Chloe Swarbrick: Co-Leader of the Green Party and Auckland Central MP

Most people I talk to are sick and tired of politics. That makes sense. All around the world, and here at home, it feels like the people who are supposed to be serving in the interests of the greater good are serving themselves.

 

One of the most important things to understand, though, is that this problem only gets worse when regular people switch off. For decades, we’ve seen a feedback loop of reducing political engagement, which results in reducing accountability, meaning less action on the things regular people care about, which tends to entail even less engagement, generating less accountability, less action on the things people want – and so on it goes.

 

We need a fusebreaker. No one is coming to save us. New Zealanders are going to have to do this for ourselves.

 

We need a new kind of coalition.

 

I’m not talking about the boring, circular talk-back talk of which politician will negotiate with which.

 

I’m talking about New Zealanders coming together with a common, intentional idea of who we are as a country, and where we want to go.

 

This is why I’ve always loved election campaigns. While the media tends to presidentialise the process into a narrow ‘which Chris is going to be Prime Minister’ question, the real opportunity exists in the few months where the most possible people in our city and our country are actively engaged in the question of what we want to achieve together, as New Zealanders. It’s our chance to change everything.

 

This election, as always, I will be giving my all to reminding you, your family, friends and our community that we don’t have to accept the way that things are. Politics belongs to those who turn up.

 

While May heralded Music Month, Writer’s Festival and Comedy Festival, breathing life into our city with creativity and vibrancy, Luxon’s Government delivered a Budget that cut Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage funding by $27 million.

 

This Government preaches there’s ‘no magic money’ tree to justify cutting housing support, in turn creating the largest homelessness our country has literally ever seen on record, then pushes through law to criminalise the people they made homeless, then announces half a billion to expand prison capacity. I guess that’s their housing strategy. Even if you’re not a bleeding-heart leftie, you can surely see that this approach burns our collective resources to get worse and worse outcomes.

 

The Government can find that magic money tree when they want to. They’re pumping billions of our money into new fossil fuel production, tax cuts, and meeting Trump’s request to spend up large on new military equipment.

 

We can instead build real, long-term safety, security and social cohesion. We can build our country, instead of shredding it.

 

Treasury’s Budget Economic and Fiscal Update warned of serious vulnerability in our economy with the dependence on fossil fuels. It has never made more sense to urgently scale up renewable energy production to lower household bills and build our sovereignty.

 

For decades, politicians have promised that if we pursue ‘growth’ at all costs, it will magically trickle down. Our economy is now larger than it’s ever been, but economic rules mean fewer and fewer people are benefitting from that as more and more people struggle.

 

We can choose instead to use our collective resources to grow and protect the things we need and care about.

 

In contrast, at the beginning of 2025, Luxon’s Government directed NZ Post to “run a profitable business, focus resources and control costs.” It resulted in two rounds of Post Office closures. The first took away our Three Lamps Post Shop. The second is stripping services from 132 local businesses, including the iconic Lambs’ Pharmacy on Karangahape Rd. We’ve fought this every step of the way, but this Government’s mind is made up.

 

We don’t know what we’ve got til it’s gone. This election year, if politics is doing your head in, please know that you have the power to change it. It starts with regular people agreeing on the basic non-negotiables that make our country what it is – that’s an impossible-to-beat and ignore coalition.