Chlöe Swarbrick likes to joke whenever she comes to Dunedin — which is often — that the southern city is her second-favourite place in New Zealand.
It has to be second — the Green Party co-leader could hardly promote anywhere over her electorate seat of Auckland Central.
But there is more substance to this jest than it being the sort of parochial cliche which a politician knows will play well wherever they are. Ms Swarbrick really does come to Dunedin a lot, and she often hangs around for a day or two rather than flitting in and out on the first and last planes out of town.
Partly that is from personal inclination. It is not so long ago that the 31-year-old MP was working at Auckland’s student radio station 95bFM and she feels right at home in a campus environment.
But mostly it is professional.
The two Dunedin urban seats — and in particular Dunedin, with the University of Otago at its heart — have usually been a rich source of party votes for the Greens. In 2023, Dunedin was one of the top party vote electorates for the Greens, with 11,449. (Auckland Central electors cast 8503 Green party votes).
But the 2026 general election marks a departure for the Greens. This time, rather than asking for people’s party votes, it will be going all out to elect its Dunedin candidate Francisco Hernandez — already a list MP — as the electorate MP.
"We are absolutely going to win this seat," Ms Swarbrick says emphatically — although she could hardly say otherwise with Mr Hernandez sitting nearby.
And not without some reason. While incumbent Labour MP Rachel Brooking won in 2023 with a healthy majority and Mr Hernandez was a well-beaten third, that time he was neither campaigning for the electorate vote, and nor was he an MP.
"Francisco Hernandez has proven himself as not only a capable legislator, but as somebody who is able to work with anyone, be it unions, or students, or multiple stakeholders, to problem-solve and consistently advocate to get to a place of solving those issues.
"No politician is entitled to anything. I think particularly the legacy parties have kind of taken for granted community support, and we’re interested in showing people that better is possible.
"You need to have, obviously, policy, that resonates and connects with people. More than that, you need to have a really strong ground game that is growing and building community. The benefit of that is not only, obviously, the outreach that’s possible from it, but also that you then have accountability as a feedback loop when the person, hopefully, gets into power.
"Also a candidate that has a deep grounding in that community and has a proven track record. We have all of those three things with Fran’s campaign."
Naturally, Labour is not taking this lying down. Its leader Chris Hipkins had his own visit to Dunedin planned last week until his flight was cancelled, and he will no doubt he rescheduling that visit for not too far away.
Ms Swarbrick recognises that the Greens are poking the bear a little by challenging Labour in Dunedin — a seat it has held since 1978 — but it has done exactly the same thing in the past by taking on and beating Labour in Wellington Central, Rongotai, and her own Auckland Central electorate.
Do not be surprised if they also make a determined effort in Christchurch Central, Te Tai Tokerau, and some other traditional Labour strongholds.
"The idea that seats are owned by certain political parties completely sidesteps the intelligence, the integrity and the power that New Zealanders have to decide our future," Ms Swarbrick said.
"I said it when we were at Waitangi and journalists were, you know, kind of clamouring over, is it Chris Hipkins, is it Chris Luxon, you know? We have such bigger questions as a country than which Chris is going to be prime minister.
"I think that if we can actually use the opportunity that we have in the next few months to meaningfully discuss the kind of country that we want to be, the values that we want to be led by, the evidence that we’re willing to pay attention to, then we are in a far more constructive place to confront the challenges of our time and to move forward as a country.
The Greens emerged from the environmental movement and recent climate events in New Zealand have offered a strong reminder of that. The day before Ms Swarbrick’s visit there was widespread flooding in Canterbury and localised flooding in Dunedin and on the day itself — although not yet confirmed to be weather related — there was a substantial landslip in Musselburgh.
For those who argue that the Greens should stick to their metaphorical knitting and campaign focused on the climate and the environment, does this not offer a compelling argument?
"We are all in on the environment, we are all in on the climate," Ms Swarbrick said.
"That’s where you need to recognise that human beings are part of nature, and this has always been the central hypothesis of the Green party. We have always understood — and this goes back to [former co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons] Jeanette’s days when she was talking about how we currently have a system that exploits both people and the planet.
"People forget that Jeanette was an economist. She really understood that all of these issues come back to the rules of this game that we set up called the economy. We don’t live in a game of Monopoly and we can and should change the rules when they don’t live for the majority of us."
Delving even further back into Green history, the emergence of the party’s precursor — Values — was spurred along by a nation-wide debate about the future of Lake Manapouri.
The fact that a similarly super-charged debate about the South Island’s environment is now raging, namely the proposal for a gold mine in the the Bendigo region, has not escaped Ms Swarbrick’s notice.
The mine has already been a major focus for the Greens — especially Taieri list MP Scott Willis — and will continue to be so Ms Swarbrick said.
"Scott has spent a significant amount of time talking to locals and connecting with people on the ground there," she said.
"As we are seeing the Fast-track approvals roll out all across the country as well we are seeing, very clearly, there is tangible examples of the existential threat that this government poses to the life and livelihoods of New Zealanders."
