
She's promising that the party is going to become the
biggest on the left. So it's no small feat given
you Labour's presence there. So it'll be interesting to see
how the next couple of years go for them.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, they've certainly had a lot thrown at them over
the year. There are set to make an announcement today
about an alternative emissions plan.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
I believe, Yes, that's right, that's right. We don't have
we don't have the details just yet. That will be
coming in a couple of hours. But earlier this week
Chloe was saying that it's promising to outline sector bisector
how the party would would address the country's emissions. And
I think, and especially part of the part of her
description was around just having a really concrete plan, a

(02:50):
really clear plan that sets out an alternative, like you say,
it's an alternative emissions reduction plan. And I think that's
going to be key to what to their goal of
becoming this bigger party on the left is showing that
there is an alter of option now. They only thing
the Greens can be probably would probably accept criticisms that

(03:12):
their proposals have been a bit ambitious, and that's not
a criticism, it's more, you know, that's where they want
to be, that they're ambitious. They want they want big
change and they want it now. But if they're going
to appeal to those more central voters that are less
ambitious or perhaps more realistic, they're going to need to

(03:32):
provide realistic plans, especially when it comes to the climate
change space.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Okay, so that announcement, is it eleven? And can you
give us an update all the latest on the two
teams that were missing from the government's boot camp program.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yes, so this came through late last night. One of
my colleagues was able to get the information that the
two boys that went missing earlier this week have indeed
been found, which is good news. Not so good news
in the way that they were found. So police put
out a statement saying that it was understood that they

(04:11):
were involved in an alleged carjacking and involving some weapons
as well, which is not good to see. We're waiting
to hear from the minister to see whether the Minister
Karen Shaw will speak on this. It's unlikely given that
the matters of before the Youth Court. But yeah, it's
been a pretty pretty tough couple of weeks. I mean,

(04:32):
obviously underlying all of this is the tragic passing of
one of the boot camp participants in a car accident
in the waikatle But it seems, and obviously I think
our thoughts need to be with their final at the moment,
given how much publicity is around THO. But since since
that's tragic events, you know, it's just it's caused quite

(04:56):
a few follow up events that have caused real issue
for the government politically, and I think this is going
to be an issue that's going to carry on through
this coming week and potentially into the next as these
boys move through the courts and trying to get a
read on how much this says about the quality of

(05:17):
the boot camp pilot. Obviously the government is arguing that,
you know, it's going to press on and it is
making improvements, It's what they'll claim. But it's really when
you look at it, it's a tough one to handle
when you've got two boys absconding for multiple days and
then turning up allegedly being involved in a potential carjacking.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
As it is a pilot, how open are they too?
Are they kind of opened to looking at how it
has been run in the program and things like that,
or were they determined to go, yeah, this is the pilot,
but we are looking to carry this on as is.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Yeah, Well, Garan Shaw, the Minister as is standing by
the pilot itself. Obviously, the opposition, as you might expect,
is calling for it to be scrapped. I would imagine
they will be looking at how the in community phases working,
so your listeners might recall it. The pilot started with
three months inside a youth justice facility that was lauded

(06:18):
by a lot of people, and I should clarify lauded
by people who were involved in the program. They said
that they saw a lot of progress with these boys
who were obviously record of us young offenders, and saw
some real change in their behavior and had some real
optimism going into the nine month period that they would
spend in the community. However, it's been only a few

(06:39):
weeks and we've had obviously to absconding incidents and further
reoffending as well, so they could be potentially open to
some change in that area. How the boys are monitored.
We'll just have to wait and see. There are rapid
reviews under way that the Minister will receive and presumably
some decisions will be made post that. But it's this

(07:02):
is one of their core, if not their core youth
justice policy, so it won't be something that the government
will be compromising on easily.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Aden PS, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
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