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I don’t think James Shaw has managed to fix this problem that he has created.
He is clearly struggling to find a solution and so far that solution appears to be reclassifying the $ 12 million for Green School not as a grant but as a loan. But that is not going to solve much.
Because it doesn’t really matter what you call it, a grant or a loan or fairy dust, the fact is that it is money that is still allocated to the Green School. Which means it is not available to other schools that need it more desperately.
And it doesn’t really matter whether, as Shaw argues, this comes from the infrastructure boat or the education boat. In the end, it all comes from the taxpayers’ pot and if you take out $ 12 million to give to the wacky school, you don’t have it at all. This is called the opportunity cost.
Therefore, this attempt to change the terms of the agreement will probably not completely placate the unions, the teachers or the schools, who will see a private glass school built for children from wealthy families while other Taranaki children are teaches in damp classrooms.
But that’s not really James Shaw’s biggest problem right now. His biggest problem is what he has done to this party ahead of already difficult elections.
The Greens were already fighting hard to get the 5% needed to get them back in parliament. They have lost voters to Labor as it has overtaken them with measures such as a ban on oil and gas. Jacinda Ardern’s popularity makes it difficult to win back those voters. And now they are being drowned out by covid-19 like most other small parties.
This only makes it that much more difficult for them. Until now, he had been confident that it didn’t really matter too much where the Greens were voting. In the night, I thought, their supporters would come back en masse to save them. But now, you must ask yourself if those followers believe they deserve to be saved.
This isn’t like the Metiria Turei benefits fraud since the 2017 election when they plummeted in the polls, but supporters saved them anyway. Many of those supporters supported Metiria Turei’s position on principle. However, this goes against their principles.
You almost have to feel sorry for James Shaw. Imagine being the guy who made a tough choice to survive that much harder. In the worst case, imagine if he’s the guy who made a mistake big enough to lose his place in parliament to the Greens.
