Green Party names Jordan Walker as East Cape election candidate
Jordan Walker previously stood for the Green Party in the East Coast electorate for the 2023 election and as a Green Party-endorsed candidate in the 2025 Gisborne District Council local body elections. Photo / Gisborne Herald
The Green Party has announced Jordan Walker as its candidate for the East Cape.
Walker was the East Coast Green Party candidate in 2023 and was endorsed by the Green Party in the 2025 Gisborne District Council local body elections.
They received 1765 candidate votes in the 2023 election, coming in fifth in the electorate won by National’s Dana Kirkpatrick.
Walker grew up in Tūranganui-a-kiwa (Gisborne) and has Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa, Ngāti Porou and Ngāi Te Rangi whakapapa.
The 36-year-old is a creative producer and community advocate with work focused on access and wellbeing, particularly for the community’s most vulnerable.
Walker, in a statement, said they were standing for the Green Party because they were Te Tiriti-led and offered “solutions and a positive future for the diverse communities and regions” that make up the electorate.
“I’m incredibly proud to be from Te Tairāwhiti, because I can reference the communities that make our region thrive. In the face of hardship and destruction, people wrap around one another here, but they’re largely doing that voluntarily and heavily under-resourced.” Walker said.
“Imagine what we could do if we had a government that backed the people?”
Walker said the East Cape needed climate mitigation, direct local government resourcing, funding equity and infrastructure.
They referred to the states of emergency, slips and flash flooding across the North Island so far this year.
“The current Government knew climate issues would worsen.
“They are exploiting and extracting from this whenua to line the pockets of the wealthiest.”
They said the Green Party had planned and costed policies for affordable and accessible housing, education, public transport, apprenticeships, and equitable health care for rural and Māori communities.
East Cape candidates announced to date
Incumbent Dana Kirkpatrick (National), Jo Luxton (Labour), Jordan Walker (Green) and Cail Smith (Opportunity).