Shoring up their best result in more than a decade the Greens won the battle, but lost the war
Early hope gave way to eventual reality at the Green Party campaign headquarters in Auckland on Saturday.
There was only 30 minutes between Chlöe Swarbrick and the co-leaders Marama Davidson and James Shaw arriving and fronting the crowd at The Lula Inn, but the poles apart messaging indicated just how quickly hope held by the left bloc faded as it became clear how much of the vote the right had swallowed. READ MORE: * Te Pāti Māori rolls Labour * Luxon claims victory: ‘Our children can grow up to live the lives they dream of’
“It's relatively early in the night, and this doesn't necessarily represent the entire Green Party, but what I would say is that convention is totally out the window as far as politics is concerned at this point in time.
“Who knows what's going to happen? It's anyone's game,” said Swarbrick just after 9pm.
With vote counting early in the evening showing Wellington Central’s Tamatha Paul well ahead for the win, Swarbrick in Auckland Central holding on to her seat, Julie Anne Genter well placed to take Rongotai, and Te Pāti Māori exceeding all expectations in the Māori electorates, the hope was still alive.
However, closer to 10pm reality had set in.
Co-leader James Shaw was heckled with booing and jeering by some in the crowd as he conceded the next government would be a National-led one.
“Our friends at the Labour Party are having a very tough night of it tonight. There are a lot of very good people who will not be back in Parliament next week and it has been our privilege to serve alongside you these last six years.
“The results are clear and I want to acknowledge Christopher Luxon and the National Party. It does look like there is a clear enough result for them to be able to form a government.”
In the same breath there was plenty for the Green Party to celebrate: two new electorates, four more MPs, holding an electorate seat for more than one term for the first time, growing their party vote to its highest proportion in a decade.
New Green MP Steve Abel, who narrowly missed out on coming to Parliament in 2020, described the result as a mix of emotions.
“It’s felt like a sort of four year job interview, but I'm super proud and humbled to represent the Greens."
At the 2020 election, Abel was ranked 11 on the Green Party's list. On election night, the party won enough votes to bring 10 MPs to Parliament.
“It's an incredible result and we've grown the number of MPs we have and we’re facing one of our best results so that's an incredible thing.”
However, he said the fact there would be a National-Act government had dampened spirits.
“I feel concerned for the country on the whole in terms of how much damage they can do, in terms of our climate and our environment, in terms of social inequity and lack of action on that. So I am concerned about that.
“We will certainly hold a National government to account and that's our role, and we will execute that role to the greatest of our ability. And we will make sure it's a one-term government … we will come back even stronger and make the Greens stronger still.”
Shaw made a plea to the new government, saying the campaign had “more than most” driven New Zealand apart.
“Now that the voters have had their say it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians, as political leaders, as human beings, to find a way to get past the rhetoric of the campaign, for the wounds to heal, and to come together in the national interest for the sake of all New Zealanders.”
“The needs of our planet, and our people are too important. They’re too urgent for the petty partisan bickering of the campaign to carry over.”
Recent polling had the Greens picked to take as much as 15 percent of the vote, but Saturday’s result has them closer to 11 percent. That may well increase when special votes are counted.
But Davidson said the result was as expected.
"Don't just take one or two polls, it was a trend, and so over the trend we've managed to land just under that. So it's about where things were sort of hitting so we accept that.”
She said the Greens were proud of the campaign they had run.
“We had a campaign where we were just going to stick to our vision, our principles and our values, and that's what we did and that is why we've managed to defy history while being really clear about what we stand for.
“We had a plan, we stuck to it, we got our priorities out there, we kept the ground campaign going, we stuck to the plan.”
Shaw defended the decision to run a candidate in the Mt Albert electorate, with Ricardo Menéndez March arguably chewing up a decent chunk of the left vote and leaving Labour’s Helen White neck and neck with National’s Melissa Lee.
“We went for seats where we thought we had a real chance, which are open seats with no incumbent … Now, that's obviously easier in places like Wellington Central and Rongotai, which are our two best party vote seats in the country, it was always going to be more of an uphill battle in Mt Albert but we're very proud of the work that Ricardo has done there.”
Menéndez March told Newsroom he would definitely be keen to give it another go in 2026.
