Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson has told RNZ the party is committed to "getting rid of this government" and wants strong influence on the next one, ahead of the party's annual general meeting in South Auckland on July 24.

The AGM brought together party members, delegates, MPs, and candidates. Both co-leaders, Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick, faced re-confirmation votes by the membership. Swarbrick was set to announce a further policy on Sunday afternoon, while Davidson was to deliver a speech on party values and release the party's election manifesto.

The party's campaign machinery is already well advanced. The Greens' final list for the election was published in April, and the party had already rolled out its tax, water, and energy policies ahead of the AGM.

Davidson reported a large uptick in volunteers, phone calls, and door knocks compared to the same stage of previous election years. She also described aspects of the last few years as "traumatising" for the party, but said the party was stronger for it.

The latest RNZ-Reid Research poll put the Greens at 10.3%, up 0.2 points from the previous poll but down from the 11.6% the party recorded at the 2023 election.

The AGM's placement in South Auckland is consistent with the Greens' long-standing effort to build support beyond their strongest Wellington and central Auckland bases, though the facts available do not speak to whether that strategy is yielding results in the polls.

Source: RNZ

The re-confirmation votes for both co-leaders are a routine but politically meaningful feature of the Greens' internal constitution. The party's membership holds the power to endorse or remove leadership between elections, and votes of this kind at an AGM so close to a general election serve as a public test of the co-leaders' standing. Neither Davidson nor Swarbrick faces a known challenge, but the process itself is a structural check that the party treats seriously.

The broader context here is Davidson's framing of recent years as "traumatising" followed by her assertion that the party emerged stronger. That kind of language does double duty at an AGM: it acknowledges internal difficulty while casting it as a source of resilience. For a party that has at times seen internal tensions spill into public view, that framing matters in managing membership morale heading into the campaign.

The policy sequence already in train — tax, water, energy, with more to come from Swarbrick — gives the Greens a substantial platform ahead of the manifesto release. The manifesto is the single document the party uses to frame its campaign pitch, and its release at the AGM ensures maximum attention from members and delegates in the room.

Looking at the electoral picture, the Greens' position at 10.3% in the latest poll places them in a range where every fraction of a percentage point matters for the number of seats the party list produces under MMP. A party polling around the 10% mark is in a materially different position from one polling in the low teens: the difference can be several seats, and with them, several MPs who would or would not enter Parliament. The 1.3-point gap between current polling and the 2023 election result is not large in absolute terms, but in a tight MMP environment, it is the difference between holding ground and losing it.

For the next government, the Greens' relevance depends on two things: whether their vote holds or grows, and whether the configuration of parties after election night puts them in a position to negotiate. Under MMP, a party can support a government through a formal coalition or through a confidence-and-supply agreement, where it agrees to vote with the government on key votes in exchange for policy concessions. Davidson's language about "strong influence" rather than simply "being in government" leaves room for either arrangement, and signals to members and supporters that the party's ambition extends beyond merely returning to the treasury benches.