Departing Hughes vents frustrations
The Green Party’s longest serving MP is retiring at the next election, and says the Government has not been ‘‘transformational’’.
Gareth Hughes, 38, is retiring after a decade in politics to get some years in with his two children before they grow up.
Hughes’ children are 9 and 12, old enough to realise their dad often leaves for work before they get up and returns after they get home, or is constantly on his phone when he is there. His mother died earlier this year, causing him step back and think.
‘‘If I do another term, my eldest will be 16 and he won’t really want to hang out with me anyway,’’ Hughes laughed as he shared his plans with Stuff.
Hughes is going out proud, and firmly believes the Green Party will return to Parliament at the election, as well as Government. Over his one term in Government, he was a key figure pushing for the ban on new oil and gas exploration, and in opposition he won a ban on shark finning. But he is also frustrated that the pace of change has not matched the problems facing the country and globe – climate change and rising inequality.
‘‘Across my 10 years here, things have actually got worse. Emissions have increased, we are still losing 100 million tonnes of topsoil every year – our most precious resource. Homelessness is growing,’’ Hughes says.
‘‘I don’t think the Government has been transformational.
‘‘There has been pockets of transformation but I don’t think historians are going to look back at it and say this was a turning point on the scale of the 1930s or 1980s.
‘‘And I think that is desperately needed. It is a disappointment that we are not seeing the change I think we need. As a father, I am desperately worried about the future of the world.’’
He said New Zealand needed a change on the scale of those revolutions – the first Labour government creating the welfare state and the fourth tearing it apart.
‘‘As I reflect across 20 years of activism, I realise that I have spent 20 years winning campaigns but each one is kind of like chopping off the head of the hydra. There is always another equally important campaign right behind it. I have spent 20 years fighting the symptoms, not the source.’’
Hughes said it was key the Greens pushed the country towards an economic system able to properly fight climate change. ‘‘Our ambitions have to match the scale of the emergency.’’