No. I first joined the Green Party in 1990. I signed our Articles of Incorporation when we helped
with the Wellington Central by-election in 1992 and stood as a candidate for Wellington City
Council the same year. I was involved in negotiating our entry into the Alliance in 1991. Many years
later I set up the London branch of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and stood as a list-
only candidate there in 2008. After returning home to New Zealand in 2010 I stood as a candidate
in the 2011 and 2014 elections.
I have always voted Green and I've only ever identified as Green. I'm enormously proud of my
history with the party and my association with it. If the Green Party didn't exist, I'd have to set it up
to give myself a political home.
In 1996 a university friend of mine, Mark Thomas, ran for Wellington Central as the National
candidate - I helped him out with his campaign out of personal loyalty to him as a friend. (Students
of political history will remember Mark was the candidate that Jim Bolger 'pushed under a bus' by
encouraging National voters in Wellington Central to vote for Richard Prebble, to bring Act into
Parliament.)