The Greens try and rev up the climate debate

It's been a tough year for the opposition party. Now, it has its sights set on 2025 and beyond.

Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Monday, December 9.

In today’s edition: David Seymour’s own Ministry of Regulation has recommended against his new bill to slash red tape, Auckland’s new alcohol rules come into effect, and we start our look back at The Spinoff’s biggest and best stories from 2024. But first, The Greens have released an alternative emissions reduction plan.

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

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.

The future of The Spinoff depends on its audience

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Anti-red tape ministry advises against anti-red tape bill

David Seymour’s own Ministry of Regulation has recommended against his new bill to slash red tape, reports Andrea Vance for The Post. A proposed new law, the fourth put forward since 2007 to address the quality of regulation, was included in the coalition agreement between National and Act. But the anti-red tape ministry also established by the coalition has argued it’s unnecessary and work should instead be focused on strengthening an existing regime from legislation passed in 2019. Seymour has rejected this advice, telling The Post: “The bureaucracy has opposed laws restricting their right to poke around in New Zealanders’ lives for 20 years, since the original Regulatory Responsibility Bill was introduced.”

Green Party public service spokesperson Francisco Hernandez said that if Seymour didn’t think advice from his own department was credible, he should shut it down. Earlier this year it was revealed the new ministry picked up a $30m budget boost at the same time other agencies were being forced to make cuts.

Best of 2024: Email signoffs, ranked from worst to best

As we race towards the end of the year, it’s time to take a look back at some of the biggest and best Spinoff stories from 2024. This morning: Madeleine Chapman’s ranking of email signoffs first published on January 19.

The Spinoff ranking is a time honoured tradition and no one is better at it than our editor, Mad Chapman. This piece is always relevant but is probably worth saving up for the new year when it will be time to clear your inbox and start sending emails again. Here’s an extract:

10. [no signoff]

I kind of love a no-sign-off email, especially when it’s short. I unfortunately have an obnoxiously large default email signature but a lot of my emails are short enough to be text messages. And in that instance, why not format it like one? Sadly I often forget about my big signature and go for the [no signoff] and end up with [just my name]. Embarrassing! But no signoff generally means short emails and short emails are the best emails.

9. Warm regards

As much as I dislike the word “regards”, if you have to use it, lighten it up by making it warm.

8. Ngā mihi

Ngā mihi is a classic and works in pretty much any context. Unfortunately I have seen way too many copy-pasted macrons where the ā is a different font (aka The Stink A) for it to go any higher on this list. Hot tip: Ctrl + Shift + V will paste text without formatting and save you from becoming a ngā mihi.

The Year in Review at Q Theatre in Auckland

After a sold-out night in Wellington, senior writer Anna Rawhiti-Connell will again take a running jump backward into the year’s biggest headlines, political dramas and Spinoff yarns at Q Theatre on December 11. Award-winning writer and podcaster Dr Emma Wehipeihana and Spinoff alum Hayden Donnell will join her live on stage.

Come along for a night of easy laughs to wrap up this crazy year.

Click and Collect

• RNZ’s data wiz Farah Hancock charts the government’s progress against its own key targets.

• Auckland councillor Josephine Bartley explains the city’s new local alcohol rules that are in place from today.

• The public release of investigations into Manurewa Marae’s alleged misuse of personal data are tentatively slated for Thursday, writes Andrea Vance who first broke the story.

• Racing minister Winston Peters wants to bring in legislation to extend the TAB's current monopoly over sports and racing betting to also cover online betting.

• We’ve talked about in-store card surcharges in The Bulletin before. Newsroom’s Alice Peacock reports that consumers have been hit with $90m in fees over the last year.

• Christian Hoff-Nielsen, the partner of former Green MP Darleen Tana, is under investigation for allegedly running his new bike rental company illegally outside a public library and on the Waiheke Island ferry wharf.

• In sport, Stuff breaks down the records already picked up by Auckland FC.

Right now on The Spinoff

For his latest Windbag column, Joel MacManus asks: Did Te Rauparaha really drink at the Thistle Inn? Kasey McDonnell explains why climate-friendly housing is becoming unliveable. Lyric Waiwiri-Smith reviews Ngahuia Murphy’s stunning pink book, Intuitive Ritual. Forty years since the Queen Street riot, Gabi Lardies asks people who were there what happened. TVNZ sports commentator and writer Scotty Stevenson looks back on his life in TV. Ngāti Hine historian and producer Mokotron shares his perfect weekend playlist.

That’s it for another day. Thanks for reading and see you back here tomorrow.

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