Ben Thomas: Greens mastering the art of self-inflicted wounds

Wednesday, 12 April 2023

Chloe Swarbrick was called a “crybaby” in a misdirected text message from fellow Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere.

Ben Thomas is a public relations consultant and political commentator who has worked for the National Party. He is a regular contributor to Stuff.

OPINION: With voters overwhelmingly concerned with the cost of living, there is only one justification for spending time analysing the misdirected “crybaby” text of Green MP Elizabeth Kerekere: it is very funny.

Everything about the saga unfolded with perfect, if inadvertent, comic timing.

Kerekere’s petulant comments about her colleague Chloe Swarbrick getting the limelight during the Greens’ mass membership list ranking vote, never mind that Swarbrick was getting attention only by virtue of advancing Green policy; the classic comedy of manners of a misdirected text to the wrong – and the worst possible – group chat.

Fellow MPs seemingly left aghast in the House after seeing 'very serious' texts that branded Chlöe Swarbrick a crybaby.

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The Oscar-worthy expressiveness of MP Golriz Ghahraman discovering the text while seated behind Swarbrick on Parliament TV; and the irony of an intentional redirection of the mishap to media.

Then, the coup de grâce, the calling of a formal inquiry over some weeks into the matter of whether one MP called another a “crybaby”.

It is darkly comic manoeuvring on par with the hit show Succession. Co-leader James Shaw, so often thrust into a father-figure role as Greens co-leader, could be forgiven for opening his next caucus meeting with the words of billionaire Logan Roy to his own scheming adult children: “I love you, but you’re not serious people.”

But then, Shaw is in many ways the opposite of the fictional Roy; he bears the weight of being the adult in the Greens’ caucus room, like a stooped but uncomplaining Atlas holding up the world. Rather than a tyrannical patriarch, he is more like a suburban dad, wearily heading off to work each day to pass historic bipartisan climate change legislation only to return home to teens telling him how lame he is.

Rather than oppressing his children like Roy, the long-suffering Shaw has been a victim of youth offending sufficiently frequently that he probably qualifies for government-funded bollards. And it’s all at the hands of his own party.

Last year, youth and university-based activists organised to see him fall short of the 75% threshold of support from delegates to confirm his co-leadership. However, there was no challenger for his vacated spot and he gained the support on a second attempt after what was described as a “constructive” series of meetings to re-engage with the membership.

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This year, however, Shaw abruptly stood aside from the Wellington Central electoral contest, having previously declared he would seek the nomination, in favour of impressive 20-something second-term local city councillor Tamatha Paul. Shaw’s gracious and self-effacing statement about creating space for a new generation of candidates modelled the kind of behaviour he would hope to see from his MPs.

Commentators have said that Kerekere’s errant text was no big deal, the kind of social faux pas that is at once both personally excruciating but ultimately trivial. Every party has backbiting and gossip, and personal ambitions. But in fact it will tell supporters and opponents alike something about its aspirations in election year.

It’s pat to say that the Greens have always held themselves up “to a higher standard of behaviour”, but it’s a line that is widely believed. Then-leader of the House Chris Hipkins said, at the end of this government’s first term in 2020, that the Greens were “to some extent, the conscience of the Labour Party in their work in this Parliament”.

What’s significant for the Greens, however, is not the delightful image of a cherubic James Shaw perched on Jacinda Ardern’s shoulder with a harp, telling her to ignore the tiny-horned Winston Peters prodding her with a miniature pitchfork and demanding tax breaks for the racing industry. What’s significant is how easy Ardern and now Hipkins have found brushing aside their self-proclaimed conscience when it suits their interests.

It’s also pat to say that the Greens are perennial doormats for Labour. This has certainly been true in the past, especially in their first-ever term in government when Labour abetted their routine humiliation at the hands of NZ First. (Peters would not acknowledge the Greens as part of his coalition government).

However, in 2020 the Greens eschewed their traditional sprawling in favour of a streamlined priorities document that could easily double as a list of demands for coalition: a signal from strategists and leadership that, in the absence of a “kingmaker” party like NZ First they would be prepared to call the shots to drag their larger partner left.

It was immaterial thanks to Labour’s outright majority. It looked immaterial again as Labour sleepwalked towards defeat last year. But the prospect of a third term in government is now around even odds, albeit with another “kingmaker” in the form of Te Pāti Māori.

If Shaw and Davidson are to play hardball with Labour in any potential coalition, let alone the wildcards of Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, they will have to start by playing hardball with their own underperforming MPs. The inquiry into Kerekere, who reports have suggested has something of a history with similar “infractions” towards staff, will show whether or not they are serious people.