Greens are in damage control and leader leader James Shaw continues to copy flak for his decision to approve a $11.7 million grant to a private green school, which is contrary to longstanding Green Party policy (see Greens under fire for $11m private school funding).
But in an apparent attempt in trying to mitigate “creating a mess right at this time at the start of an election campaign” Shaw has said that a number of decisions made were “made in haste” and “not high quality”.
Stuff: James Shaw apologises for school decision, saying he wouldn’t do it again
He said that the speed of the process had resulted in some poor decisions.
“I have to say I’m unimpressed with the whole decision-making process,” Shaw said, referencing the speed with which decisions were made.
“There were a number of decisions that weren’t high quality decisions, that were made in haste to support the country during a crisis,” he said.
I wonder if Shaw will elaborate on which of the other funding decisions have not been high quality.
More from Shaw on the private school decision:
The grant to the Green School in Taranaki from the $3 billion “shovel-ready” projects fund was made alongside ministers from other parties, and in his capacity as associate finance minister, rather than Green co-leader, but Shaw told members that wasn’t good enough.
“I want to apologise to you and the wider Green Party whānau for creating a mess right at this time at the start of an election campaign”.
“I want to apologise for the decision itself. If I was in the same position again I wouldn’t make the same decision”.
I’m sure he wouldn’t make the same decision knowing what a hypocrisy mess he has created for the Greens.
“We are working to fix it,” Shaw said.
“We entered this in good faith, we can’t simply say we’d dump it. It would ultimately be unfair to the other side and be exposed to legal risk”.
Nevertheless, members were told there would be a wider public apology and “resolution” sometime next week.
It would certainly be unfair to withdraw funding already decided on.
But what other sort of fix or resolution is possible? Labour are not offering any help.
Newshub: Multi-million dollar funding for private Green School in Taranaki going ahead despite backlash
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said on Thursday the funding was not something he would have prioritised for the education sector and said the funding for Green School was something the Greens wanted.
“Ultimately, that was something the Green Party advocated quite strongly for and so it was one of their wins, if you like, out of the shovel-ready projects area. It’s not necessarily a project that I would’ve prioritised.”
Finance Minister Grant Robertson confirmed on Friday the funding will still go ahead despite the backlash because he believes the Government should keep its word.
“I can understand that there are people who perhaps don’t like it or would rather the decision was changed. But I think the Government’s got to act in good faith here with an applicant and so I’ve got no intention to do that,” Robertson said.
Robertson said the funding was signed off as part of 150 shovel-ready projects the Government approved to help stimulate the economy. He said the funding is separate from the funding that goes to the education sector.
I wonder how many of those 150 signed off projects are not high quality in addition to Shaw’s big mistake?
More on Shaw’s decision.
Luke Malpass (Stuff): Hypocrisy, thy colour is Green
Hypocrisy, thy colour is Green.
Or, perhaps more specifically, thy name is James Shaw.
It’s almost a quarter of the money set aside for the Climate Change Commission that Shaw specifically mentioned in his 2019 Budget speech.
The leader of the Green Party, which purports publicly to be the party of the downtrodden and dispossessed, has inadvertently revealed itself for what many think it actually is – a party that mostly serves well-heeled Kiwis in secure and well-paid employment that care about the environment, climate change and want to go cycling and tramping on the weekend.
Stuff understands that the school’s proposal for funding was originally rejected by both the Treasury and the Cabinet committee of the Government’s economic development ministers.
The school incident shows Shaw is just as prepared as NZ First is to wring money out of the Government for pet projects. Now, even worse, Shaw is trying to get the Government to revoke the cash it has already committed to the school. Talk about principles.
It is almost inexplicable that Shaw thought this was a good idea on political grounds, or justifiable on equity grounds. Even the idea that this “creates jobs” also looks dubious. At best, it substitutes one set of jobs for another, as much of the employment will be temporary and go to builders and contractors.
This decision will be an albatross around Shaw’s neck for the rest of his career, which has been carefully built around being an unthreatening, pragmatic Green with integrity.
It’s going be tough for the Greens to keep their support above the 5% threshold after this faux pas from the hapless Shaw.