James Shaw is playing down expectations he'll move the Green Party closer to National, saying it would be impossible for the two parties to form a "functional coalition".
The first-term MP won the co-leadership over veteran Kevin Hague by promising to expand the Greens' appeal to 'bluegreen' voters – people sympathetic to the Green cause, but wary of their economic credentials and who feel National is a safer bet.
"We know that there are a lot of people who connect with the Green Party, but have just still got a couple of reservations that are holding them back," he said on TV3's Paul Henry programme this morning.
"My job is to overcome those reservations."
But despite his business background – he's worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers and HSBC – Mr Shaw won't be cuddling up to the Government. Today he'll get his first shot at Prime Minister John Key in the House as co-leader.
"I have asked him questions before… so I feel like I'm ready to go," says Mr Shaw.
"Today I'm going to be asking him something around the kind of challenge that I set down on Saturday, which is, is he prepared to try and build a cross-party consensus on climate change? It's too important for… petty politics."
He says to expect a different approach to his predecessor Russel Norman.
"Rabid dog is not really my nature. You have to have strength, you've got to kind of have some spine and I think that I've got that. But I'm not a great believer in the Punch and Judy show, and I think it really turns off most voters. I want to take a different tack."
That doesn't mean tacking away from Labour to the right, however. Mr Shaw says despite the Greens' ultimate goal of getting into Parliament, it's unlikely to happen alongside National.
"I just can't see how it would work – we're so far away from each other on key economic, environmental and social issues that I just don't think it would be a functional coalition."
And Prime Minister John Key doesn't think a coalition or memorandum of understand would be likely anyway.
"Over the weekend James Shaw seemed to make it perfectly clear there might have been a change of leader, but no change of approach when it comes to National," Mr Key said.
"They're not looking to work with National in Government, they are opposed to the Government, so a [memorandum of understanding] wouldn't take you very far with a party that doesn't want to have a credible future with you."
However, that didn't mean the Government couldn't work with the Greens on certain issues like it has done in the past, he said.
Mr Key wished Mr Shaw the best, and said it was "a pretty crowded space" in Opposition.
"I'll just be treating him like I treat everyone in Parliament who asks a question – with respect – and we'll see how it goes."
Mr Hague, in his third term in Parliament, was seen as the safer pair of hands for the Greens. Mr Shaw says there's no hard feelings between the two.
"Kevin and I are actually quite good friends, and we've spent more time in each other's company over the last 12 weeks than we have with our own families, so we've got a really strong relationship.
"We both knew that in the last couple of weeks the numbers were really tight, so we actually knew that it could have gone either way on Saturday. We were both prepared for both eventualities."
Mr Hague will be taking a break following the lengthy battle, as will fellow defeated candidate Gareth Hughes.
3 News
source: newshub archive
