NZ's Green Party is 'filling the void on the left' as voters grow frustrated with Labour's centrist shift
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Tuesday, September 26, 2023
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With a 14.2% share in the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, up by 1.9 percentage points since the previous poll, that is more than half the Labour Party’s 26.5%.
Key Points:
- With a 14.2% share in the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, up by 1.9 percentage points since the previous poll, that is more than half the Labour Party’s 26.5%.
- The gain seems to have come from voters unimpressed by Labour’s centrist shift under leader Chris Hipkins, which leaves the Greens to fill a wider void on the left.
- The party can claim policy success in several areas – environment and climate, housing quality, family and sexual violence prevention.
Distinctive party rules
- Changes to the party constitution in May last year scrapped the requirement for a male co-leader.
- The Greens’ 2023 party list reflects both new talent and greater ethnic diversity than in the past.
- Far more than any other political party (save Te Pāti Māori), the distinctive leadership structure and decision-making rules allow the Greens to give effect to their commitments to te Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi, gender equity and grassroots democracy.
Policy success
- If getting the policy architecture in place to facilitate implementation is one measure of political success, then the Greens have achieved credible action on many fronts.
- Getting the 2019 Zero Carbon Act across the line with cross-party support, with the subsequent setting up of the Climate Change Commission, was certainly a success.
- Ultimately, the Greens’ policy positions on a range of issues are more radical than the outcomes that have been achieved under the Labour government.
Ending poverty and tax reform
- However, there is no question the Greens have shifted the terms of the debate on poverty in Aotearoa.
- The party’s Ending Poverty Together policy proposes an income guarantee that would ensure everyone, including students, receives at least NZ$385 a week after tax.
- Its reconfigured tax structure claims to benefit an estimated 95% of all tax payers, a much broader group than National’s proposed tax cuts would affect.
- While the details of the Greens’ tax policy would undoubtedly need refining, the potential to eliminate poverty and ensure free dental care for all offers a glimpse of what truly transformational policy can look like.
Future direction
- At 14.2% in the polls, the party is closing in on its highest ever level of 15%, reached in 2017 in a TVNZ poll.
- If current polling holds up and translates into a significantly expanded caucus, it may allow the Greens to more actively pursue their ideals.
- This leaves a void on the left for the Greens to fill, while further eroding Labour’s base.