What's the OCR? Three of four Green leadership contenders fumble quiz on basic economics

Watch the interview part 1 here and part 2 here.

Three out of four Greens co-leader candidates failed to answer economic questions on the official cash rate, economic growth, unemployment rate and inflation during a debate on TV3's The Nation today. Only James Shaw got close.
 
Kevin Hague called for GCSB to be shut down and New Zealand to pull out of the Five Eyes spying agreement. He said there would be no economic damage. Gareth Hughes wants out of Five Eyes but backs “New Zealand having domestic intelligence abilities.”

Kevin Hague said interest rates are too high. Vernon Tava said they’re not.
 
Gareth Hughes backs the Greens' superannuation policy but calls for a “discussion” on retirement age and compulsory super. He also wants super tax for those earning over $1 million.
 
The candidates also had differing views on relationship with National, from Mr Hughes' view that a coalition is “unfathomable” to Mr Tava's that the Greens “need to be able to work with both.”

Speaking of unfathomable, Mr Shaw and Mr Tava support “wild law” that calls for “personhood” rights for “ecological features”. Mr Hague says that stance, does seem a little bit odd to me, I must say.”

Even a favourite animal question produced discord.

Mr Tava plumped for the Maui dolphin, Mr Shaw for the whale and Mr Hague the weka.

Mr Hughes, in a rare moment of political savvy, replied "My dog, Joe."

Current co-leader Russel Norman is retiring at the Greens' party conference in May, when his replacement will be decided.

The party's rules require a male leader replace him. Its constitution requires one female leader and one male leader.

Recent polls have Labour back over 30% under front-foot new leader Andrew Little, while the Greens have slipped back.

RAW DATA: TV3/The Nation transcript: Green Party co-leader candidates Kevin Hague, Gareth Hughes, James Shaw and Vernon Tava debate, hosted by Lisa Owen.

