A look inside the policy and pronouncements of this weekend’s Green Party AGM, from Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.
The last parliamentary party to throw its big annual event, the Green Party used its AGM in South Auckland this weekend to unveil its full election manifesto and campaign slogan. As reported by RNZ’s Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira, the 43-page, member-developed document covers a mix of previously announced commitments with some new policy, focusing on climate, democracy, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, tax and technology. Co-leader Marama Davidson said it captured issues needing attention “now and over the next three years,” including taxing the wealthy and large corporations to fund public services and a nationalised energy company.
The party also revealed its slogan, “For All of Us,” which co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick described as extending beyond existing supporters to people the party doesn’t know, and “even those we don’t like”.
A packed room and a pointed subtext
The Spinoff’s Hayden Donnell was there, and suggested the Greens are trying to position themselves as the natural home for voters abandoning the two major parties – many of whom are instead drifting toward NZ First or Opportunity. While noting the AGM’s crowd, at AUT’s south Auckland campus, was younger and the room fuller than at NZ First’s recent launch, he noted a recent poll showing Green support down to 9%, raising doubts about whether voters will reward the party’s pitch.
According to Donnell, Swarbrick spent much of her time on stage leaning into the party’s three-decade history, invoking its 2005 “Buy Kiwi Made” campaign to argue the Greens represent authentic “New Zealand first” values, and needling Act’s new recruit Paul Henry over his nostalgia for a bygone “aspirational” New Zealand, saying that era was underpinned by higher taxes and a stronger welfare state. Davidson, meanwhile, alluded to Opportunity without naming it, suggesting the Greens had championed ideas like solar power and energy resilience long before newer parties took them up.
“The current political environment should be a Green dream come true,” he writes. “Incrementalism is loosening its headlock on our nation. Centrists are fleeing left and right, abandoning their red and blue teams in search of real change. But instead of heading to what’s arguably their natural homes, many of the disillusioned voters are jumping into the arms of Peters or Qiulae Wong”.
A pause, at least, on AI data centre consents
Within that broader launch, the one substantive new policy announcement was a proposed one-year moratorium on new AI data centre consents. As outlined by The Post’s Henry Cooke, Swarbrick argued the pause would let the country establish rules before allowing more facilities to be built, noting current consent can happen without community input and that overseas experience has seen similar projects strain water supplies and increase power prices.
The party defines an “AI data centre” as one using 50 megawatts or more – about 1% of national demand. Swarbrick pointed to the already consented Datagrid facility in Southland, expected to draw roughly 6% of the country’s total electricity supply, as evidence of the scale involved. Christopher Luxon dismissed the framing as “alarmist,” arguing data centres are important to the economy and that future developments should bring “additionality” to the power system.
Calling for change in political tone
Stuff’s Isaac Davison covered the AGM’s tenor as well, focusing on the Greens’ use of the occasion to call for an end to “bloodsport politics” – part of the same broader push to present the party as pragmatic and unifying rather than combative, consistent with the unifying “For All of Us” messaging launched at the event.
Read alongside the other coverage, this framing suggests the Greens are attempting a dual pitch: substantive policy specifics like the data centre pause, wrapped in a softer, more conciliatory tone aimed at winning over disillusioned voters (whether they’re coming from the red, blue, black, pink or maybe even teal side of things) rather than just rallying the already deep green.
