Tu Ingrate Vireta!* Stabbing The Green Caesar.

Struck Down: As James Shaw saved the pure Greens from themselves in 2017, they resented him. As he secured the Climate Change portfolio for his party, they suspected him. As he achieved cross-party support for crucial climate change legislation, they condemned him. And, as he was white, and male, and straight, and admired by a clear majority of Green Party members – as well, unforgivably, as the Prime Minister herself – they slew him with 29 daggers.

WHAT ARE THE GREENS telling us when they allow 29 people to overrule the wishes of 71 people? In essence, they are telling us that, in their political party, minorities count for more than majorities. Or, to put it more bluntly, the Greens are telling us they do not believe in democracy.

For those who look back fondly on the co-leadership of Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons, the Greens’ antipathy to democracy will be hard to accept. The Green Party they remember seemed very much a party of human rights and freedom, and its consensus-based decision-making process struck many as the epitome of political inclusiveness. Masking the fact that making decisions this way  actually disempowers people, stands among Rod’s and Jeanette’s most important contributions to the Green Party’s electoral viability.

How much harder it would have been for their party to crest the 5 percent threshold if Rod and Jeanette had openly repudiated traditional democratic decision-making processes. “We believe in allowing minorities to overrule majorities” is hardly an election-winning slogan!

The Greens’ anti-democratic instincts constitute one of the more important reasons why they have never allowed themselves to become a mass party with tens-of-thousands of members. And it’s odd, isn’t it, that they haven’t? When you think of the huge numbers of young people eager to do all they can to rescue the planet from disaster; or the scientists desperate to make themselves heard; or the workers keen to stop contributing to the despoilation of the natural environment; it’s astonishing that the Greens are not, far-and-away, New Zealand’s largest political party.

What is it, then, that leads the Greens to believe – like Lenin’s Bolsheviks – that “fewer, but better” is the way to go? The answer is brutally simple: a mass party, in which everyone has an equal say, and policy reflects the will of the majority; is a party whose ideological purity will very soon be compromised, and its political priorities side-tracked, by people with “unacceptable” ideas. Bluntly, Ecologism and Populism do not mix.

Those who join the Greens do not enter an open party, with simple, practical structures, but a strangely opaque organisation whose rules and rulers are hard to find and difficult to understand. It is a party of initiates who assess, rather than welcome, newcomers. How likely are these newbies to measure-up to the ideological and procedural strictures of the Greens? Will they be disruptive? Will they challenge the party’s precepts? Are they racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, and/or Islamophobes? Do they know what it means to be te Tiriti centric? Are they familiar with the jargon and buzz-words of the contemporary Left? What are their pronouns?

How many meetings will an ordinary person, keen to fight climate change, attend before people of indeterminate gender, with purple hair, talking menacingly of heteronormative white privilege, convince them that it might be wiser, and more enjoyable, to be a Green Party member who “works from home”. One? Two? Assuming, of course, they don’t decide they’d be better off getting involved in some other – any other – political party?

Fewer, but better?

Even the saintly Jeanette Fitzsimons had her Leninist side. I well recall an old time ecologist, one of those who fought to “Save Manapouri”, approaching me with a bitter tale of intolerance and exclusion. Unconvinced by Catherine Delahunty’s interpretation of the te Tiriti o Waitangi and its meaning, this Green Party member had argued for a more nuanced Treaty policy. Fatal mistake. When he put his name forward for the Party List he was informed bluntly by Jeanette that his views on the Treaty made him unfit to carry the Green banner into an election. His name was not even allowed to go forward to be ranked by the members – lest a lifetime of contributions to environmental politics prompted too many of them to overlook his “racism”.

To be accepted into the body of the Green Church, one must be willing and able to recite its catechism word perfect – and without demur.

This is the critical political weakness of the Greens – their unwillingness to repose the ultimate determinative power of their movement in the collective judgement of their party’s members. In the inner sanctum of the Green temple burn four torches: Ecological Wisdom, Social Responsibility, Appropriate Decision-Making, and Non-Violence. Their sacred flames are tended by priests and priestesses whose manner of induction remains mysterious, but whose powers extend even to striking down a co-leader, should his dedication to the party’s guiding lights be deemed insufficient.

As James Shaw saved these pure Greens from themselves in 2017, they resented him. As he secured the Climate Change portfolio for his party, they suspected him. As he achieved cross-party support for crucial climate change legislation, they condemned him. And, as he was white, and male, and straight, and admired by a clear majority of Green Party members – as well, unforgivably, as the Prime Minister herself – they slew him with 29 daggers.

And the 71 daggers, whose owners supported this Green Caesar, were powerless to defend him.

Because, whatever else the Greens may be – they are not democrats.

* You ungrateful Greens!

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 28 July 2022.

The Greens’ Minority Rules.

Poll Axed: What happened to James Shaw on Saturday, 23 July 2022 exposed the Greens’ minoritarian political culture for all to see. Once voters grasp the enormity of 30 percent of Green delegates to the Green AGM being constitutionally empowered to overrule the wishes of the 70 percent of delegates backing Shaw – an overwhelming majority – the party faces electoral death.

PERHAPS THE GREATEST SERVICE Jeanette Fitzsimons and Rod Donald rendered the Greens was making New Zealanders believe they were democrats. Their engaging personalities and considerable political skills masked the fact that Green politics has never been (and likely never will be) democratic. The whole ethos of the Green movement, here and overseas, is minoritarian. By concealing that fact, Jeanette and Rod made the Greens electorally viable.