Lisa Owen: This morning I’m joined by Gareth Hughes, Kevin Hague, James Shaw and Vernon Tava. I want to start with you, Kevin. Tell me in one sentence, under your leadership, what will the Greens look like?
Kevin Hague: The Greens will be a bigger party and will be in government. I’ve been the caucus strategist for six years, working alongside Metiria and Russel, and I want to carry us through to the next stage, which is into government so we can actually implement our policies for the first time.
The Greens are fighting for relevance here. Have you got enough of the mongrel in you for that fight?
Hague: I don’t think we are fighting for relevance. I think we’ve had six years, perhaps longer, of actually doing things pretty well. What we need to do is fine-tune that strategy and take it to the next level. In terms of mongrel, I’m the person who took on the Government over ACC, over Pike River, and we actually achieved some pretty decent reform out of those fights.
James Shaw, imagine you’re the leader; what does the Greens look like under you?
James Shaw: So I took the Green Party from 20 per cent of the vote in Wellington to up to 30 per cent of the vote in the last election, and so if I was the co-leader, I’d be looking to expand that around the rest of the country and be over 15 per cent of the vote.
But you’re a baby Green, a baby with a little G. You’ve been around five minutes.
Shaw: I first joined the Green Party in 1990, and since that time our greenhouse gas emissions have doubled, 60% of our rivers have become unswimable, and we’ve gone from being one of the most unequal societies— sorry, one of the most equal societies in the OECD to one of the most unequal. We’re running out of time, and I’m running out of patience.
Okay, Gareth, what would the Greens look like if you were at the helm?
Gareth Hughes: Good morning, Lisa. The Greens under my helm would be larger. My mission is to excite and inspire, to reach out and represent a new generation of voters. We’d be making sure we’re seeing action on climate change. What I want to see is a bigger, more powerful, more influential Green Party, because the issues we work on, they’re more important than ever.
Do you have the gravitas, the credibility to be a co-leader?
Hughes: This is my opportunity over the next two months to stand up and show the members of my party what I know I have inside, which is I know who I am, I know what I stand for, I know where I want to go. This is my opportunity, and the members have a fantastic choice. I’m standing as someone who’s been a campaigner for 15 years. I’ve got the experience, I’ve got the wins under my belt, and I want to lead our party to a bigger Green Party.
Vernon Tava, in one sentence, what would the Greens look like if you were one of the leaders?
Vernon Tava: The Greens would be a party that leads on sustainability, and sustainability is neither a left nor a right thing. It’s bigger than that. And the Greens should be a part of every government.
But you’re not even an MP. Isn’t this about raising your profile so you get a better possie on the list next time round?
Tava: In fact, I didn’t stand for the list in 2014, and I don’t really have designs on the list necessarily in 2017, all depending on how this goes. The thing is that I think that the party needs to be a sustainable axis around which governments turn. I think urgency of the local and global ecological, social, economic crises that we’re facing need resolution now, and we can’t wait until the political weather is perfect.
So if you lose, you’re not going to stand for a position in Parliament next time round?
Tava: Not necessarily.
Not necessarily? Okay. I want to get to know you a bit during this debate, because some people won’t know a lot about you, so we’re going to have some quick-fire questions. The first one is now. Each of you, who is your political hero? Gareth?
Hughes: Clearly, Jeanette Fitzsimons.
Kevin?
Hague: Michael Joseph Savage.
James?
Shaw: David Lange.
Vernon?
Tava: I’d say David Lange as well.
Okay. Now more substantive issues. Is social justice and environmentalism inseparable? Vernon Tava?
Tava: Yes, they are. Well, social justice – what the Green charter actually talks about is social responsibility, which is a broader concept. It’s one that takes into account our place as but one species in the environment. It recognises that unlimited material growth is impossible, because we live in a world of finite limits. So the approach we see from National and Labour of, ‘Well, all we need to do is grow the pie, and the higher tide will raise all boats,’ isn’t going to work. We need to take a different approach. But the two must go together.
What about you, Kevin? What do you think?
Hague: Well, I mean, Vernon’s right. They’re inseparable. I mean, social injustice and environmental degradation are both driven by the same thing, that says that people and the environment are just inputs into the economy. Actually, that in situation, you’re always going to get the firm, in economy theory, actually maximising profit by extracting as much as they can from both of those inputs. We need to reverse it. We should set out our environmental goals and our social justice goals, and the economy needs to be the tool box that we use to help achieve those goals.
But, James Shaw, are you sacrificing your environmental identity by focusing too much on social policy as a party?
Shaw: I don’t think that we are. I mean, we fought the last election on a range of policies, which included social policies, economic policies and environmental policies, and they were designed to work together. As Kevin said, the economy should be a— is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment and of human society, and it’s important that we— I think this is actually one of the great things about the Green Party is that when we put our policies together, they are policies that are designed to hit all of those levers.
