'Forged in fire': Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick on the Greens' challenging year

The Green Party caucus room is full of reminders of its history.

Rod Donald's trademark braces and briefcase are framed and hanging on the wall, as are the 2017 confidence and supply agreement and 2020 cooperation agreement that marked the Greens' six years in government.

Surrounded by history, at the end of her first year as co-leader, Chlöe Swarbrick talks up the party's evolution, her lofty goal of turning the Greens into the largest political force on the left, and reflects on a 2024 that has brought a laundry list of challenges.

"I feel incredibly proud of our team and how I think through some challenging times, we've really stuck by our values and continue to put the things that we really care about at the forefront, and also continue to hold this government's feet to the fire."

It is hard to know where to begin when asking about 2024. Not that the last few years have been routine reflections either.

In 2022, James Shaw spent time on the sidelines after being booted, [then was re-elected as co-leader.

In 2023, there was the investigation into, and subsequent resignation of, Elizabeth Kerekere - and a return to the opposition benches despite the Greens' best ever election result.

But 2024 is a different story.

Since the start of the year, the Greens have had to deal with the arrest and resignation of Golriz Ghahraman, the referral of Julie Anne Genter to the privileges committee for yelling at National's Matt Doocey, and the drawn-out saga of Darleen Tana that led to the Greens being the first party to use the party-hopping legislation, despite its previous opposition to the bill.

There was also a more predictable upheaval: Shaw's long-expected retirement and Swarbrick's smooth ascendancy to the co-leadership.

Then there were the two true gut punches. The things no party can prepare for.

The death of Fa'anānā Efeso Collins is something that still devastates the party and the wider Parliament.

And just three months into Swarbrick's co-leadership, fellow co-leader Marama Davidson announced she had breast cancer and would take time off for treatment.

Throughout the year, Swarbrick has turned the phrase "forged in fire" into a mantra.

"What's happened has happened. We can't change the past, and I'm not really one for regrets," Swarbrick says.

"I'm obviously one for looking back and understanding what's happened, reflecting and seeing what we can do to move forward constructively and productively and everything else. I think that we've learned a lot of things about how we hold ourselves during those really challenging times."

Nine months on from becoming co-leader, Swarbrick admits she had no idea what she would be stepping into.

"I asked James, I asked Marama, what it'd be like, and they were both like 'you don't really know until your hands are on the wheel.'"

She said her leadership style was to be "everybody's cheerleader" - to talk to her MPs about what they were deeply passionate about and support them to do it.

Growing pains

At the party's AGM in July, Swarbrick had to deliver both keynote speeches in Davidson's absence. She challenged members to turn the Greens into the dominant force of New Zealand's left, and the largest green movement in the world. To do that, members would have to go through some "growing pains" and have "hard conversations" outside themselves.

The AGM, and the question over whether to party-hop Tana, also exposed fractures within the membership, with three Pasifika members resigning from the party, alleging it had become 'culturally unsafe'.

While the vote to use the provision against Tana later passed with consensus, Swarbrick acknowledged the party had to work through its grievances.

"It's really important that when people do raise concerns, you take the time to sit with those," she said.

During his valedictory speech in May, Shaw urged MPs not to keep playing a tug-of-war over policy, and to build alliances.

Swarbrick has worked to build alliances outside Parliament with groups the Greens may not have considered 'natural allies', such as coal miners in the South Island.

While she has been able to find shared values in those conversations, inside Parliament it has been more difficult.

She says politics, both nationally and internationally, have become more hyper-partisan than she has ever seen in her lifetime.

"There are plenty of instances where we've done our absolute best to do that mahi across the aisle.

"But in terms of the very clear agenda from this government, when you're knowingly making political choices to shred progress on climate action, to increase the amount of climate-changing emissions which will exacerbate climate change-charged weather events which have devastated lives and livelihoods across this country, when you are knowingly making decisions to plunge tens of thousands more kids into poverty - friends don't let friends do that. That's not OK, that's not acceptable."

She says the government is relying on people becoming disenfranchised with politics and switching off entirely.

"We get the politics that we think we deserve, much like we get the love that we think we deserve. And I think right now the bar is too damn low."

Asked whether there is anything the government has done that she likes, Swarbrick praises its support for Green MP Teanau Tuiono's private member's bill, which restored citizenship to Samoans who had it stripped from them in the 1980s.

Anything else?

"I've spent a really long time trying to piece through what the government's actual strategy is here, because a lot of their policies and their rhetoric seem to be completely inconsistent, and all I can really come to is just power for its own sake. And that's an incredibly depressing realisation. We deserve so much better as a country."

The pointy end

Even with the home stretch of 2024 in sight, there are no plans to take the foot off the gas.

On Sunday, the Greens will release an alternative Emissions Reduction Plan.

Swarbrick, rejecting commentary that separates the party into 'Environmental Greens' and 'Social Justice Greens,' says the plan will showcase an economy that supports both people and the planet.

While Swarbrick is keen to highlight that the Green Party has been "at the pointy end of the spear" on some issues, there have been instances where it has worked to band together with the other two opposition parties.

The three parties have issued joint press releases on matters such as early childhood education and the Treaty Principles Bill. Swarbrick expects there will be more instances in the future.

"I think it's really clear that when so many of the things that New Zealanders care about are under attack, that more than ever it is crucial that the opposition shows where we are unified and where we do hold those values in common."

This year marks 25 years since the Greens were first elected to Parliament (while three MPs were elected in 1996, it was as part of the Alliance). While it may be hard to think of a year that brought as many challenges as 2024, Swarbrick's focus is on the future, on more organising and mobilising.

"I think that all human beings, and sorry to get philosophical on this, but all of us are shaped by the experiences we have had. So I would by lying if I was to tell you that I haven't been shaped by these experiences, but the shaping has been one of solidarity and genuinely of love for my caucus and for the people we serve."

And despite the tumultuous year, the Greens have consistently polled similar to the 11 percent they received at the 2023 election.

Not that Swarbrick has any interest in reading the tea leaves.

"Don't watch the polls. We are the polls."

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