Former Green MP Catherine Delahunty says the Greens need to do "something positive" after its co-leader backed millions in dollars of funding for a private school in Taranaki, holding another $3 billion in infrastructure funds to ransom.
Green Party co-leader James Shaw this week apologised after he went against the party's education policy, backing $11.3 million in funding for a Taranaki "Green School".
Delahunty, the party's former education spokesperson, told Magic Talk's Road to the Election on Sunday she was "disappointed" the Greens' stance on education was ignored.
"I know that the party is passionate about public quality education and, for me, this is something we've got a good track record on so we don't want to throw that away," she told host Mitch McCann.
"If that money had gone into state schools, they would have created jobs as well."
Delahunty isn't the only former Green MP to speak out expressing their disappointment over the debacle, with Mojo Mathers also saying on Twitter she was "furious".
National leader Judith Collins earlier said on Wednesday she was surprised Shaw didn't resign.
"It's not just that he advocated for a particular Green School that doesn't even have education registration to be a school, but that he's actually held up all these projects on the basis that he was holding the rest of the Government basically to ransom."
Delahunty said she sent "a couple of messages" to Shaw's co-leader Marama Davidson that they should "prepare themselves" and "do something about this".
It was important the co-leaders come up with some "positive, new" ideas between now and the election, Delahunty said.
"They have to come up with something really positive in the education space to show that they still believe in public quality education."
She also said if the Green Party stands "in the middle of the road with Labour, they're going to get run over".
