Vernon Ivan Tava is a barrister living in Auckland, New Zealand. He is the founder and leader of the Sustainable New Zealand Party and a former candidate for the

Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand ( mi, Rōpū Kākāriki o Aotearoa, Niu Tireni), commonly known as the Greens, is a green and left-wing political party in New Zealand. Like many green parties around the world, it has four organisational ...

Education and business career

Vernon Tava graduated with a Master of Laws degree (LL.M) with first class honours from the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

in 2011 and was awarded the Fowlds Memorial Prize (2010) for most distinguished postgraduate student in law. He worked as a solicitor at the Grey Lynn Neighbourhood Law Office and Auckland Community Law Centre from 2013-2016. He was a business broker with Divest Business Sales from 2016-2020. He now practises law as a criminal defence barrister.

Political career

Local-body politics

Tava lives in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

, and served as a member of the

Waitematā Local Board The Waitematā Local Board is one of the 21 local boards of the Auckland Council, and is one of the three boards overseen by the council's Waitematā and Gulf Ward councillor. The Waitematā board, named after the Waitematā Harbour which for ...

between 2013 and 2019 representing the left-wing City Vision ticket, which is affiliated with both the Labour and Green parties. He also served as a resource consent commissioner during his time as a local board member.

Green Party

Tava was a member of the

until resigning from the party in late February 2017. While a member of the Green Party, he served as their Auckland co-convenor, Standing Orders Convenor on the National Executive, and as their electorate candidate for Northcote in 2011. In 2015, Tava contested the Green Party's male co-leadership election. He campaigned on returning to the party's roots and core values as neither left nor right wing and placing the environment back at the top of party priorities. The male co-leadership contest was ultimately won by first-term

List MP A list MP is a member of parliament (MP) elected from a party list rather than from by a geographical constituency. The place in Parliament is due to the number of votes that the party won, not to votes received by the MP personally. This occurs ...

and former management consultant, James Shaw, with Tava coming third-equal with Gareth Hughes MP, both receiving one delegate vote each. In late February 2017, Tava quit the Green Party, claiming that the party had strayed away from environmentalism and become "too socialist." During the

2017 New Zealand general election The 2017 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 23 September 2017 to determine the membership of the 52nd New Zealand Parliament. The previous parliament was elected on 20 September 2014 and was officially dissolved on 22 August 20 ...

, he joined the 2017 campaign team of the centre-right National Party's East Coast Bays candidate Erica Stanford. Tava then sought the National Party nomination in the

2018 Northcote by-election The 2018 Northcote by-election was a New Zealand by-election that was held in on 9 June 2018. The seat became vacant on 15 April 2018, following the resignation of then-Member for Northcote Jonathan Coleman, a member of the New Zealand Nat ...

. He did not make National's candidate shortlist.

Sustainable NZ Party

In 2019, Tava launched the Sustainable New Zealand Party, which he pitched as a centrist, sustainability-based political party. By February 2019, Tava had launched a website for his party and began soliciting members. Tava announced that his party was willing to work with both the Labour and National parties. Tava formally launched the Sustainable NZ Party in November 2019; with the Party formally registered with the

Electoral Commission An election commission is a body charged with overseeing the implementation of electioneering process of any country. The formal names of election commissions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and may be styled an electoral commission, a c ...

on 4 December. In mid-February 2020, the Sustainable NZ Party's former secretary, Helen Cartwright, alleged that Tava had suggested that they doctor membership records so that the party could meet the minimum membership threshold of 500 current financial members at the time of application for registration with the Electoral Commission. Cartwright and a small number of members resigned due to her assertion that the party lacked policies and funds. Tava denied Cartwright's allegations, asserting that the party had met the minimum membership threshold by the time the application was approved by the

. In October 2020 Tava admitted that a woman featured in one of Sustainable NZ's online video advertisements (purported to be a small business owner named Jill) was actually an actor who was his partner Julie. Tava rejected the notion that the ad was misleading and said he believed it was commonplace to use actors for political ads. During the

2020 New Zealand general election The 2020 New Zealand general election was held on Saturday 17 October 2020 to determine the composition of the 53rd parliament. Voters elected 120 members to the House of Representatives, 72 from single-member electorates and 48 from closed ...

held on 17 October, Tava, standing as the party's candidate for Auckland Central, obtained 120 votes with Sustainable NZ obtaining 59 party votes. Nationally, the Sustainable NZ Party won 1,880 party votes in the 2020 election, or 0.1% of the total. On 15 December 2021, the party was deregistered and its logo cancelled at its own request.

Notes and references

External links

Vernon Tava's personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tava, Vernon 21st-century New Zealand politicians Living people New Zealand businesspeople 21st-century New Zealand lawyers People from Auckland Local politicians in New Zealand Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand politicians New Zealand National Party politicians Unsuccessful candidates in the 2011 New Zealand general election Unsuccessful candidates in the 2020 New Zealand general election 1977 births