Co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

The co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand are the dual highest-ranking members of the Green Party caucus, chosen by the party membership to represent the party. The current co-leaders are Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick.

Co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Type	Political party office
Formation	21 May 1995
First holder	Jeanette Fitzsimons Rod Donald
Website	https://www.greens.org.nz/

The co-leaders are elected for one year terms at Green Party annual general meetings (AGMs) or at leadership elections held to fill vacancies at other times. Incumbent co-leaders are required to be confirmed in their roles, and to meet a 75% threshold of support in a vote amongst members, at each AGM. Confirmation is usually a formality, although Russel Norman and James Shaw have defeated a challenger in this way in 2013 and 2021 respectively. In 2022, Shaw was briefly removed from the co-leadership due to only garnering 70% of the vote in the first round of voting, but was later re-elected.

Any member of the party can be a candidate for the co-leadership, even those that are not currently members of parliament, as long as they have five other party members willing to nominate them. From the creation of the roles in 1995 until May 2022, the party had a requirement that one co-leader be male and one co-leader be female. This was changed and now it is required that one co-leader be female and one co-leader be Māori. It is not required that these conditions be fulfilled by two different people.

The co-leaders comprise a quarter of the voting members on the Green Party's leadership team, known as Kaunihera (Council). The other members of the team consist of two Te Rōpū Pounamu kaiwhakahaere, two party co-convenors, and two policy co-convenors. The general manager of the party also sits as a non-voting member of the Kaunihera. The role of Kaunihera, as stated by the party's constitution, is to "...monitor the performance of the Party against the [party's] Charter, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Long-term Strategy [and] any other Party strategies supplementary to the Long-Term Strategy".

List of co-leaders

Co-leaders of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand

No.	Co-Leader	Portrait	Requirement	Electorate	List Placement		Term Start	Term End
1	Rod Donald (1957–2005)		Gender Male	List	10th (Alliance)	1996–1999	21 May 1995	6 November 2005†
					2nd	1999–2005
		Donald joined the Green Party in February 1994 after being the national spokesperson for the Electoral Reform Coalition, which was supporting the implementation of mixed-member proportional voting within New Zealand. He became co-leader in 1995 and entered parliament as an Alliance MP in 1996. Donald died in 2005 due to Campylobacter jejuni food poisoning.
1	Jeanette Fitzsimons (1945–2020)		Gender Female	List	3rd (Alliance)	1996–1999	21 May 1995	30 May 2009
				Coromandel	1st	1999–2002
				List		2002–2010
		Fitzsimons was involved in earlier environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth and the Environmental Defence Society. She joined the Values Party in the 1970s. She was a lecturer at the University of Auckland on environmental topics. The Values party would join other groups to form the Green Party, and the Green Party went on to join the Alliance, where Fitzsimons would be co-deputy leader. She became co-leader of the Green Party in 1995 and entered parliament as an Alliance MP in 1996. She won the party's first electorate when she won Coromandel in 1999.
3	Russel Norman (b. 1967)		Gender Male	List	10th	2008	3 June 2006	30 May 2015
					2nd	2008–2015
		Norman grew up in Brisbane, Australia. He moved to New Zealand in 1997 where he was involved with the Alliance, which was also the subject of his political science PhD. He would get involved with the Green Party's Waiheke Island branch, and was executive assistant to Green MP Sue Bradford. He was national campaign manager for the party for the 2005 election. He ran for and won the co-leadership after Donald's death. Norman listed his main achievements as "forcing the Government to back down on mining on Schedule 4 conservation land, and leading a referendum against asset sales".
4	Metiria Turei (b. 1970)		Gender Female	List	8th	2002–2005	30 May 2009	9 August 2017
					6th	2005–2008
					4th	2008–2011
					1st	2011–2017
		Turei had studied law at the University of Auckland and worked as a lawyer at Simpson Grierson prior to being elected from the Green Party list in 2002. She had previously stood in 1993 and 1999 for the McGillicuddy Serious Party and in 1996 for the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. In 2009 she was elected to be the new co-leader to replace Fitzsimons. Turei faced a scandal during the 2017 election when she admitted to benefit fraud; in the 1990s, she had withheld information from the Ministry of Social Development regarding receiving rent from flatmates. She later also admitted to electoral fraud; she had registered at a different address than the one she lived in at the time in order to vote for a friend. Turei resigned from the co-leadership before election day.
5	James Shaw (b. 1973)		Gender Male, Any Ethnicity Any (Pākehā)	List	12th	2014–2017	30 May 2015	10 March 2024
					1st	2017–2020
					2nd	2020–2024
		Shaw came from a corporate background, having worked in the consulting division of PwC and as a consultant at HSBC and the Akina foundation. Shaw has been described as representing the more environmentally focused, non-left side of the party. Shaw entered parliament in 2014, and when Norman resigned in 2015, Shaw put his name forward for, and won, the co-leadership. Shaw faced the 2017 election as the sole co-leader after Turei resigned following scandal. Following the election, Shaw was amongst the first Green Party Ministers, being appointed Minister of Statistics and Minister for Climate Change. The passing of the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act is regarded as Shaw's biggest achievement. He resigned following the 2023 election.
6	Marama Davidson (b. 1973)		Gender Female Ethnicity Māori	List	15th	2015–2017	8 April 2018	incumbent
					2nd	2017–2020
					1st	2020–present
		Davidson worked for the Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2012. She was ranked 15th on the Green list at the 2014 election and entered parliament after Norman resigned in 2015. Davidson was elected co-leader to replace Turei in 2018 after the 2017 election. Following the 2020 election, Davidson was appointed Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and also became Associate Minister of Housing.
7	Chlöe Swarbrick (b. 1994)		Gender Any (Female) Ethnicity Any (Pākehā)	List	7th	2017–2020	10 March 2024	incumbent
				Auckland Central	3rd	2020–present
		Swarbrick ran a high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful campaign in the 2016 Auckland mayoral election. In 2017, she joined the party and was elected to parliament as a list MP. Since entering parliament, she has been the party's spokesperson on drug reform. In 2018, she said in the House "OK boomer" to then opposition spokesperson for climate change, Todd Muller, which received some international attention. In the 2020 election, she successfully contested the race for Auckland Central. She maintained the seat in the 2023 election. In 2024, she succeeded Shaw as co-leader, as allowed by the 2022 co-leader requirement rule changes.

Timeline

See also

• Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party
• Leader of the New Zealand National Party
• Co-leaders of Te Pāti Māori
• Leader of ACT New Zealand
• Green politics
• Leaders of the Australian Greens

Footnotes

1. The party's Māori membership.
2. The Green Party requires certain identities be represented within the co-leadership. Before May 2022 the requirements were 1 male and 1 female co-leader. After May 2022 the requirements are 1 female co-leader and 1 Māori co-leader (these conditions don't have to be met by different people).
3. List placement sources