By Rebecca Wright
Potential Green MP Steffan Browning has his own aspirations for policy gains after the election – he wants 10 percent of New Zealand crops to be organic by the year 2020. But it is a crop of another kind that has caused him some trouble in the past.
Mr Browning is number ten on the Green party list and in three weeks time he is likely to be in parliament.
But it is not where the party hierarchy wanted him; they ranked him low at 16 but grassroots members promoted him.
“There was a fair bit of lobbying in different areas, I guess,” says Mr Browning.
But as 3 News found out, the Greens need not have worried because Mr Browning is every inch the politician.
Here is what he had to say when we asked him if he had ever been arrested.
“No not in activism. I’ve been where people have been arrested but I haven't.
“Yes, I have been arrested.”
So no, and yes.
“In youth - that was on a cannabis charge.”
Mr Browning is more likely to be found on the end of a placard than a joint these days but he supports the Green Party policy for more liberal laws around cannabis use for adults.
“What are we pouring all these resources into criminalising people when its seriously out there anyway,” he asks.
Since Nandor Tanczos left the Greens, the party has purposely avoided highlighting its softer drugs policy, instead focussing on poverty and the economy.
But, as Mr Browning has proven, you cannot get rid of the past and party bosses could not get rid of him.
3 News