Blog One - Green Day

A warning - there is a large amount of contextual preamble.

I have long been a quite private individual.

I don't like talking about myself, because I don't like asking for help, feel uncomfortable talking myself up, and prefer to stick to the facts when it comes to life in general. Discussing the weather is more pertinent to your life than the details of mine.

Then I ran for office - and I was still quite private. My campaign was based on policy, not personality, and I always hope people consider policy over personality when voting.

It is not that individual traits are unimportant. It absolutely does; only trustworthy politicians will actually carry out their stated policy aims.

Personality, on the other hand, is a facade. In the sense of the literal outer layer of something. The facade can reflect the interior, showing consistency through and through, but you can never learn everything about a building, or person, from the outside.

As such, I am going to do something I did not do on the campaign trail: I'm going to relate a personal anecdote, because much like this already-long preamble, I think it's important to understanding why my decision of today feels significant to me.

When I first heard about the New Zealand Green Party, I was deeply put off. They seemed to be the part of Cannabis legalization, and as a young man, this idea seemed horrific.

At that point in my life, I had never met someone who had used marijuana - or at least, as far as I could tell. It was a crime! Surely laws are sensible and logical and put in place by well-meaning people who want the best for the country? How could they be... wrong...?

Some time later, I was a young man, within a group of my very nerdy peers, and two of them - engineers by trade - 'got hungry'. When it was clear I had no idea what they meant, they meant they were going to get marijuana.

I did not then, and have not to this day, tried it myself. But that moment shattered a lot of built-up propaganda for me. These guys were not stereotypical stoners and definitely not stereotypical criminals.

It's been many, many years since that day.

Still, eventually, I came around. The science is there; cannabis is better for a society than alcohol, beneficial for a lot of people, legalization is sensible policy and the case against it flimsy at best.

I still hesitate. This remains the biggest psychological barrier for me. Even thought I have every logical thought lined up behind it, I hesitate. I have an emotional antipathy to cannabis. It scares me, it makes me uncomfortable.

Legal or illegal, I will probably avoid being around people who smoke. I avoid around being around people who smoke cigarettes and who drink alcohol to the point of noticeable effects.

Still - I can't let my own personal hang-ups get in the way of doing what is right.

As such, I intend to stand on my principles. I believe in good government. I believe in sound, logical policies that will work for the betterment of the nation. Most importantly, I believe the Green Party of Aotearoa is the New Zealand political party that has the soundest, most logical policies across the board.

So I’m planning to formally join the Green Party.