Climate Change Minister and Green MP James Shaw has promised to “redouble” his efforts and fight the next election if party members reappoint him as co-leader.
Shaw on Monday said he would again run for the co-leader position, after speaking with MPs and members on Sunday. He failed to be re-elected at the party’s annual meeting on Saturday, to his and his co-leader Marama Davidson’s surprise.
“It is still clear that we have a lot more work to do. We have people all over the country who are struggling to make ends meet. Wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. We have companies that are planning to mine on conservation land. We have students who cannot afford to eat, we still have children going hungry,” he said.
“So as long as those challenges exist, Aotearoa needs the Green Party more than ever. Whilst we still have those problems, my job is not done.”
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Shaw would not confirm whether he had the backing of all 10 MPs in the party’s caucus, saying they should be able to speak for themselves. He had spoken with all the MPs on Sunday night.
The vote will now take place within the next five weeks. At this stage no other candidates have emerged to publicly challenge Shaw.
Shaw’s leadership position came up for grabs after he failed to gain support of 75% of the party’s members at its annual general meeting at the weekend.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Green MP and Climate Change Minister James Shaw finds himself fighting for the party’s leadership again after being voted out on the weekend.
MONIQUE FORD/Stuff
Green Party leader Marama Davidson, with fellow MP James Shaw on the tiles at Parliament on Saturday.
Under the rules, co-leaders face re-election by 75% of the party every year. In the lead up to this year’s vote, far left members within the party, unhappy with Shaw’s leadership, had been lobbying to unseat him.
Shaw said he took the membership vote which ousted him from the co-leadership “seriously”.
“It shows how much our members care about the work that we do. And that has only made me more determined than ever to fight for the action that we need.
“If I am successful, I will redouble my efforts and push for bold action on climate change, to heal our native wildlife, and to end poverty.”
He said the party was polling at its highest since Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was elected leader of the Labour Party. The party has been in Government with Labour for five years, under different agreements.
But, he said, he joined members’ in their frustrations that “we have not yet gone as far as we could or as fast as we should”.
“The machinery of government is glacially slow, and as yet does not match the speed or the scale of the climate crisis. The solution to that is to get more Green MPs into parliament, and for us to exert more pressure on the next Government.”
Yet he defended his record as climate change minister.
“I believe that the things that I have done as climate change minister have dramatically outweighed anything that we’ve done on climate change over the course of the last three- or four-decades.
“The fact that we now have an enduring settlement on the direction of climate change policy is historic. We’re one of the only countries in the world that has got the 1.5 degrees temperature threshold baked into our primary legislation.”
Regarding Auckland Central MP Chlöe Swarbrick, who has been raised by political commentators and journalists as a possible contender for the party’s leadership in the future, Shaw said she was a “astonishing political talent” and it was her choice to contest if she wanted.
Shaw will continue as climate minister regardless of whether he returns to the co-leadership position, as he has the full backing of Ardern.