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James Shaw’s decision to approve funding for the Taranaki Green School is not Shaw’s issue, but “a project design issue,” says one political commentator.
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The question-and-answer panel discusses the Green Party’s public reaction against the ready-to-use funding announcement. Source: Q + A
Public relations consultant and former national government press secretary Ben Thomas told TVNZ1’s Q + A that he believed that “Shaw is a victim of the process.”
Thomas said that due to the large number of funding requests for out-of-the-box projects, “you just can’t do due diligence on those projects.”
He said it was unfair to accuse Shaw of hypocrisy because the Green School project met all the established criteria.
“The criteria did not include ‘Do you think it is worth planting crystals in the middle of the Taranaki?’
“That’s a project design issue, not a James Shaw issue,” Thomas said.
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It comes after days of political pressure on James Shaw after he supported a nearly $ 12 million push to help Taranaki’s green school. Source: 1 NEWS
Also on the panel, trade unionist and former deputy Laila Harré said that her instinct was that the saga “would not be very significant for their [the Green Party’s] public support ”on Election Day.
However, he said it made Shaw appear “disconnected from the party’s kaupapa social justice.”
As for the public’s reaction by Green Party members against Shaw’s decision, he said: “No one outside likes to see disunity or thinks that’s a good thing.”
“People make a mistake using that [social media] against his own party. ”
Check out their entire conversation in the video above.