The big political news of the day is James Shaw's resignation as Green co-leader. It was expected: his refusal to contest Wellington Central clearly signalled that he was planning to leave Parliament if Labour lost the election, and the change in government was the time to go. And with the Greens winning a record vote last election, there's a good depth of talent there to replace him.
Shaw's big success as a Minister was getting the Zero Carbon Act over the line. His big failure was failing to get agriculture into the ETS and make our biggest polluters pay their fair share of the damage they do. That failure was forced by Labour's cowardice, which is Shaw's Ministerial career in a nutshell: trying to do the right thing and being constantly undermined by a partner who just didn't grasp the seriousness of the problem, didn't care, or thought they could PR their way out of it, as if an existential crisis could be handled by their usual lies and bullshit. I'm not trying to paint Shaw as a radical here, but I credit him with at least recognising what needs to be done. He didn't always do the best job in presenting that to Labour - too much pre-watering-down to try and get their agreement (again, see agriculture) - but at least he tried. And events over e.g. the ETS proved him right again and again.
(And now we have a climate minister who doesn't care about the climate, doesn't recognise what needs to be done, and isn't interested in actually trying to keep us all alive. And we are going to notice it in policy, and in disasters. You have been warned...)
Shaw will stay in Parliament to push his member's bill to put the environment in the BORA (something I expect National to vote down out of pure spite). And then he'll finally escape. Which is good: Parliament is a toxic environment which ruins people, and its good for people to get out before they are institutionalised into it. There's a lot of other good work which can be done outside of the hellmouth - possibly better, more effective work - and I look forward to seeing what he will do next.
