The former National Party leader pays tribute to his great pal from the Greens, a politician who paid more than lip service to the ideals of bipartisanship.
On September 23 2014 I found myself walking alongside a certain James Shaw at the welcome pōwhiri for new MPs in parliament. As the induction ceremony unfolded we found ourselves reacting with the same eye rolls and bemused chuckles to the whole boarding school feel of it. The dos and don’ts and various arcane rules of parliament were a far cry from the corporate life from which we had both emerged after years of concurrent professional and political activism.
On the face of it, given our differing political ideologies, we should have had little in common. But our corporate backgrounds and similar senses of humour created that initial connection. Our friendship grew over coffees and dinners as we privately shared our experiences navigating the promise and perils of a political career.
Like all friendships, trust and respect was at the core of our connection. Neither of us knew then how rare such a commodity is in politics, and how it would in its own way help shape New Zealand’s climate change journey.
James always had a flair for the pragmatic doable rather than endless debates about the potential perfect. But even so, he surprised me with his tilt for the leadership after just a few months as an MP. Waiting until it was “his turn” wasn’t for him. Instead he grabbed a chance to articulate his view that political success for the Greens was not sitting in eternal opposition giving fiery speeches, but actually being in government and getting stuff done.
There are others better placed to assess his performance as Green Party co-leader and whether their positioning on the hard left of our political spectrum is a long term strategic error, but in my view there should be no debate on James’ defining legacy as climate change minister.
The credit for the enduring political support for the Zero Carbon Act in no small way sits with James. The true test of bipartisanship is not only the willingness of an opposition to join the table but, critically, whether those who have power are genuinely willing to share it. This is what James drove. On climate change policy, he worked exceptionally hard to get prime minister Jacinda Ardern and leader of the opposition Simon Bridges to see the political value of creating an enduring framework that would avoid the cyclical and cynical erosion of day-to-day politics. There were many voices across the house who sought to derail the process because they saw short term political gain in opposing such a climate-orientated framework. Still, James persevered.
Our negotiation was unusual for the politics of our time. There was no “largely written” bill that I was consulted on at five minutes to midnight as often is the way when governments seek bipartisan support for legislation. Rather, it meant a lengthy series of weekly conversations that started with a whiteboard and a beer and ended with unanimous parliamentary support for the Zero Carbon Bill and the establishment of a Climate Commission, underpinned by targets and a series of five yearly carbon budgets.
Global politics seems to be backtracking from such constructive consensus. Instead it’s embracing a partisan and at times frankly toxic approach that inevitability leads to division, both in governments and in the communities they serve.
As a lover of US politics, I’m watching aghast as the great Washington democratic institutions and traditions continue to dissemble. Once, the “Lions of the Senate” and House representatives from both parties would come together to hammer out workable compromises on contentious legislation. Now, compromise is seen as a sell-out to one’s principles. More worryingly, as the language of politics becomes more pointed, society’s tolerance for the views of others seems to be dissolving. There is no bridging the divide; it’s all about making the divide as stark a chasm as possible to motivate your supporters to vote – more out of fear than aspiration.
This political phenomenon of unyielding populism has been supercharged by the economic and societal forces unleashed by the global response to Covid. It reflects a deep change in communities across the world who are fundamentally less trusting in institutions than before, be it parliaments, bureaucracy, the judiciary, the UN, the WHO or even the WTO.
It is a sobering backdrop to the retirement of a true political collaborator.
So as the sun sets on the political career of James Shaw, his example might give us pause to reflect on whether we can carve out our own uniquely New Zealand approach to this global tumult.
In that spirit, I humbly suggest there is room for more collaboration across the House. It’s common political wisdom in New Zealand that bipartisanship is only pursued to remove an acute political vulnerability. But if you accept that political civility can help New Zealand through the tough challenges that lay in front of us, then it follows that more collaboration can only help ease that journey.
Why stop at the Zero Carbon Act and the traditional bipartisan approach to national security? What other political conundrums would benefit from more tolerance, respect and trust across the house? Now, more than ever, we need the very best of our parliamentarians on these issues, not just the best in one’s own party. The stakes are high and only getting more so.
James Shaw’s political career shows it can be done.
Todd Muller is a former leader of the NZ National Party and the co-host of the US politics podcast What’s the Story, Old Glory?