Politics Blog - January 30

The Green Party has the potential and the capacity for leading government, Chlöe Swarbrick says.

"We are not a party of tinkering. We are a party of transformation."

There was immense frustration in the community "with tinkering when they were promised transformation".

"Only the Greens can be trusted to continue to push for, and to win concrete gains on that necessary transformation," Swarbrick said.

Asked if Labour was no longer the voice of the left, Swarbrick said she was not there to talk on behalf of the Labour Party.

She had felt during the 2023 campaign that the "rhetoric of transformation was met with the reality of tinkering".

"That is not good enough."

The Green Party represented the "now necessarily radical transformation".

Her focus was to work with Greens co-leader Marama Davidson to "build our movement, to get us into a position where we have the capacity to negotiate to form that government".