Greens Selection and Ranking

I blogged previously about how some Green Party members had taken out advertisements in newspapers urging members to support a rule change requiring the members to have more say in the ranking of the Green List. At the moment their involvement is at the discretion of the Executive.

I’ve now got a copy of the current “process” for Green candidate selection and list ranking. It is attached here – GP Candidate Selection and List Ranking process April 2007-1

This is not part of the constitution adopted by the members. Unlike National, which has almost all parts of the process in the party’s rules, the Greens have left it up to the ruling Executive to determine the rules and process. Very top heavy for a party that claims the opposite.

First the Executive established a Candidate Selection and List Ranking Committee. Now in National the List Ranking Committee has two thirds of its members appointed directly by grassroots members at party conferences.

The Greens Executive appoints the entire Candidate Selection and List Ranking Committee.

This committee has the power to block a member from being a candidate if they do not think candidates will make a positive contribution to the Greens.

This is considerably more centralised than in National. The National Board does have a veto over candidates, but it is used very very rarely and only for patently unsuitable candidates – normally if people have criminal offending etc.

The interviews with potential candidates to determine suitability are done at local level with a pre-selection committee of nine, five being electorate members, two regional reps and two national reps. The locals have the majority on the pre-selection committee.

So in two major ways the Greens are significantly more centralised than National.

Then we have their list ranking. They have three stages of list ranking, compared to two for National. National is:

1. Regional rankings done by grassroots delegates at party conferences
2. The five regional lists are combined into one national list, and adjusted, by the national list ranking committee – two thirds of whim are elected by grassroot delegates at regional conferences.

The Greens process is:

1. An initial rating by the Co-Leaders, Co-convenors, Policy Co-convenors, Candidates and one or two delegates from each electorate. (Rather weird to have candidates themselves voting)
2. A ranked list is sent out to all members, who rank the candidates. The inital rankings are very influential, but members sometimes change them (for example they promoted Mike Ward last time).
3. The Executive on the advice of the CSLRC can then adjust the result of the member’s ballot.

I do like giving all members the vote, and think this is good. Easier to do of course in a smaller party.

Now in terms of what these adjustments are, the Executive has left no room for doubt. They have quotas for everything. The Executive has decreed the following:

1. a minimum of 10% of candidates shall be of Maori descent
2. a maximum of 60% of candidates shall be male; a maximum of 60% of candidates shall be female
3. a minimum of 40% of candidates shall be from the North Island; a minimum of 20% of candidates shall be from the South Island
4. a minimum of 10% of candidates shall be under 40

Overall the Executive is very powerful. They appoint the CSLRC which can stop a member from being a candidate, and gets the final say on the party list.

But it doesn’t stop there. The entire process is at their discretion. Again, in National there are scores and scores of rules spelling out how candidate selection and list ranking works. The Executive has to follow these rules. In the Greens, the Executive has basically unfettered discretion.

The fact some members have taken to advertising in newspapers for a rule change, suggests a few members want this changed.