What happened to James Shaw on Saturday, 23 July 2022, however, has exposed the Greens’ minoritarian political culture for all to see. Once voters grasp the enormity of 30 percent of Green delegates to the Green AGM being constitutionally empowered to overrule the wishes of the 70 percent of delegates backing Shaw – an overwhelming majority – the party faces electoral death.

But, why minoritarianism? Partly, the Greens loathing of majorities is attributable to the social milieu out of which the green movement arose, but mostly it is based on their unshakeable conviction that their view of the world is the only correct view, and that, unfortunately, most of the human species are simply too stupid to recognise the fact. Greens are elitists – and proud of it.

If challenged on this point, the Greens will point out that they were the ones who first recognised the existential threat posed by climate change – and that was long before the mainstream parties were even willing to fully acknowledge its reality. They will remind us that it was the Greens who first recognised how seriously corporate mendacity had compromised the fruits of genetic engineering. Who, they will demand, were the first to elect co-leaders and make their party te Tiriti centric? The list goes on and on. As Rod Donald was fond of reminding New Zealanders: The Greens are not on the Left, the Greens are not on the Right. The Greens are out in front.”

All very well and good – until the seers and prophets responsible for this farsighted vanguardism are presented with the practical difficulties of running a political party aspiring to electoral viability. At that point it becomes necessary to find a way to prevent the purity of the party’s principles and policies from being forced to endure the lowest-common-denominator arbitration inherent in the crude majoritarianism of democratic decision-making.

The Greens’ solution to this problem was the adoption of “consensus-based” decision-making. Superficially, this sounded super-democratic. Rather than allow 51 percent of the party to dominate the remaining 49 percent, the Greens would do all within their power to ensure that their principles and policies enjoyed the broadest possible agreement.

Few voters, however, bothered to follow the logic of the Greens’ argument right through. If they had, it would very soon have become obvious that “consensus-based” decision-making allows the faction composed of the party leadership and its hangers-on to exercise a veto over the party’s ultimate direction. Unwilling to embarrass or challenge the people in charge, party delegates could be prevailed upon to delay, postpone, or simply compromise out of all recognition, proposals supported by a clear majority of the membership.

Should the veto-wielding minority prove intransigent, however, constitutional provision was made for the blocking of consensus to be over-ridden by a supermajority vote of 75 percent + 1. Turn that around, of course, and you have conferred veto powers on 25 percent + 1 of the members and their delegates.

This is hardly a recipe for genuine consensus, more a guarantee of simmering resentments and ceaseless factional manoeuvring. It is also, presumably, the reason why the constitutional provision which laid James Shaw’s hopes low on Saturday was approved. If a minority leadership clique could exercise its veto over the wishes of the rank-and-file majority, then it was only fair that a rank-and-file minority of just 25 percent + 1 could negate the unopposed candidacy of an incumbent co-leader with upwards of 70 percent membership support.

That a constitution permitting such antics was entirely unsuited to a political party seeking genuine political influence – up to and including Cabinet positions – does not appear to have occurred to either the people who drafted it, or the members who voted for it.

What it does point to, however, is a party unwilling to embrace the brute realities of parliamentary politics. There is absolutely no point in making its MPs available for Cabinet posts, if a quarter of a party’s members are resolutely opposed to its MPs engaging in the delicate business of building cross-party support, accepting the compromises inherent in coalition politics, negotiating in good faith with those interest groups most directly affected by proposed policy changes, and otherwise engaging in the “art of the possible” that is democratic politics.

It is simply astonishing that James Shaw, who has demonstrated considerable political skill in securing the support of four out of the five parliamentary parties for the Government’s climate change legislation, could be treated so appallingly by an intransigent minority of the Greens’ membership for doing precisely what 70 percent of the party asked him to do.

Nor is it just the abusive conduct directed against Shaw personally that is astonishing. Even worse is the message sent by the 30 percent of delegates who voted to re-open his nomination. Clearly, they are not in the least bit concerned what the rest of the country makes of their actions. The single most important lesson of party politics: that disunity is death; has failed to sink in.

With most of Shaw’s opponents supposedly located in the “Youth Wing” of the Greens, it must be assumed that the example of the Alliance is too far in the past to offer these children any guide as to what happens to a small political party which very publicly attacks its leader and then proceeds to tear itself apart.

And it simply will not do to explain away the self-destructive character of their decision by referencing the anger and despair of the generations destined to endure the worst effects of global warming. If the urgency of the climate crisis has already passed beyond the capacity of parliamentary politics-as-usual, then come out honestly and say so. Let the Greens’ Youth Wing put it to their party membership that there must be no more coalitions, no more compromises, no more democracy. Let them ask the electorate instead for the equivalent of wartime powers to fight the greatest threat to human survival since the last Ice Age.

They should be prepared, however, for considerably more of the Greens’ membership than 25 percent to reject such a policy. More importantly, they should be prepared for something pretty close to 75 percent of the New Zealand electorate to signal their willingness to stand up and fight for democracy.

If the only reason “the Greens are out in front” is because nobody else is willing to go anywhere near them, then Rod Donald’s bold assertion is no longer a boast – it’s an epitaph.

This essay was originally posted on the Interest.co.nz website on Monday 25 July 2022.