bulletin-Chloe-Swarbrick_ForTheGreens-850×510.jpg

The BulletinDecember 9, 2024

The Greens try and rev up the climate debate

The Bulletin editor
bulletin-Chloe-Swarbrick_ForTheGreens-850×510.jpg
newsletter

It’s been a tough year for the opposition party. Now, it has its sights set on 2025 and beyond, writes Stewart Sowman-Lund for The Bulletin.

To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

An alternative emissions reduction plan

We’ve talked a bit lately about what the two major parties have been up to, so this morning let’s turn our attention to the Greens. Yesterday, the party unveiled a new alternative emissions reduction plan it claims would more than double climate change efforts through until 2030. As Stuff’s Glenn McConnell reported, the He Ara Anamata proposal would achieve a 35% reduction in net emissions by 2030 and a 47% reduction by 2035, exceeding the plans outlined by the coalition. Agriculture would be brought into the Emissions Trading Scheme earlier, after the government announced this would be delayed until at least the end of the decade. The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias looked at the implications of keeping agriculture out of the ETS in this piece earlier in the year, noting that experts said this would impact New Zealand’s climate commitments – especially those under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The Greens have also proposed a new Ministry of Green Works to create thousands of new jobs, upgrades to the Auckland to Wellington train line and the return of the former government’s clean car discount (the so-called “ute tax”) that was scrapped by the coalition.

Comfortable territory for the Greens

It’s refreshing to see the Greens back in green mode after what has been an admittedly tough year for the party, not always through any fault of its own. In October, Toby Manhire listed the Greens as one of the many “losers” from the first year post-election 2023 arguing they had failed to capitalise on the many anti-green actions taken by the coalition. “The government is unabashedly cutting taxes and public sector jobs, embracing roads, oil and gas, targeting blind frogs called Freddy and flirting with culture wars. It’s hard to imagine a more fertile territory for the Greens, especially when you chuck a pedestrian Labour Party into the mix.”

Speaking to RNZ’s Giles Dexter, Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick reflected on the many challenges the party has faced in 2024 – from scandals involving Golriz Ghahraman and Darleen Tana, through to tragedies like the death of Efeso Collins and Marama Davidson’s cancer diagnosis. “What’s happened has happened. We can’t change the past, and I’m not really one for regrets,” Swarbrick said. “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.”

Swarbrick, in an interview with Bridie Witton for Stuff, wouldn’t commit to sticking around in politics beyond 2026.

The Greens in 2025

More Reading

Since becoming co-leader in March, Swarbrick has pledged to turn the Greens into the largest political force on the left, overtaking Labour. Polling would suggest this remains an ambitious goal, though Swarbrick told the Herald’s Adam Pearse that polls aren’t everything. “Look, there’s a reason that whenever I’m asked about polls, I say that it feels like reading the tea leaves,” Swarbrick said. “I think what you’ll see in 2025 is a Green Party that is actively working with and building trust in communities, including those that are historically, potentially those that people might not assume that we would have those relationships with and you will see us slowly start to build power.” As an aside, we’re due a new TVNZ poll tonight.

In an opinion piece for The Spinoff after last year’s election, contributor Ollie Neas suggested that the Greens have a “Labour problem” – namely, that unless Labour veers further to the left, “the Greens have little hope of winning the radical changes that are central to their vision”. Under Chris Hipkins as opposition leader, it appears the party could be moving away from the centre more than in recent years. The party has on a few occasions now joined forces with both the Greens and Te Pāti Māori to issue a unified opposition perspective, pitting the left bloc against the current government’s trio of right-leaning parties. Hipkins, however, told the Herald’s Audrey Young late last year (paywalled) that he didn’t believe his party would be forced to shift further to the left. “I find that kind of idea that people vote on a left-right spectrum a bit frustrating because they don’t,” he said.

A strong platform

The backdrop for the Greens’ new emissions plan is a series of decisions by the coalition that the opposition views as damaging for our climate commitments. Just last week, RNZ’s Eloise Gibson reported that the oil and gas lobby had asked the government to underwrite the risk of fossil fuel exploration, with the government considering its options. Gibson also reported that the government was mulling whether to lower the country’s 2050 methane emissions target (while the independent Climate Change Commission argued it should be strengthened even further). It has given the Greens, in particular, a strong platform to campaign on over the next couple of years. In a piece this morning, Newsroom Pro’s Marc Daalder (paywalled) argues that the Greens’ alternative emissions plan could serve as a way for a substantive debate on climate that “focuses on policies and impacts, rather than targets or the necessity of action” and could encourage other parties to also issue their own plans. Watch this space.

