The Green Party's Constitution has left the Party marooned in 2012. The Party is now dated.
Section 9.2.1 specifies "two Leaders (one male, one female)". Oh the horror! The Greens are discriminatory. And worse, boringly binary. Only the cis-gendered may lead.
The Greens stand in stark contrast to all other parties: any member anywhere along the gender spectrum may lead the Labour Party, the National Party or the Act Party. Not so the Greens. The cis-gendered are specified. Only binaries need apply.
Newsroom reports that Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick sees value in constitutional change but she hasn’t made her own mind up about what that might look like.
“It could be a Te Tiriti-based model, or non-binary or trans, there’s so many options."
It's very exciting because non-binary and trans could be grafted to Te Tiriti in new and innovative ways. There's lots of options and endless possibilities.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson views the cis-gender bias as very 2012: “I think there’s an overwhelming interrogation of the gender-stringent part of the leadership…Probably, we’re moving past that male/female binary.’’
We should all take note: the entire country has taken onboard sex and ethnic quotas as fair and reasonable and it's not at all clear where they will end. The Green's deliberations may well hold a clue.