Nobody wants to talk policy

Emily Writes

14 Oct 2026 — 9 min read

It’s no secret that I’m a Greens supporter. The Greens have the best policies to address the cost-of-living crisis and restore dignity and mana to our most vulnerable communities.

As the parent of a disabled child and a medically fragile child, as someone who cares about other people, and as someone who believes in climate change and wants to address it - it’s obvious I would vote Green.

But I know the media and its feeder groups like the Taxpayer's Union excel at spreading misinformation. So I’m doing everything I can to have conversations with people about how they’re voting.

The problem here is not that the Greens have bad policy. They have great policy. It's actually so good. It's costed and checked and targeted. The problem is that the voters who technically agree with Green policy but tend to stay home on election day - what we might call "normal people" - are not interested in policy. They may think they are, but actual policy is both boring and threatening to normal people. They - and, truth be told, a lot of us - make decisions based not on data but on vibes, on emotion and half-thought-through affiliations with groups who look and sound like them.

So that's why we here at Emily Writes Weekly want to point you towards less the policy - although it's there as backup if you need it - but towards the vibe of what the Greens can achieve if they get enough votes this election. The emotional problem or pain point that people face, and the way to fix it in their minds. I've put the key fixes to the main feelings in bold so you can make that the mainstay of your conversations.

If you’re undecided, or you are talking to other undecided people, I hope this guide helps. If you want to change the government, you have to do your part. It’s more than just voting. It’s talking to everyone you know - whether you like them or not. And it’s making sure people show up on election day.

Make sure you read all the way to the end, because there's some really important info from a veteran political campaigner about why you can't just roll up with a list of policy, no matter how great it is. It's really important to have an actual conversation first. But let's look at the policy first, and then the most important part - how to talk about it.

If they’re struggling to afford food

Feeling: "I just feel like everything's so expensive! But I've heard that the Greens just want the Government to own everything and surely that will just make it worse!"

Fix: The Greens will lower the cost of living using ideas that have worked really well in other countries like ours.

The Greens want to ban supermarkets from exploiting their market share to charge unfair prices above their costs and a reasonable margin. They’ll give the Commerce Commission teeth to stop supermarkets ripping us off.

They have also committed to restoring the school lunch programme for our children so kids don't have to go hungry at schools or eat David Seymour's disgusting slop. They will also expand the programme to approximately 400 more schools.

But the biggest thing they’re doing is reforming the food system so there’s food for all. They’ll do this by requiring the supermarket duopoly, Woolworths and Foodstuffs, to divest at least 120 stores and distribution centre capacity to public ownership. They will create KiwiMart, a publicly owned supermarket chain with a single mandate - keep prices down. This is similar to how buying prescription medicines works - the Government buys medicine and keeps the cost way below what the drug companies would like to charge. If we already do it for medicine, why not for another essential like food?

If they’re worried about the price of petrol

Feeling: I need to take the kids places and travel for work, but I can barely afford to fill my tank! I just can't see how I can manage without my car, and I've heard the Greens want to take all our cars away.

Fix: The Greens want to massively expand public transport, and make it as free/inexpensive as possible, so anyone can get anywhere for much less than it already costs.

The Greens want free public transport for those struggling the most now, which would immediately ease budgets, especially during the fuel crisis.

Under the Greens' policy, public transport would be free for children, students, apprentices, Community Service Card holders and Total Mobility users, while everyone else would pay a maximum fare of $2.

They have also said they’ll bring back the overnight passenger trains from Auckland to Wellington, restore the Southerner between Christchurch and Dunedin, and extend Te Huia to Tauranga, making inter-city transport affordable and effective again.

If they’ve been horrified by the government’s attack on disabled people

The Greens think disabled people should get state support to to live full, dignified lives. oppose the disability support law changes and the Government's Disability Support Services Bill. Their disability policy calls for easily accessible, timely income support for living and medical costs, no matter your relationship status or the cause of your disability. And they’ll use an Enabling Good Lives approach. If someone says ‘but how will they pay for that!’ - they’ll pay for it by taxing the ultra-wealthy!

They’ve been horrified by the government’s attack on Māori and Te Tiriti

The Greens think Māori should be able to make decisions for Māori. have committed $200m to the future of Te Reo Māori.

They want to set up two funds to support marae,hapū and iwi, and their communities.

If they’re worried about their teens and young people and unemployment

This policy is my favourite policy. The Green Party will provide a jobs guarantee for young New Zealanders, giving every 16- to 24-year-old who has been out of work for six months a pathway into a job in their local community. Unemployment is at its highest in 11 years, and three times worse for young people than for the general population. Every young person who can work will be able to. Our kids need this.

If they want action on climate change

The Greens will actually do the needful on climate. They have said Aotearoa will lead the world in reducing gross domestic emissions of all greenhouse gases and will be on track to end fossil-fuel use and production no later than 2035 through legally binding mechanisms.

If they care about the environment

The Green party will protect the environment you love. Obviously, being the Greens they have a heap in their environment policy - there’s a lot to do to ensure protections of our precious whenua given what the government has been doing.