But in your maiden speech, you actually said, ‘We need to— To get unstuck, we all need to give some of these things up. Some things up.’ So are you talking about chopping off your red roots?
Shaw: No, not at all. What I said is that we need to give up the notion of being right and other people being wrong. We’re in a stuck— I was talking about the political discourse, the idea that there’s this great sort of Punch and Judy Show game show that we’re involved in. That system is completely dysfunctional. It produces terribly poor quality decisions for the country and for the world. I think that we need to lift the quality of our political dialogue and work together to solve the problems facing our country and facing our world.
And I want to talk about that a bit more, but let’s give Gareth a chance on this. Social justice and environmentalism – is the Green brand green enough?
Hughes: We’ve championed protecting the environment. We’ve done a fantastic job there. We’ve also championed people, lifting kids out of poverty. They’re inseparable, just as peace, the commitment to democracy, our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This is what makes the Greens unique. We aren’t like the other parties. We’re something new, we’re something different, and we’re something better.
But doesn’t that trap you in a ghetto to the left of Labour?
Hughes: No, not at all. I’m glad that we are the most progressive voice in our Parliament. This is our role. This is why I am proud to be a Green, because we champion people. We care about people. And at the moment, our entire economy, well, as long as I’ve been alive, has been putting profit before people and planet. What the Greens want to do is put people, planet at the top, and, in fact, this is actually going to grow a richer New Zealand.
But, Vernon, you disagree slightly, don’t you? You think you want to open up another opportunity on the right?
Tava: Well, the thing is we’re beyond the left-right spectrum, and as long as people insist on framing us as it’s either red-green or blue-green or whatever, then, yeah, that’s obviously how it’s going to look. But if you look at the party’s policies, some of them seem—
But then you’re more open to National. You are more open to National than some of the others sitting here.
Tava: Not because of any great love.
In terms of MMP politics—
Tava: Not because of any— Well, absolutely, because that’s the reality of MMP, and I think we’re taking a long time as a system and as a society to actually adapt to that. So there’s this, ‘Oh, you’re caught on the horns of the dilemma, you can only go one way or the other,’ but, in fact, the Green Party – it’s about sustainability and it should be the axis, and it’s one that needs to be able to talk to both parties. We need to be able to work with both, because the problems we’re facing are too urgent to wait.
Gareth?
Hughes: Well, I got into politics to get stuff done. I’m happy to work with anyone on any issues where we can agree, but a coalition with National after the last election, after the growing emissions, growing poverty—
But you told this programme last week that the likelihood of you being in a coalition or within an agreement with National when happen when ‘hell froze over’.
Hughes: That’s right. It’s unfathomable. I stand by our party’s decision. When you look at the growing emissions, the growing poverty, the dirty politics, the crony capitalism—
So you are stuck on the left, then?
Hughes: …how could we even consider it?
You are stuck in a trench on the left.
Hughes: No, I’m stuck on the green. I’m proud to call myself on the left. This is where many of our policies, values and our vision has emerged from. But, look, I’m happy to work with anyone on issues. I’m proud of the achievements we’ve had in terms of home insulation.
So could you work with the current government, then, having said what you did last week?
Hughes: I could work on issues where Green policy— A coalition, though? It’s unfathomable.
Hague: Listen, I think one of the things that I say is that we need to show voters that we know how to reach out to other political parties, to build on common ground that we have with them but also to be able to negotiate differences in order to achieve good green change. I know over the past six years I’ve worked directly with the Government on the New Zealand cycleway project, also on resetting traps as an alternative to 1080 and on marriage equality.
Kevin, you started there talking about being in government, but you have to get there with the votes. So how do you shore things up for the Greens so that you’re not so tied to Labour’s fortunes, that a Labour loss is a loss for you guys as well?
Hague: I think what we need to do is focus on our knitting so that, actually, we show voters what our vision is for the future, and I suspect that this is maybe an error we’ve made over the past three years that we’ve actually talked about individual policies but not shown that big-picture vision. So I think that’s one of the things we need to do.
Tava: But there are so many people out there for whom the environment is one of their major concerns, and that’s a crossover thing whatever people’s political complexion is normally. Now, as long as we’re saying it’s not enough that you care about the environment, you also need to be on the left, then we’ve got a definite cap on the ability to grow our vote. We need to grow it larger so that we can actually have National and Labour competing to be sustainable enough to work with us.
Should you be aggressively going after Labour’s vote?
Tava: We should be going over whichever vote we can get that actually holds sustainability as their primary value.
