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Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Marama Davidson said she was focused on political survival.
The Green Party is “right on the line” of returning to Parliament and “very focused” on surviving, says co-leader Marama Davidson.
Davidson was speaking with students at the University of Victoria in Wellington on Thursday as the election campaign heats up and the Greens struggle to gain ground against a people’s Labor Party.
A student asked how the Green Party would maintain political independence if it entered a formal coalition with the Labor Party after the election, rather than the trust and supply agreement it currently has.
Davidson said this was a real concern for small parties when they joined the government, noting the experience of the Maori Party, which was expelled from Parliament after supporting a government led by the country.
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He said that political independence would remain no matter what, but his focus was to get back in.
“We are on the line right now,” Davidson said, referring to the 5 percent threshold that parties must meet to enter Parliament without winning an electorate seat.
“I’m very focused on trying to survive the election right now.”
The Green Party faced more than a week of bad headlines over co-leader James Shaw’s decision to push for infrastructure funding for a private Green School in Taranaki, contrary to the party’s policy against private schools.
Shaw profusely apologized for the matter, but a UMR corporate poll, conducted during the height of the controversy between August 25 and September 2, suggested that it had seriously affected the party.
The Greens were at 3.2 percent in the poll, after being above 5 in almost every other poll for the period.
Meanwhile, job support remained high at 53 percent, while National lagged 29 percent, ACT rose to 6.2 percent, and NZ First fell to 3.9 percent.
If those results were repeated on Election Day, the Greens would leave Parliament, and even if the party returned, the Labor Party would have a majority, meaning it would not need the partners to rule.
Davidson reassured the students about any agreement with Labor.
“It is absolutely a priority for the Greens to maintain political independence,” Davidson said.
He was asked if he thought Auckland Central Labor candidate Helen White should step aside in the race, where the Green Party’s Chloe Swarbrick is running a campaign for seats.
If Swarbrick were to win the seat, the Greens would be guaranteed re-entry into Parliament with multiple MPs, even if their party’s vote fell below 5 percent.
White, on the other hand, is highly likely to make the party’s roster, whether he wins the seat or not.
Davidson said he doesn’t think anyone should “step aside.”
He mentioned there was another “option,” presumably some kind of nod from Labor for its voters to support Swarbrick, but did not elaborate.
