Green Party elects Chlöe Swarbrick as new co-leader
Sunday, 10 March 2024
Chlöe Swarbrick is the new Green Party co-leader, alongside Marama Davidson.
She replaces James Shaw, who announced in January he was stepping down from the job.
Shaw will continue in Parliament for the time being.
The new Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick used her first speech in the role to chide what she calls “legacy politics”.
Swarbrick, 29, was widely expected to replace James Shaw as co-leader after he announced his impending resignation from politics in January.
She was confirmed in the role on Sunday morning after her only competitor, Alex Foulkes, conceded the race.
Speaking to media on Sunday, Swarbrick thanked party members for electing her to stand alongside Marama Davidson. She also paid tribute to Shaw.
“The Greens care a lot about whakapapa. We know that we stand on the shoulders of those who have come before us. We know, as the late great green Efeso Collins said, no one stands alone, no one succeeds alone, and no one suffers alone,” she said.
“James Shaw is one of those giants who have contributed decades to our movement.”
She condemned the “stitch up” that was legacy politics, represented by the Labour and National parties, that “limits the oxygen and the options that people need to imagine and, in turn, limiting real world results”.
The country voted for the MMP electoral system,in the 1990s to “break” a duopoly political system, she said.
And she attacked the “bully boy behaviour” of the National-coalition Government.
Watching the Government’s lawmaking in Parliament in recent weeks had been a “gaslighting” experience, she said, as it pursued an agenda “simply because it says that it will, despite actually evidence that says that it is going to make the country a worse place”.
“Now more than ever, Green Party values and our evidence-based policy positions are fundamentally critical,” she said.
Green Party members resoundingly voted for Swarbrick, winning 169 votes, while zero were cast for her competitor, and two votes were cast to re-open nominations for the position.
Swarbrick becomes co-leader alongside Davidson effective immediately. Shaw remains in Parliament for the time being, to support a Bill of Rights amendment bill through the parliamentary process.
Shaw said there was “no-one I would rather take my place”, and Davidson said it would be “fantastic” to have Swarbrick at her side “in the fight against this Government’s cold, cynical and cruel agenda”.