Shaw: Lisa, at the last election, 28 per cent of New Zealanders considered voting Green but did not, and they split between— the people who didn’t vote Green but thought about it, they’d split between Labour and National. So what that says is in addition to the 11 per cent of the vote that we’ve got, there’s a further third of the electorate that we could be going after. Some of those—
In fact, your own polling showed almost 19 per cent went with Labour. Gareth, just what Vernon is saying there – you’re actually saying that you should kind of cosy up with Labour. You’re saying maybe get some deals going where we only stand one candidate in the electorate. That’s poles apart from where Vernon Tava is.
Hughes: Well, I’m a Green because I support our new, different, independent party. Now, at the last election, John Key spent more time talking about what a Green-Labour government would look like than the Green and Labour Parties. I want to be part of the most progressive government this country has seen in generations. I think voters want to see a stable, united, future-focused alternative to National, and that’s what I’d like to be part of.
All right, I want to go round all of you here. The Greens manifesto says a coalition agreement with National is “highly unlikely”. Do you personally want to keep that wording, Gareth, or is it time for a change?
Hughes: I support what the members want. They make the decision, not the leader.
I asked you personally, Gareth. Do you want to change it?
Hughes: No, I do not. I think it’s accurate.
All right. Kevin?
Hague: I think the members made a realistic assessment.
I’m asking you. What do you want?
Hague: That’s what I’m saying. Our members look at what’s the level of agreement, and they say there’s much more commonality with Labour than with National.
And you agree with them?
Hague: That’s right. That’s accurate.
James Shaw?
Shaw: I also agree with them. I think it’s perfectly fine as it is.
Vernon?
Tava: I think it’s unhelpful, and we should express the will to work with whichever party will help us advance Green policy.
Okay. We will take a short break, but up next we test the economic nous of these would-be leaders and ask how far they’ll go to save the planet.
You're back in with The Nation and the men vying to be the next Green Party co-leader, and they are Gareth Hughes, James Shaw, Kevin Hague and Vernon Tava. When was the last time, Gareth, that you broke the law for a green cause?
Hughes: Well, it would have been 2009. I was protesting palm-kernel shipments. So I've been arrested a few times, and I've put my body on the line for my beliefs. I love our planet, our environment, and I've campaigned to protect it.
Have you still got a Ronald McDonald costume?
Hughes: I do.
Kevin, when was the last time you broke the law?
Hague: First time? I’m trying to think. Probably the last time I got arrested for breaking the law, um, would have been something like, uh, the 1990s.
Well, how often do you break the law, then, if you don't know when you got arrested?
Hague: Are we talking about maybe speeding to get to a demonstration or...?
All right, James, last time you broke the law for the green cause?
Shaw: Uh, I haven't knowingly broken the law, and I've never been arrested. So I - I don't have a last time.
OK, well, this week, the kauri tree. There was a big debate over the kauri tree there. People broke the law to save that tree. Was that a good idea?
Shaw: Uh, yes, I think it was, and I think Michael is a real hero for the work that he did in bringing attention to that cause. I don't think it's appropriate for a member of parliament to break the law because we're in charge of making the laws. It's two different things.
So the guys to your right shouldn't break the law while they're in Parliament? For a cause?
Shaw: I-I think that... I-I don't think... to my left or to my right, I don't think members of parliament, people who are seeking to make laws, I don't think it's appropriate for them to knowingly break the law.
All right. Well, Vernon, have you broken the law?
Tava: Well, I'm a practising lawyer as well, so you know, that's the thing you think about. You know, there are all sorts. For instance, I cared deeply about the area of animal welfare and animal rights, but I can't break the law to those ends, you know? I can do better doing other things.
If and when was the last time you smoked a joint?
Tava: It's been quite a while. Um, yeah, it's really been quite a while.
But while you were a practising lawyer? While you were a practising lawyer?
Tava: No, I was a student.
OK, back to James. Last time you smoked a joint?
Shaw: Maybe 10 years ago? Yeah.
Kevin?
Hague: Similar kind of time. Uh, yeah.
10 years ago, you think?
Hague: I would guess so, yeah.
Gareth?
Hughes: Gee, probably... probably about six years ago, I'd say.
Tava: And look at us — we're all fine.
So six years ago, you were an—? You were an elected MP at that point?
Hughes: No, I've been in Parliament for five years.
For five? Just, yeah, OK. So just outside the time frame. All right. Is there a place for spying in our society? Vernon?
Tava: It needs to be extremely carefully circumscribed. There are people— you know, we're seeing with the 1080 threat. You know, we're seeing there are people who want to do malevolent things. But we need far, far stronger oversight and far less politically oriented oversight than we're seeing now. It needs to be treated very, very carefully.
So it's OK to spy as long as you keep a tight rein on it?
Tava: Extremely tight rein.
James?
Shaw: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the rules around it have to be very clear. There has to be transparent oversight. People need to understand what we're doing. I think the thing that we've had in the last few years that people have become increasingly worried about is this idea that everyone is being spied on. You know, countries have spied on each other from time immemorial. Uh, for, you know, trade deals. Uh, you know, wars. All that kind of thing. I think there's sort of an expectation in our society that that's OK. I don't think that there's an expectation that it is okay to spy on everybody.
