Episode description
Episode description
In this week's Focus on Politics, Political Reporter Giles Dexter speaks with Chlöe Swarbrick after the Green Party's AGM about the challenge she gave members to go through some growing pains, and the ongoing fallout of the Darleen Tana party-hopping saga.
"We are going through growing pains, I think that we are needing to constantly look at ourselves" - Chlöe Swarbrick
The Green Party is trying to find ways to grow for the future, while doing its best to leave this year's problems in the past.
That laundry list of challenges has been thoroughly aired - but the membership still faces a crucial question that goes to the heart of its values, and could yet prove a barrier to its ambitions.
Political parties' annual meetings are meant to be straightforward. The leader does a speech, members agree on remits, tidy up constitutional niggles, and discuss strategy for the year ahead before spilling out of the venue inspired and ready to spread the word.
Unlike the Green Party's AGM in Christchurch last weekend, they don't typically include member resignations.
Three Pasifika members walked out on the party on the Sunday, saying they felt culturally unsafe, and the rush to kick Tana out was over concerns about the party's budget, not her alleged behaviour.
Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick speaks to RNZ about what went down, and what she has planned to turn the party into the world's largest Green movement - if they can just get rid of the Darleen Tana-shaped thorn in their side…