Changes to improve workplace health and safety law will be a priority for the Green Party when it is in Government, the Party’s Workplace Relations and Safety Spokesperson, Denise Roche, said today. The Government’s widely criticised Health and Safety Reform Bill is set to pass its final stage in Parliament this afternoon. “With the Government having voted down Green and Labour amendments to improve the Bill earlier this week, we are going to see a deeply flawed law coming onto...

Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei is launching her Residential Tenancies (Warm, Safe and Secure Rentals) Amendment Bill today, which will instigate a warrant of fitness for all rental homes, and encourage longer, more secure tenancies. “The million-odd New Zealanders who rent the homes they live in will greatly benefit from this Bill,” said Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei. “Renting is a fact of life for more than a third of all Kiwi households, yet they have so far been largely...

The Green Party will today vote against David Seymour’s Rugby World Cup booze Bill after National and Act went back on their word to improve the Bill, and problems with special licences proved to be exaggerated at best. “We would have absolutely supported a Bill that allowed Kiwis to watch the rugby at bars during key World Cup games, as long as all of the appropriate safety and anti-harm measures were also included,” said Green Party health spokesperson Kevin Hague....

The Green Party is calling on the Government to embrace new ideas to steer New Zealand away from global economic turmoil following stock market crises in China and the USA, or else risk repeating the mistakes it made in 2009-10. “The Government’s response to the last financial crisis was to borrow billions of dollars and spend it on tax cuts for the rich and motorways with dubious business cases,’ Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “Six years and billions of...

Parliament’s Speaker David Carter needs to consider allowing a personal vote on legislation to relax Easter trading laws, the Green Party said today. “MPs have traditionally exercised personal votes on Easter trading,” said the Green Party’s Workplace Relations & Safety spokesperson, Denise Roche, who will be writing to Mr Carter requesting the personal vote “Past voting has not been along party lines, with eight current National MPs, including Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse himself, voting against Easter Sunday trading in...

National is playing politics with New Zealanders’ holidays by proposing to liberalise Easter Sunday trading laws while they are on the back foot with their own proposed health and safety laws in tatters.

SERCO should now be issued with a final warning following new revelations a staff member at the Mt Eden Correctional Facility was caught on camera fighting with an inmate, said the Green Party today.

The horrific deaths of 400 mother and baby pigs in a Waikato farm fire is another example of why farrowing crates must go, the Green Party said today. “I am extremely saddened by the appalling deaths of these intelligent animals,” said Green Party animal welfare spokesperson Mojo Mathers. “Not only did these pigs lead terrible lives, living in cramped pens with little room for movement, they ended up suffering horrible, traumatic deaths as well. "This is another example of why free-range...

National Party MPs are continuing to mislead the New Zealand public, claiming they will be able to have input into the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) once it is signed. “Backbench MP Shane Reti was today caught out trying to tell Northlanders that the TPPA comes before Parliament to be debated and modified – something that is blatantly not true,” said Green Party Trade spokesperson Dr Russel Norman. “Steven Joyce had to correct a similarly untrue statement in Parliament in...

The Green Party is delighted the Basin Reserve flyover will not be going ahead after a ruling by the High Court today. “The Green Party is very happy with the decision by the High Court today dismissing the appeal over the Basin Reserve flyover,” said Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter. “The New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) should not have taken the decision to court in the first place after the Environmental Protection Agency made a rational transport decision....