Agreeing with a Green MP

Stuff reports:

While Abel’s early activism was divisive and performative, his approach to being an MP has been quite the opposite.

Throughout multiple interviews and conversations leading to this profile, Abel repeatedly talks about his dream of bolstering the wool industry – and his alliance with NZ First’s Mark Patterson to try to make that happen.

He also has an unlikely friendship, of sorts, with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. It started back in 2020, when Luxon was first elected to Parliament. Abel attended the MP induction sessions that year, as there was a chance he would make it once the final vote count came through.

During MP training, Luxon and Abel had lunch together and have remained on good terms since. “We had quite a constructive conversation about environment stuff,” Abel recalls.

“He’s a guy you can have a conversation with. We talk about various things, but I won’t tell you what we talked about on that night,” says Abel.

Connection remains a key focus for the new MP. After we meet over lunch for the initial interview for this story, Abel asks to talk again about the theme of inter-party relationships. He’s been thinking about it a lot, and has a few more thoughts about why he’s as comfortable talking with National and NZ First MPs as he is those on the political Left.

“The world is becoming far more divisive,” he says.

“But we have a responsibility to be civil, to have dialogue, even if we disagree fiercely. It allows for an understanding of where another person is coming from.”

It is really good to see an MP saying this, because we do not want to go down the US route where more and more people see the opposing side as having bad intentions. It is vitally important that people can disagree and still have civility and dialogue.