James Shaw

James Peter Edward Shaw (born 6 May 1973) is a New Zealand politician.

He attended Wellington High School (1985–1990) and Victoria University of Wellington.

At age 19, Shaw stood in the 1992 local elections in the Western ward for the Wellington City Council.

Three candidates were elected, with Shaw coming seventh of ten candidates.

In the, Shaw stood in the electorate, succeeding Sue Kedgley as the Green Party candidate in this seat.

He came third in the candidate vote after Labour and National, but second in the party vote, beating Labour into third place.

Shaw completed an MSc in sustainability and business leadership at the University of Bath School of Management in 2005.

He later moved to London, living there for 12 years, before returning to New Zealand in 2010.

Before returning to Wellington in 2010, Shaw worked in the consulting division at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Between 2011 and 2014, Shaw worked as both a consultant for HSBC bank on "environmental awareness programmes for future leaders" and also at Wellington social enterprise the Akina Foundation.

As a teenager Shaw attended a candidates debate in during the.

He found himself agreeing with the Green Party candidate Stephen Rainbow and decided to volunteer for Rainbow's campaign.

He was 15th on the 2011 party list and the highest-placed candidate who did not make it into Parliament.

Shaw has said that in the 2011 Greens selection process, party members "didn't have a lot of time to get to know me" and disregarded him as "an ex-PWC management consultant in a suit".

He has been a member of parliament since 2014 and a co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand from 2015 to 2024.

Voters elected Shaw to the New Zealand parliament at the 2014 general election as a list representative of the Green Party.

He says he has proved his worth to the party subsequently and was rewarded with a higher list ranking in both the draft and final party lists for the 2014 election.

Bryce Edwards said in The New Zealand Herald that Shaw represented "the more environmentally-focused, non-left side of the [Green] party – what might be called the New Greens faction – people who are more at home in the business world wearing corporate attire than amongst the far left. ... There will be many that see Shaw as a future co-leader of the party."

Shaw was elected to Parliament for the first time as a Green Party list MP in the 2014 general election.

He also unsuccessfully contested the Wellington Central, coming third place to Labour's Grant Robertson and National's Paul Foster-Bell with 5,077 votes.

His first term in Parliament was the final term of the John Key and Bill English-led National Government.

The Green Party, led by Russel Norman and Metiria Turei, was not part of the Government.

Shaw was initially appointed as Green Party spokesperson for a selection of justice and business-related portfolios and made a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee.

The party selected Shaw as its male co-leader in May 2015.

Norman announced his retirement from the co-leadership position in January 2015, triggering a leadership contest.

Despite having only been an MP for seven months, Shaw successfully contested the election against longer-serving MPs Kevin Hague and Gareth Hughes and extra-parliamentary candidate Vernon Tava.

During the campaign, Shaw said that as co-leader he would try and connect with "the 28 per cent of voters that considered voting Green last year and didn’t and remove all of the barriers that are currently stopping them voting Green".

At the election held at the Green Party AGM on 30 May 2015, Shaw won 54 per cent of the delegates' first preference votes, compared to Hague who won 44 per cent (the other two candidates both won 1 per cent).

The day after becoming co-leader, he called for a cross-party consensus on climate change and said there was room for the Greens and National to work together on the issue.

He also said in his first major speech that he wanted the Green Party to be "more like modern New Zealand", and expand its membership both in terms of numbers and to include a more diverse group of people.

The leadership pairing of Turei (a lawyer) and Shaw (a management consultant) pitched itself as a more mainstream, professional version of the party compared to previous incarnations which were associated with "being wacky, smoking dope, hugging trees and eating lentils."

Following Metiria Turei's resignation in August 2017, Shaw became the party's sole leader for the duration of the 2017 general election.

In October 2017 the Green Party agreed to support a Labour-led government.

Shaw became the Minister of Statistics, Minister for Climate Change and Associate Minister of Finance (outside Cabinet).

A Vanity Fair-style photoshoot presented the co-leaders alongside four new candidates on the cover of North & South magazine in May 2017.

Following the 2020 general election, the Greens agreed to cooperate with the Labour majority government, and Shaw was re-appointed as the Minister for Climate Change.

In January 2024 Shaw announced that he would be resigning the co-leadership and retiring from politics.

Shaw was born in Wellington, and was primarily raised by his single mother Cynthia Shaw.

When he was twelve years old his mother entered into a relationship with fellow teacher Susanne Jungersen.

Shaw credits his two mothers for instilling him with his passion for politics and social justice.