Green’s Co-leader Metiria Turei has kicked off the Party’s AGM in Auckland with a speech celebrating the achievements of the past year and claiming credit for some recent political wins.

The Green Party has asked the Office of the Auditor General to investigate the pay-offs given to a disgruntled Saudi businessman by the Government.

The Government should immediately implement a moratorium on seabed mining, the Green Party said today. The Green Party is responding to the news that Trans-Tasman Resources has applied to New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals for a 4,436km2 Prospecting Permit offshore along the West Coast of the South Island.

The Government must show it’s on the side of New Zealand babies and toddlers and their parents, rather than big-business food companies, and put in place better testing and regulation of pesticide residue levels in children’s food, the Green Party said today. The Green Party’s call comes in the wake of a Primary Production Select Committee report into allegations that there are unacceptably high levels of pesticides in baby food sold in New Zealand, and a demand for regulations in...

The Green Party today called on the Government to secure cross-party support to sell its investments in coal mining companies. The Norwegian Parliament’s finance committee agreed in a bipartisan motion yesterday to instruct the $1.2 trillion Government Pension Fund to sell its stakes in companies that generate more than 30 percent of their output or revenues from coal-related activities. “Coal has no future in our economy if we want a future free of runaway climate change,” said Green Party Co-leader...

Judith Collins’ backbench machinations in “her” caucus are putting workers’ lives at risk, the Green Party said. “National’s backdown on health and safety legislation shows that the Government is putting the interests of business owners in the forestry, agriculture, and fisheries industries ahead of workers’ safety on the job,” Green Party industrial relations spokesperson Denise Roche said. “Judith Collins’ successful backbench manoeuvring to delay and weaken vital workplace health and safety legislation shows that cracks are appearing in the National...

Today’s cut to Fonterra’s forecast farmgate milk price means that government-owned Landcorp must stop converting forests to dairy farms or risk doing serious damage to the rural economy, the Green Party said. “Landcorp needs to stop the dairy conversions until they can show how undertaking more conversions stacks up economically in the face of the lower forecast milk price. All the information that we’ve seen so far suggests that, in fact, dairy conversions may be hurting other farmers financially,” Green...

The use of private sector finance to build the Pūhoi-Warkworth motorway will make an already uneconomic project more expensive, the Green Party said today. The National Government today announced it was putting the financing and construction of the Pūhoi-Warkworth motorway out to tender as a public-private partnership (PPP). “Building the Puhoi-Warkworth motorway sooner doesn't stop it being an unwise use of money,” said Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter. “Borrowing from the private sector to finance the earlier construction...

The Government’s closure of Relationships Aotearoa creates a worrying gap in the provision of specialist counselling services to Maori and domestic violence victims and perpetrators, the Green Party said today. “By shutting down Relationships Aotearoa, the Government is shutting down years of highly specialised knowledge and experience, which has made a real and positive difference to thousands of New Zealanders,” said Green Party women’s issues spokesperson Jan Logie.  “Relationships Aotearoa was New Zealand’s largest provider of counselling ­­– a national,...

New information shows the Government did a second dubious deal with a disgruntled Saudi businessman who was blocking progress on the Gulf States Free Trade Agreement (FTA), says the Green Party today.