So, Gareth, is it OK to spy on people?
Hughes: I support the police having intelligence-gathering, uh, abilities with appropriate oversight. When it comes to the Five Eyes network, you know, I'm a dad. I teach my kids to do what's right. Spying on our friends and allies. Spying on our major trading partner, that's not right.
So leave Five Eyes and shut down the GCSB?
Hughes: I believe NZ should get out of the Five Eyes network. I don't believe it's in our economic interest. I don't believe it is the right thing to do. I support NZ having domestic intelligence abilities with appropriate oversight and transparency, but we should not be spying on other countries.
But you name-checked the police, then. You said it's OK for the police. What about the GCSB? Yes or no? 
Hughes: I think we should have a GCSB with appropriate oversight, and I think they should be supporting our companies to prepare themselves against cyber-attack intrusions.
So, Kevin, bail out of Five Eyes as Gareth says?
Hague: Yeah, I definitely would bail out of Five Eyes, and I would shut down the GCSB. I think, uh, that isn't to say that there isn't a place for surveillance, provided that there is a reasonable cause and that is independently verified. Um, and I think Gareth's right that it could be the police that actually carries out that function.
But are you aware what damage that would do to us to bail out of that agreement?
Hague: I don't see any damage. What are you thinking of?
Economic damage with our trading partners.
Hague: Yeah, I don't believe it would result.
Hughes: How do you think our major trading partner, China, feels about us gathering their data? How do you think our allies and friends in the Pacific feel about it? Now, two decades ago, NZ stood up for an independent foreign policy. What we see now is we're part of this—
Well, in the Pacific, a lot of the island nations have said they are not bothered by it. They accept it.
Hughes: And, to be frank, they're in a different power situation vis-a-vis NZ. I don't think they want, seriously, us to be surveilling and scooping up all of their communications.
Shaw: So they're in a really tough position, right, because as Gareth says, they're the weaker partner in terms of the trading relationship. So when we say that, you know, we're going to be including them in a group of countries that we spy on, they're in a really invidious position because, at the moment, they're trying to negotiate a trade deal with us — the PACER Plus agreement — and they want to ensure that that works for their countries.
Vernon, I want to bring you in on the conversation. Biggest problem that is facing NZ right now — what is it?
Tava: The biggest problem that's facing NZ right now is we are committed to industries that are environmentally destructive and low wage — our two biggest industries. Dairy is very profitable, but we just can't scale it up any more without causing enormous environmental damage. Tourism — it's a low-wage industry. We need to do a lot better and be smarter than that.
Kevin, is that our top problem?
Hague: Uh, kind of. I mean, what I would say is it's extraction. It's an economy that's based on extracting from the environment and extracting from labour, and that's driving both of those twin crises, so in environment and in society. And we talk about climate change and we talk about inequality as our priority campaigns for this year, emblematic of that really big problem.
Okay, we'll talk about the extraction economy later. James, biggest problem facing us?
Shaw: The greatest problem facing humankind at the moment is the threat of climate change, and New Zealand, it is already affecting us. We've had severe droughts that wouldn't be as bad as they are under the climate-change scenarios, and we've really got to do something about that.
Gareth?
Hughes: The biggest problem is our direction. It's not right for a country like ours who feeds 20 million people around the world to have kids going to school hungry. It's not right for a country like New Zealand who is known for pulling its weight, to be increasing our emissions by 50 per cent. And it's not right that Kiwis work some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages, in some of the highest costs of living in the developed world. We're falling down those economic rankings. And I believe looking after people, protecting the planet will grow a richer New Zealand.
Okay. Russel Norman arguably brought the Green Party economic cred. So let's see what your economic cred is like. James, what is the unemployment rate currently?
Shaw: It's just over 5 per cent.
5.7 per cent. Yes. Economic growth in the last quarter or the last year, Kevin? You choose. Which one would you like to tell me?
Hague: Oh, I couldn't tell you, but it's a tiny bit. 0.25 per cent over the last year, I'd say.
2.9 over the last year and 1.0 in the last quarter. Now, coming to you, Gareth, what about the rate of inflation?
Hughes: It's less than 2 per cent.
Would you like another crack at that?
Hughes: Well, it's around 2 per cent recently.
0.8 per cent. All right, Vernon, what is the official cash rate?
Tava: Official cash rate is... I think it's 7.8 per cent, but that's the sort of data I could just look up on my phone right now.
It's 3.5 per cent. Are interest rates too high, Vernon?
Tava: I don't think so.
What do you think, Kevin? Interest rates too high?
Hague: I think arguably they are. They're actually stifling some of the manufacturing sector that we actually need to be growing in this society rather than the extractive economy.
So what's the best way to bring them down, do you think?
Hague: Well, the Reserve Bank is in a position to do that itself by altering the cash rate.
So do they have too much power? Does it have too much power?