But there’s also heaps of interconnected policies like - Establishing legal rights of nature and recognising the legal status of Papatūānuku (Governance Policy) and a right to a healthy environment (Human Rights Policy), ensuring economic activities uphold the wellbeing of the natural world (Government in the Economy, Business, and specific sectors, e.g. Agriculture, Tourism, Forestry), minimising the further loss of indigenous ecosystems to other land uses (Land Use and Soils Policy), adapting urban design to support environmental growth (Housing and Sustainable Communities Policy), collaborating with other countries, including strengthening international treaties (Global Affairs Policy) and leveraging trade agreements (Trade and Foreign Investment Policy) and aligning ‘carbon farming’ with ecological resilience (Climate Change Policy).

Freshwater is my big thing, so I like that the Greens want to protect relevant legislation, all remaining natural wetlands, including estuaries and coastal wetlands, and the natural character and mauri of lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands, and aquifers.

If they’re worried about taxes

The Greens will cut taxes for more than 90 percent of NZers. The Greens want a fair tax system so those of us earning the least are not paying more tax than the ultra-wealthy. Basically, they will introduce a 2.5% tax on the net assets of the super-rich above $10 million. And a new tax-free exemption for the first $10k.

If they are worried about the health system

The health system has been systematically underfunded for decades and now it is breaking. The Greens will fix the health system by doing essential maintenance and building what's needed. The Greens want universal, free, and accessible diagnosis, treatment, and management for all illnesses and injuries, including fully funded free dental care, general practitioner clinics, ambulance and emergency services, aged care, palliative care, and mental health services.

If they’re sick of big tech laughing all the way to the (overseas) bank

The Greens will make big tech pay their fair share by enforcing a 5% withholding tax on profits sent offshore.

If they care about housing stability, rent, or being able to own a home

The Greens will strengthen renter's rights and implement a Renter’s Rights Bill, cap rent increases at 2%, reverse no-cause evictions for rental stability, and introduce a Rental Warrant of Fitness to fix the holes in the Healthy Homes Standards.

The Greens would increase public housing by building tens of thousands of quality, affordable public homes, and support community providers and councils with financing to provide more public housing in their communities. This would stimulate local economies and create local jobs, while reducing housing waitlists and homelessness in those same communities. We've done this before in NZ and the effects were massively beneficial. We can do it again.

The Greens want to reverse National’s landlord tax cuts (that alone would save us taxpayers billions). Their energy policy includes a renters’ right to solar and legalisation of ‘plug-in’ solar.

They want to expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes programme to make more low-income homes warm, dry and energy efficient. This will help our most vulnerable and save our health system in preventable illnesses from cold and damp homes.

If they're sick of big corporations owning everything and giving nothing back

The Greens want to make huge corporates pay their fair share by returning the corporate tax rate to 33% for the 0.7% biggest corporations, like the supermarket duopoly, energy companies, and banks.

If they're struggling with power bills

I love how they’re addressing massive power bills by doing Kiwi Power and the zero-interest clean energy loans to install solar or batteries on your home

But it's not over yet! You can't just assume that people share your concerns, or your interest in policy - or your understanding of what the fix might be. They might, but the most important thing here is to find out - and the only way to do that is to talk to them. Which means first listening to them, without judgement.

So I'm going to throw over to Alice Soper (who has a great Ghost newsletter on women's sport! Please subscribe!). Alice is a veteran political campaigner for the Left and she knows exactly how to have these conversations in a way that engages instead of alienating.

All my life, people have asked me - Alice, what’s your family dinner like??? And honestly, it’s a lot more civil than most comment sections. A big part of that is I don't waste time having the conversations where we fundamentally disagree on the issue.

By that I mean, I don’t entertain discussions when we disagree that the issue IS an issue. If you don’t agree that the house is burning, why waste time trying to get them to try and help you put it out. You have to start with a baseline of a shared agreement that there is a current problem before you can start talking about your preferred solutions.

There’s lots of theories and even more acronyms that people will use to try and educate you on how to have these persuasive conversations with people in your life. In my experience after having now trained - honestly, thousands of people - on this and maybe persuaded a couple of folks in my own life too, my key advice is this — talk to the person, not the policy.

Sorry Emily! I know you’ve just done a whole beautiful run down of all the great policies that the Greens have pitched as fixes for the long list of challenges our country faces. But another one of my catch phrases here? Policy without context is patronising. You need to understand the context of where the person is at before you start pitching them all the beautiful tomorrows on offer in exchange for their vote.

So talk to the person first. Ask questions about their experience and share your own. Make it human, make it real. Get curious about the whys - why has life been tough lately? Why do you hold that particular view? Why do you think nothing will change? Who made you feel your voice doesn’t matter?

Listen carefully and then speak to their challenges. You then have Emily’s list in your back pocket to pull out when the conversation naturally progresses to that point. When you’ve let them communicate fully where they are at that’s the moment you can point out where to go.

So leave the soapboxing for the hacks like me and Emily and save yourself - or make yourself - some friends!

Good luck out there!

What do you think? Have you had any luck with talking to people in your life about these things? How do you think Alice's tips could help? I'd love to hear your thoughts.