The Government is forcing students into more debt, by keeping the student accommodation payment capped at 2004 levels for more than a decade, the Green Party says. Student Debt today tipped $15 billion. “The accommodation payment was capped at $40 a week for single students way back in 2004, before YouTube even existed,” Green Party tertiary education spokesperson Gareth Hughes said. “The average student today is likely to be paying 56 percent more rent than they were in 2004.* “Rents...

Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith must explain how many New Zealanders need to die and be admitted to hospital before he will add a life-saving rental housing warrant of fitness to the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill, the Green Party said today. Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei will be questioning Minister Smith today on the true cost of his choice to not include a proper rentals warrant of fitness in the RTA Bill – New Zealanders dying and getting...

Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei will use Question Time today to call on Building and Housing Minister Nick Smith to improve the Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill so that Kiwi renters won’t get sick from living in cold, damp, mouldy homes. The Social Services Select Committee has been hearing submissions on the Bill, many of which have called for the Bill to be drastically improved and for a rental housing warrant of fitness to be included. “It’s time for Nick Smith...

The growing gap between what families need to earn to live and what the Government sets as the minimum wage, shows the National Government isn’t doing enough to ensure all New Zealanders can get ahead, the Green Party said. The Government today moved to increase the minimum wage by 50 cents to $15.25 an hour, while the Living Wage Movement announced the actual minimum amount a family needs to earn has increased by 55 cents to $19.80 an hour. “While...

The Green Party offers its condolences for the passing of Dr Ranginui Walker of Te Whakatōhea. “Dr Walker was held in huge esteem throughout New Zealand and by many of us in the Green Party,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said. “I have been on many panels with Ranginui and he has always been open to a fiery debate. He was incredibly well informed, highly opinionated, and always willing to have an open conversation. “As a Māori activist lawyer, then...

The Green Party is encouraging New Zealanders to vote for the flag that they want to represent New Zealand in the upcoming flag referendum.

TV3’s interview with prisoner Arthur Taylor once again highlights a worrying lack of transparency around our prison system, which the National Government has refused to open up to proper independent scrutiny, the Green Party said today. In an interview with TV3’s The Nation, prisoner Arthur Taylor claimed that many New Zealand prisons are still controlled by gangs, and that contraband like cellphones and cigarettes are regularly being smuggled in. “These are serious allegations, but without independent oversight New Zealanders are...

The National Government has set up new-arrival refugees and the services that look after them to fail by not providing adequate funding, said the Green Party today.

The Green Party is calling for the Government to give power back to the people of Christchurch to lead the city's recovery by amending the Greater Christchurch Regeneration Bill.

The Green Party will continue to fight for rivers and lakes New Zealanders can swim in, despite the Primary Production Select Committee deciding this week that it can’t place a moratorium on Landcorp’s potentially polluting dairy conversions at Wairakei Estate in the Waikato. Government-owned Landcorp has been in the process of converting land in the upper Waikato to dairy farms, with plans to introduce 29,500 cows to the environment – putting the Waikato River at further risk of pollution. The...