Visionary for a better kind of politics
Former Green MP Catherine Delahunty pays a personal tribute to Jeanette Fitzsimons.
On March 5 my friend and neighbour Jeanette Fitzsimons died suddenly. Her life was an example of principled leadership and human dignity, so it is difficult to summarise her contribution without mythologising a very real person. It is difficult to believe she is gone from our valley and our local community as well as from this world that so badly needs unflinching visionaries who hold true to their values.
I first met Jeanette and Harry in 1993 at Pakaraka farm on an autumn day, when the sun shone hard on their dry, steep hills. My partner had been one of her students at university, so we called in to visit them at the barn where they were camping until they built their house.
The aura of purpose and happiness was enviable, two people who had found each other and their place. Only later I realised their unity in a greater purpose, to build a Green Party with others, which would change our politics forever.
Jeanette was born in Mosgiel, and grew up there and in Waiuku. After several high schools, she went to Auckland University, graduating with a BA and a diploma of education. She was a talented violinist, with a passion for chamber music, which she maintained for her whole life.
She lived in Geneva from 1968 to 1974, raising her two sons Mark and Jeremy with her first husband, and dipping her toe into the emerging green politics of groups such as Friends of the Earth. She was indeed a friend of the Earth for all her days.
On returning to Aotearoa, she lectured at Auckland University in environmental topics, consulted on energy issues and joined key green groups. She signed up to the Values Party and began the political journey to being a first Green co-leader in Parliament with her much-loved colleague Rod Donald.
She and Rod were trailblazers who took the ideas, processes and policies thrashed out in the early years of the Values Party into the brand new Green Party. Central to this worldview was a change to the voting system, and Rod was a key leader in the successful MMP campaign in 1993.
Under this new system, the two Green leaders entered Parliament as list MPs, with Jeanette co-deputy of the Alliance in 1996. I think it would be fair to say that Jim Anderton and the two Green MPs were in the same boat for a while, but paddling in increasingly different directions. Jim was essentially an old guard, hierarchical, male politician, and the Greens were pushing for a new model of operating in politics, where internal party consensus was the first step to a more co-operative world.
By this time Jeanette had met and married Harry Parke, and these two organic farmers were nurturing the new Coromandel farm and the new Green Party. As an early party convener, Harry was as deeply engaged in the leadership as Jeanette, and has never wavered from his radical political support for her in her more public role.
The 1996-99 years were a hard, lonely effort for Jeanette and Rod, who developed a deep friendship and a thoroughly unhealthy work ethic. They were hardly ever back at the Wellington flat before 1am, because they carried the dreams of the Green movement, Rod with a fierce ambition to get the party into a good parliamentary position to make change, and Jeanette to advance a vision of finite growth and clean energy.
The Greens made a crucial decision in 1998 to contest the next election as an independent party. This was a highly successful step in their development, and the 1999 election was a high point as the two overworked co-leaders gained five more MPs.
Jeanette also made history as she won the Coromandel seat with a tiny margin, which secured the party a place in Parliament. The heady days of 1999 with Jeanette and Rod leading the first caucus seem so long ago. However, I believe it was a happy and exciting time for her as a leader.
Those years of confidence and supply with the Clark government were no picnic, but Jeanette demonstrated the value of her serene nature, dignity and values. She showed the world that you can turn down baubles of office in exchange for party independence, you can challenge larger parties in government on issues of principle (in this instance genetic engineering), you can be the ‘‘most trusted politician’’ while being ridiculed and attacked for your speeches.
Jeanette, more than any other Green MP, upheld the highest standards of personal behaviour in the toxic political arena. She was most proud of her work as government spokesperson for energy efficiency and conservation, and the existence of the EECA (Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority) is thanks to her leadership.
She was the true parliamentary champion of energy conservation, clean energy and addressing climate change, and the craftsperson behind many other Green environmental policies. She stood on the right side of history during the takutai moana (foreshore and seabed) debacle. Her articulation of the ‘‘doublehulled waka’’, a future based on Te Tiriti o Waitangi, was inspiring to activists like me.
When Rod died suddenly in November 2005, Jeanette experienced her darkest days. It was the end of their wonderful partnership, and for a while she had to lead alone. Usually so calm and measured, I saw for once her raw and terrible grief before she carried on with the work. She had an extreme sense of duty which drove her to the last day of her life. The work to be done came first.
To understand her vision and commitment to radical economic and environmental change you have only to read her speeches and writings. They show she wanted to be bolder and go further than parliamentary negotiations allowed. They show that leaving Parliament in 2010 gave her a sense of freedom to be utterly unequivocal.
She took on protest activism for the climate without missing a beat and without pushing her celebrity status. The last few years were tough as her health was not great and her struggle to be a farmer and activist conflicted with periods of illness.
I know from talking with my neighbour that she felt deep sorrow for the state of the world and the state of our politics, but also gained strength from her grandchildren and the many young people whom she encouraged.
Her scientific brain knew too well that we have poisoned our world for greed, but her legacy is more than that brain; it is the heart she always showed for people, and a radical vision we need more than ever. I look down the valley from my porch to the farm and I feel her absence, like the current and severe absence of refreshing rain.