Hague: Well, I tend to agree with those who say that it doesn't have too much power, but it has a too narrowly defined power, and, actually, if you expand out the suite of measures and suite of considerations it has to bring to bear on its decisions, that actually we could have the Reserve Bank making a more positive contribution to macroeconomic policy.
Hughes: But the fact is the macro prudential tools are actually putting the burden of inflation on people of my generation; people who are seeing house prices in Auckland go up $1700 a week and needing a 20 per cent deposit for the LVRs.
All right. While we're talking, Gareth, do you think super stays at 65? Should there be compulsory saving?
Hughes: Well, I support what my party's policy is. Personally...
I'm asking you, Gareth.
Hughes: I support what our party's position is, but I think we do, as a country, need to have a discussion. People know I care about sustainability, but I also care about economic sustainability, and with an ageing workforce, changing global trends, we have to have a discussion — how do we best prepare for a growing and ageing population.
James Shaw, what should the top tax rate be? Income tax?
Shaw: We campaigned last year on a top income tax rate of 40 per cent...
Over 140,000. So you would stay with that?
Shaw: I would. Yeah. I believe in a progressive tax system, but we also campaigned on lowering taxes for 97 per cent of New Zealanders, and then paying for that using a charge on carbon.
Vernon, what do you think the top tax rate should be?
Tava: Uh, I'm happy with that policy. But I think we really need to move away from just using income as our only cash cow. Because that's really punishing people. We live in a country where capital is almost entirely untaxed, and that's creating really perverse consequences.
Gareth, do you believe in a supertax, though, don't you?
Hughes: For millionaires?
Yes.
Hughes: I think there should be a progressive tax rate in New Zealand.
What would your supertax be and who would it apply to?
Hughes: Well, Lisa, in my party the leader and the caucus do not decide the policy. It's our members.
Give me your opinion.
Hughes: I would have a discussion with our members, and I think 40 per cent is a good rate for above 100,000, and I think we could look at a higher rate for income over a million dollars.
50 or 60 per cent?
Hughes: Well, I don't want to put a number on it.
Shaw: If we stay stuck on looking just at income tax in isolation, we miss the bigger picture; that inequality in New Zealand isn't been driven by the gap between taxation rates on income, it's been driven between people who are in employment and people who have capital, and capital is almost completely untaxed.
We're running out of time, gentlemen. I want to ask you, James — you say that the rights of personhood should extend to all habitants of the Earth. What do you mean by that?
Shaw: Well, we give corporations legal personhood. So humans have legal personhood. Also, corporations have legal personhood. In New Zealand, the Whanganui River and Te Urewera also have legal personhood, and I think that that is a great way of starting to think about protecting our environment.
So does that mean the rimu, the chicken and the snail — they all have personhood along with me — the same?
Shaw: Well, a corporation has the same legal personhood as you do.
I hear what you're saying there, but I'm asking you about these other things. Does that mean we all have the same rights?
Shaw: No. I'm talking ecological features. So this is sort of playing out differently in different parts of the world. It's a new area of law called Nature's Rights Law or Wild Law as it is sometimes referred to.
But in your maiden speech you talked about all inhabitants. So all inhabitants of the planet, should they have personhood?
Tava: I totally agree with this, because what it means is that you grant legal standing to those things, because at the moment we've got this really perverse situation where we treat animals, trees, so on, only as property, or even worse, something that's not owned at all.
So Vernon thinks all the inhabitants...
Shaw: We have to remember, we used to treat black people as property as well. And over the last several hundred years, we've gotten a little more enlightened about that. We used to treat women as property as well in our legal system. So this is just talking about expanding our view of what rights extend to.
Tava: It doesn't mean they'll be treated the same way as us.
Is this a bit of a risk to the Greens, Kevin, because this is the kind of talk that makes people go, 'Whoa, the Greens.'
Hague: It does seem a little bit odd to me, I must say. I'm interested in talking to Vernon and James about that. I think that we do need to have constitutional protection for our natural environment, but I'd go in the opposite direction in relation to legal personhood. I would take it away from corporations, cos I think that's damaging to our society.
Gareth, you're going to get the last word on this one.
Hughes: Bit of philosophical discussion, but I think what voters and our members want to see from us is pragmatic solutions. They want to see us put the flesh on the policy. They want to see us talk about how we're going to protect animals, the planet, people, and that's why I got into parliament — to get stuff done. They want to see us talking about the issues.
All right, seeing as we are talking about all creatures great and small, let's end with this one — your favourite animal. Vernon?
Tava: Maui dolphin.
Shaw: I was going to say dolphin.
Everybody wants to say dolphin. James, what have you got?
Shaw: I'm going to go whale.
Kevin?
Hague: Weka.
Gareth?
Hughes: I would have said Maui dolphin but I'll say my dog, Joe.
Three out of four for the Maui dolphin. Thank you very much to my guests today. The Greens leadership will be decided at the party's annual conference in May.