James Shaw during his valedictory speech on Wednesday. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Former Green Party co-leader and Minister for Climate Change James Shaw has bowed out of Parliament, and has already revealed details of what he is doing next.
Shaw has delivered his valedictory speech to Parliament, and said he believed while the single greatest lever for change was in the world of politics, the second was in the world of finance.
Shortly after his speech wrapped up, it was revealed Shaw would join global infrastructure management company Morrison from July, and take on a director role at new investment management company Greenbridge Capital Management.
He is also joining Air New Zealand's Sustainability Advisory Panel and the board of the World Wide Fund for Nature New Zealand.
In his speech, Shaw said he was setting himself a five-year mission to reduce or remove 150 million tonnes of climate pollution from global emissions by 2030 (which is also New Zealand's Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement).
"Getting Cabinet to commit to that target almost led to my resignation, so I feel I have some responsibility for it. Whether the Government will be able to claim any of it towards our Paris target will really come down to whether it gets the policy settings right," he said.
He told his successor as Minister for Climate Change, Simon Watts, that "last one to 150 million tonnes buys the drinks"
Shaw entered Parliament in 2014, becoming co-leader just eight months later, replacing the retiring Russel Norman.
In 2017, he had to lead the party into the election alone, following the resignation of Metiria Turei. Her position had become unentable after admitting to historic benefit fraud, and enrolling to vote at an address she did not live in.
"One night during the 2017 election campaign I was so exhausted that I swallowed my tongue in my sleep. I woke up on the floor, on my hands and knees, choking it back up. That was a difficult campaign," he said.
Shaw praised Turei's warmth, courage, and tenacity.
"You deserved far better than you got."
Like many valedictories, Shaw's speech was full of thank-you's to family, friends, colleagues, and staff.
"Marama, we are the only people who know what it's like to be us. Thank you for your partnership, your leadership and for teaching me so much these last six years. Chlöe, I am so proud of you and so excited to see where you and Marama lead the Greens into the future," he told the new co-leadership team of Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick.
Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick share a moment during Shaw's valedictory. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Shaw, saying he had made more friends than enemies in Parliament at a ratio of three-to-one, signalled out three friends outside the Greens in particular.
"I'm a liberal leftie from Aro Valley, so if you asked me at the start of my career, who I thought I would become close friends with, my first pick wouldn't be a Catholic conservative from Tauranga," referring to Todd Muller, who worked with Shaw to ensure the Zero Carbon Act was enduring and bipartisan.
The other two friends he singled out were Grant Robertson, and Dame Jacinda Ardern.
"In my experience he is one of the most decent, principled and thoughtful people I have ever met and the most talented politician of my generation," he said of Robertson.
Shaw said he was profoundly grateful Dame Jacinda had appointed him climate change minister, a role he asked her for.
"Serving in Jacinda Ardern's government was the privilege of my lifetime. She is a woman of humility, service, intelligence and integrity. And, she also deserves far better treatment than she has been receiving."
Shaw said his time as minister included the country's worst terrorist attack, a deadly volcanic eruption, a global pandemic, and fatal floods and cyclones.
"One of the reasons successive governments have never really dealt with climate change is that they're so busy dealing with the fiasco du jour they end up kicking the can of the really big, long-term challenges down the road," he said.
But he said the most urgent crisis was the biodiversity crisis.
Observing that New Zealand has the highest species extinction rate in the world, Shaw said he would "haunt" the Prime Minister if the National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity was unwound. It drew applause and cheers from the Green caucus and the public gallery.
Shaw's oft-repeated commitment was to lead the Greens into government and "safely out the other side".
Following the 2023 result, which saw the Greens return with its largest ever caucus but on the opposition benches, meant his resignation and retirement was only a matter of time.
He said the Greens now have more Māori in the caucus than the total number of Māori MPs they have had prior to this one. Under his co-leadership, they have brought in their first two Pasifika MPs, first Vietnamese MP, first Chinese MP, and his replacement from the list will be the Greens' first Filipino MP.
"The Greens now look more like contemporary New Zealand than we ever have before. Whether all these things happened because of me, rather than in spite of me, they did happen on my watch. And in my entirely objective and unbiased assessment, the Greens are now in better shape than we have ever been," he said.
The speech ended with a warning that ideals and vision had become endangered species in Parliament, and it was becoming a place where "our future is consumed rather than created"
He said politicians were giving swing voters the things they wanted today, by borrowing from tomorrow, and that most issues defaulted to a tug-of-war over policy differences.
"It's possible for hard-working, well-meaning people to strive for change their entire career but accomplish very little - because there's always someone else pulling just as hard in the other direction.
"My message to this House is that if you take positions that are lateral to that tug-of-war, those entrenched debates, and you build alliances across them you can radically shift the political centre in your own direction - because no one is resisting you. And where I did, it worked."
Warning New Zealand against collapsing into "climate culture wars" and partisanship, he still praised the Prime Minister for ensuring the Zero Carbon Act, the Climate Change Commission, emissions targets, the 2030 target under the Paris Agreement, and the 2050 net-zero targets have "seemed to" survive the change of government. Christopher Luxon was present in the House for Shaw's speech.
Shaw said the word "legacy" made him nervous, as the politics and policy of climate change was not about him or any of the politicians in the room, but about people who will not be born for decades.
"A legacy is not a career, or a brand, or even a set of laws. The only true legacy we can leave is to cherish the world we've been given and to bequeath a better one for our descendants. Civilisations become great, when old men plant trees.That is the only way any of us will ever create anything that lasts beyond our time, in this House - or on this Earth.
"Everyone we care about. Everything we argue about. Happens, here, on what Carl Sagan calls, "this pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known". Look after it."
The public gallery sang Amazing Grace in te reo and English at the speech's conclusion.
