While Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is heralding the stability of the deal with the Greens, three former Green Party MPs including a former co-leader have expressed their disappointment with the agreement.
Ardern and deputy Kelvin Davis, along with Green Party co-leaders James Shaw and Marama Davidson, signed a cooperation agreement earlier today that gives the Greens ministerial portfolios outside of Cabinet.
Shaw will remain as the Minister of Climate Change and will also become an associate minister for the environment. Davidson will hold the new prevention of family and sexual violence portfolio and associate housing.
“For us this cooperation agreement represents the relationship that the Labour Party and the Green party have formed over the last three years and the continuation of that,” Ardern said.
According to a former Greens co-leader says the deal means the party is at the mercy of Labour on key issues.
“The challenge for the Greens is that with no policy gains at all in this agreement they're very much hostage to whatever Labour wants to do on climate change and biodiversity,” former co-leader Russel Norman said.
Labour's majority meant it offered just enough and not too much.
“What we're really proud about and what 85 per cent of the member delegates voted for was an agreement that is the best of both worlds that is a win-win situation for the Green Party,” co-leader Marama Davidson said.
The deal leaves the party weak and essentially gags its co-leaders, according to former MP Sue Bradford.
“The Green party members and MPs are so grateful for what they've got and this is what stuns me that even experienced members of Parliament much less the new ones do not seem to understand how weak their position is,” Bradford said.
"They've just had three years of compromising in a weak position, they are now in a much weaker position than the previous three years and they're still compromising," she said.
Another former MP also disagrees and believes the party should've walked away.
“I want a radical push against Labour's centrism and that does not happen by staying inside the tent,” Catherine Delahunty said.
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