I recently began a new chapter back in the UK as Head of Global Communications for Shift, a human rights not-for-profit that works around the world to ensure people’s right to a good life is at the heart of how business is done.
This new role comes after nearly five years with the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. First as strategic communications manager for the Green Minister of Climate Change in Jacinda Ardern’s Government, and then as Director of Communications for the Green Party, which covered a historic, record-breaking 2023 election campaign.
I gave my crazy, chaotic, unpredictable, and at times infuriating job with the Greens everything I had. I made myself sick, worked far too many 18-hour days, sacrificed time with family, and lost more sleep than I care to think about. I’ve agonised over every single word I’ve written in speeches, media releases, and on social media.
Biased though I may be, strategic, co-ordinated, and consistent communications are critical to delivering the change we so desperately need. The framing, messages, values, and narratives we choose help shape how people understand the world. When we get it right, it’s possible to inspire hope and motivate people to act. For five years at the Greens, I was obsessed (to a fault) with trying to get it right!
There is no doubt the job took its toll. But over the last five years I have done some of the things I am most proud of in my entire life. None more so than being part of the best comms team in NZ politics. Bryson Rooney, Tallulah Farrar, Florence Hillyer-Brandt, Pearl Little, Louis John Day, Gordana Rodden, and Johnny Blades, are among the best, most intelligent, and tirelessly passionate people I have ever met. Everything we did, we did it together.
At its best, politics is a place where meaningful change can be won. It can be slow, messy, and endlessly frustrating. It is exhausting. It demands everything of us. But harnessing the power for good in our politics is essential to delivering something better than we have right now.
For too long, politics has been made inaccessible, incomprehensible even, as a deliberate tactic to force people to turn away from it in frustration. When people are made to feel that it is impossible to make a difference, they eventually stop trying. Which is precisely why we must keep doing what we do. If we walk away, they win.
Many of the challenges we face right now are a symptom of rotten politics. However, I firmly believe that people with values, passion, and real commitment to making life better for others, are the cure.
So, let’s go hard. We are in a fight for the future - and the only way to win it is together.
Director, Marketing and Product at Canada's National Observer | Building journalism for the climate crisis
4moThanks for the share!