Chlöe Swarbrick's 2025 Green Party AGM speech opens with a calm, almost
meditative invitation: "I want everyone to take a deep breath... In.Out." It is a disarming way to begin a political address, especially one
delivered in the midst of deepening inequality, climate breakdown, and
an increasingly authoritarian political atmosphere in Aotearoa. The
breath is meant to unite the audience in a shared physical act, to
steady the nerves before talk of political struggle. Yet there is
something telling in this opening. In a time when people are not just
tired but actively crushed by capitalism's pressures, to lead with a
collective deep breath risks quieting the urgency rather than sharpening
it. Breathing together is fine, but only if that inhalation is the
prelude to a shout, a rallying cry, and not just a sigh.
The speech proceeds to identify the fundamental problem: our infinite
human potential being commodified and constrained by the "market logics"
of neoliberal capitalism. Swarbrick is right to call this out. For
decades, Aotearoa has been reshaped into a playground for property
speculators, agribusiness, and foreign capital, while ordinary people
are told to measure their worth by their productivity and their ability
to pay rent on land their ancestors may have lived on for generations.
She correctly links these conditions to a politics of betrayal, noting
how the state has retreated from providing for its people, replacing
social care with market-based solutions that treat citizens as
customers. But even here, the analysis feels limited. The speech
diagnoses the commodification of life but shies away from identifying
the root cause - the very existence of hierarchical power and private
property. The state and capitalism are not malfunctioning; they are
functioning exactly as designed. They exist to centralise control and
extract value from the many for the benefit of the few. Naming "market
logics" is a start-but the speech stops short of advocating the
abolition of those logics.
When Swarbrick speaks about anger, she walks a careful line. "We have a
lot to be angry about," she concedes, but she insists that anger must be
channelled into "organised action" to be effective. This is
unobjectionable on the surface, but in context, "organised action" here
is clearly parliamentary action - votes, campaigns, policy proposals.
For anarcho-communists, the channeling of anger into such avenues is
precisely how anger is neutralised. Our anger should not be tamed into
legislative processes that ultimately serve to protect the system. It
should be nurtured into direct action, workplace organising, rent
strikes, community self-defence, reclamation of land and resources,
forms of collective struggle that do not wait for permission from
Parliament or for a better-intentioned politician to hold office. The
history of Aotearoa is rich with such action, from Ngati Whatua's
occupations at Bastion Point to the militant unionism of the early 20th
century. Those are the channels that truly transform anger into power.
One of the most striking choices in the speech is the decision to avoid
a politics of blame. Swarbrick says that people "don't want to hear
another argument about whose fault it all is." This sounds conciliatory,
even mature. Yet there is a danger here. When we avoid talking about
fault, we risk obscuring the reality of class domination. It is not
enough to say that "politicians, CEOs, landlords, monopolies" have
failed us. They have not failed, they have succeeded in enriching
themselves and maintaining control. It is the system, hierarchical power
itself, that perpetuates exploitation. By refusing to engage in explicit
class analysis, the speech risks collapsing systemic oppression into a
story of bad actors who could be replaced, rather than a structure that
must be dismantled.
This avoidance is most evident when we consider the solutions Swarbrick
proposes. Like much of Green Party policy, they are reforms - wealth
taxes, free public services, climate mitigation through government
regulation. These are, without question, preferable to the punitive
austerity and privatisation pushed by the political right. But they are
still bound by the same framework of centralised authority, wage labour,
and market dependence. There is no space here for community control of
production, for workers seizing their workplaces, for hapu and iwi
reclaiming their land in perpetuity. Instead, the proposed changes would
keep the capitalist economy intact while redistributing some of its
spoils more equitably. This is "green growth" rather than ecosocialism;
a better-managed capitalism rather than its abolition.
The environmental elements of the speech are equally limited by this
framework. Swarbrick's climate politics are far stronger than those of
Labour or National, she is willing to name fossil fuel companies,
agribusiness, and extractive industries as culprits. Yet the solutions
remain locked within the logic of state-managed capitalism. There is
talk of renewable energy investment and public transport expansion, but
no acknowledgement that true climate justice requires dismantling
industrial capitalism's core, the endless extraction of resources for
profit. Anarcho-communists argue for degrowth - planned, democratic, and
voluntary reduction of production to meet human needs within ecological
limits, not for more efficient ways to keep the growth machine running.
Hope runs as a constant refrain in the speech. Swarbrick insists that we
can and must restore it. This is an appealing message in dark times. But
hope, when tied to the electoral cycle, becomes a commodity too:
something that parties sell in exchange for votes. The hope we need is
not hope in politicians, no matter how principled, but hope in our own
collective capacity to live differently. This is where anarcho-communism
diverges most sharply from the Green vision. We do not want better
managers of the system; we want to abolish the system that requires
management in the first place.
Perhaps the most glaring omission in the speech is solidarity with
movements outside Parliament. Nowhere does she mention striking workers,
tenants' unions, anti-colonial land occupations, or the mutual aid
networks that kept communities alive during the pandemic. These
struggles are where the seeds of a liberated society are sown, outside
the glare of the Beehive, in the daily acts of resistance and
cooperation that build real autonomy. By centring Parliament as the
locus of change, the speech inadvertently sidelines these grassroots
movements, reducing them to potential allies in a legislative campaign
rather than the primary agents of transformation.
And yet, the speech is not without its strengths. Swarbrick speaks with
an authenticity rare in parliamentary politics, openly acknowledging
burnout, despair, and the manipulation of fear by those in power. Her
critique of neoliberalism is sharper than anything heard from Labour in
the last decade, and her willingness to challenge the myths of
trickle-down economics is refreshing. But for anarcho-communists,
sincerity and courage in the halls of power are not enough. The problem
is not simply who holds office, but the fact that such offices exist at all.
In the end, Swarbrick's AGM speech embodies the contradictions of the
Green Party itself. It speaks to a deep disillusionment with the status
quo and gestures toward systemic change, but it remains committed to the
parliamentary path. It seeks to unite people across divides, but in
doing so, it blunts the revolutionary edge needed to confront capital
and the state. It recognises the urgency of our crises but proposes
solutions that leave the underlying structures intact.
For anarcho-communists, the task is not to dismiss such speeches
outright, but to read them critically and to see both the openings they
create and the limitations they impose. When Swarbrick names the
commodification of life, we can seize that moment to push the
conversation toward collective ownership. When she calls for organised
action, we can remind people that the most powerful organising happens
outside parliamentary walls. When she speaks of hope, we can insist that
it must be rooted in self-management and mutual aid, not in electoral
victories.
We should not expect the Green Party, or any party, to deliver the
revolution. That is our work. It is the work of tenants refusing rent
increases, of workers taking control of their workplaces, of communities
rewilding stolen land, of neighbours feeding each other without waiting
for the supermarket delivery truck. It is messy, decentralised, and
without guarantees, but it is the only path to a freedom that cannot be
legislated away.
So yes, breathe in. Fill your lungs with the air that capitalism has not
yet stolen. But as you exhale, let it be a roar, not a sigh. Let it
carry across picket lines and protest marches, into community gardens
and union meetings, into every place where people are refusing to be
managed and are instead taking control of their own lives. The future we
fight for will not be delivered from a podium at an AGM, it will be
built by all of us, together, in the streets, on the land, and in the
countless acts of defiance that make another world possible.
https://awsm.nz/breathing-together-in-a-system-that-is-choking-us-an-anarcho-communist-critique-of-chloe-swarbricks-2025-agm-speech/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten