Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says Green Party co-leader James Shaw is an "exceptional minister" despite him backing millions of dollars in funding for a private school in Taranaki, holding another $3 billion in infrastructure funds to ransom.
Last week, Shaw apologised after he went against the party's education policy, backing $11.3 million in funding for a Taranaki "Green School".
Ardern, whose Labour party is in a confidence and supply agreement with the Greens, told The AM Show on Monday she "absolutely" still has confidence in Shaw.
"I consider him an exceptional minister," she told host Duncan Garner.
"Nothing over the past few days has changed my view that he is an exceptional minister who has worked in a very difficult, very technical area and has done it very, very well."
The Green School fiasco caused a massive uproar, with even former Greens MPs Catherine Delahunty and Mojo Mathers speaking out against it. Delahunty told Magic Talk she was "disappointed" the Greens' stance on education was ignored, while Mathers said on Twitter she was "furious".
National leader Judith Collins 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."
But Ardern defended Shaw, saying "everything is a negotiation" in Government.
There have been differences of opinion throughout the term since the Labour-Green-NZ First Government took office in 2017, she said.
"I think probably what this is a sign of is the job that we've done; managing well [and being] a really constructive, productive Government."
Ardern also said the Government has "achieved a lot" over the past three years.
Former Green Party education spokesperson Delahunty on Sunday said the Greens needed to come up with something positive before the election as a result of the fiasco.
"They have to come up with something really positive in the education space to show that they still believe in public quality education.
"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."
