If a Green Party candidate could win an electorate seat in November, it would be massive insurance against the possibility of falling below 5% at the 2020 election, leaving the Greens out of parliament completely.
Swarbrick is a highly intelligent and articulate young woman who, as spokesperson for cannabis reform, handles media interviews superbly with a keen sense of the 30-second sound bite. This has given her quite a public profile. Of course, she also lit up the city during her campaign for the mayoralty in 2016. A 22-year-old securing 30,000 votes was unheard of.
I suggested to Chloe that an electorate MP must be more than a one-trick pony, and she agreed, pointing out that Green MPs carry a number of portfolios. Her interests and involvements have included tertiary education, mental health, small business, broadcasting, the environment, local government and the arts. She is also the Green Party Musterer (Whip) and Caucus Strategist, regularly engaged in constructive dialogue across the aisle with the likes of Gerry Brownlee and Chris Hipkins.
Swarbrick has a double degree – one in law and one in philosophy. She is definitely a thinker, even calling herself a ‘pointy headed wonk’, and an ‘idealist’, but also, she asserts, ‘very practical’. Interestingly, she said among her favourite people to talk to were those who think they disagree with her.
An important part of her campaign in Auckland Central will be “engaging with people and ensuring communities actively participate in issues, therefore owning their solutions.”
Perhaps she detected a feeling that I thought she doesn’t listen enough when she told me, “All the policy of the 2016 local body campaign was borne of community engagement. I still actively run all my social media channels and public events to facilitate genuine dialogue and feedback. Nobody from out of nowhere gets the privilege of representing New Zealanders if they think they know it all. Frankly, any politician who pretends they do is either lying to themselves or completely lacking self awareness.” She is committed to meeting as many residents as possible during the campaign, through both door knocking and cottage meetings.
There are advantages in a seat like Auckland Central for a young woman like Chloe Swarbrick – a young demographic, thousands of students at the University of Auckland and AUT. As a young apartment dweller without a car, Swarbrick knows personally about the need for better public transport and affordable housing. She links housing with transport, education (eg, school zones), the environment, cycle ways, amenity values, all as part of a complex web of integration in a world-class city. She says we would do well to follow some overseas trends and seek their fitness for purpose locally, such as Sweden and Switzerland, where strong unions protect people instead of defunct jobs in the ever-evolving gig economy.
However, there are three flies that I see in the ointment when discussing the future of Auckland Central. The first is that many, or most, of those thousands of students in Central Auckland are not enrolled in Auckland Central.
The second is that Auckland Central has been steadily gentrifying over the last 20 years, making it a more solid National seat. And the third issue is the incumbent Nikki Kaye. Kaye will seek a fifth term as MP, and she has become solidly entrenched. Kaye is one of the better local MPs I have known in many years, and she looks after her constituents very well. I have said somewhat frivolously that even if God herself stood for Auckland Central, she could not beat Nikki Kaye. Of course, no one is unbeatable and history can tell of unexpected victories.
And those comments leave out the question of Labour’s intentions for Auckland Central. The bright and effervescent Helen White could well spoil Chloe Swarbrick’s party by again splitting the centre-left vote.
Chloe Swarbrick is undaunted by the challenge. She has quiet confidence “no one is entitled to anything when it comes to the House of Representatives; resting on one’s laurels can speak to a lack of passion and energy”— but is up for the effort.
Kaye is on the liberal end of the National caucus, with strong environmental interests, but she does have to follow the party line which could hardly be described as liberal. I once urged her to cross the floor on an environmental issue and vote against her party. She demured. Still, Chloe will have her work cut out to persuade voters to abandon Kaye and put their faith in climate change action, public transport, more affordable housing, forging a more equal society than neo-liberalism has provided, and the free market has delivered, in the last 30 years.
I know that Nikki Kaye loves her electorate and will be up for the fight. Bring it on. (JOHN ELLIOTT)
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