Keep going!
bulletin-charter-schools-v-1-850×510.jpg

The BulletinDecember 6, 2024

The imminent return of charter schools

The Bulletin editor
bulletin-charter-schools-v-1-850×510.jpg
newsletter

Without political consensus across the parliament, are we at risk of playing ‘ping pong’ with education? Stewart Sowman-Lund explains for The Bulletin.

To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.

Charter schools are on the way (again)

The return of charter schools is just around the corner, with associate education minister David Seymour confirming yesterday that five new schools will open in the new year (on top of the one already announced). As The Press reported, it includes a second for Canterbury – Christchurch North College, to cater for children disengaged from the mainstream education system – while three will open in Auckland. It includes a French school, Ecole Francaise Internationale, and the Busy school, part of an Australian chain.

Seymour has been a long time proponent for charter schools, having shepherded them into existence a first time as part of the John Key government. They were ultimately scrapped by Labour, with the 12 existing charter schools transitioned into state integrated schools. Seymour led a protest against the closures through Auckland Central at the time. But it was only a matter of time before they returned and ultimately it was a key tenet of Act’s election campaign and inked into the coalition agreement with National.

Back up a bit, what’s all this?

If you’ve heard the words “charter school” but don’t really know what means, don’t worry. The Spinoff’s Shanti Mathias prepared this helpful explainer earlier in the year. In short, charter schools, like standard state schools, are funded by the government and free for New Zealand citizens and permanent residents to attend. However, explained Mathias, while state schools must follow a standard New Zealand curriculum, employ qualified teachers, be governed by a school board and be held accountable to the Crown with their role determined by legislation, charter schools have more flexibility. That includes total discretion with how to use provided funding and the ability to set their own curriculum (so long as they still achieve set learning objectives). Yes, that means they’re exempt from the government’s own phone in schools ban.

There are valid arguments on both sides of the debate. Advocates endorse the less fixed options that come from being a charter school, while those opposed say it would be better to raise funding across the board – more on that below.

Politics at play

The road to charter schools return has been paved with some potholes. Labour has already promised to ditch the scheme yet again should it be elected in 2026, potentially meaning these new schools could last just a couple of years before being shuttered. “Labour has got rid of these before, and we will get rid of them again, because they are bad for young people and bad for their learning,” former education minister Jan Tinetti told Q+A. “We will be looking at legal advice around that, but we will get rid of charter schools.” In much the same way both sides of the aisle criticise one another for undoing each other’s infrastructure projects, you’d have to wonder whether re-undoing an education programme is the most worthwhile political move.

In comments to Newsroom back in 2017, at the same time the last Labour government was looking to ditch charter schools, advocate Alwyn Poole criticised those in power for playing “political ping pong” when it came to education. “Someone stands up in parliament and says ‘we will shut them’ – but there are now 420 children that are in our schools. If you talked about shutting down 420 children in state schools, you’d have people on the street with pickets”.

This time around, Poole has had his four applications for new charter schools rejected, reported Stuff’s Steve Kilgallon. He has argued the process for selection was unfair and is considering launching a judicial review.

Privatisation by stealth?

In an interesting piece for The Conversation, a pair of university education professors considered whether the current coalition government was rapidly moving to allow private business interests in public education. That included, they said, the move to reintroduce charter schools. “International experiences with charter schools… demonstrate how they survive or fail at the whims of private funders who can withdraw at any time,” the experts said. They also argued that updates to the New Zealand curriculum, including structure approaches to literacy and maths, will mean schools having to dip into their own budgets to access private resources or train up staff. “Instead, New Zealand needs to be investing in public education for everyone, leaving private education and resources to those who want to pay for it themselves,” the professors argued.

Earlier this year, teachers unions criticised the government for a lack of investment in staff while $153m was being funnelled into charter schools. That money could pay a further 700 full time teacher aides to make “a huge difference in the classroom for ākonga and their teachers,” said Liam Rutherford, a teacher and executive member of NZEI Te Riu Roa. The Post Primary Teachers’ Association has cheekily launched its own online campaign with the domain name “charterschools.co.nz” arguing against the government’s reintroduction of charter schools and also claiming it is designed to “privatise the public education system”.