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Government’s urban cycleways plans are not enough, and they know it
The urban cycling infrastructure projects announced today are not enough to prevent costly injuries to cyclists and encourage commuters and school children to cycle, the Green Party said today. Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said “The projects announced today are small steps in the right direction but the government’s own advice is that much more must be done to make cycling safer.” Documents released to the Green Party under the Official Information Act show that while the Ministry...
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Russel Norman to stand down as Green Party Co-leader in May
Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman has announced today that he will stand down as leader at the party’s Annual General Meeting in May.
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Government's social housing numbers wrong
The Government is vastly misrepresenting how many additional homes will be created under its so-called social housing plan, in order to make its fire-sale of state homes look better, the Green Party says. Government Ministers have claimed they’ll be able to accommodate more people in “social housing” and slash Housing New Zealand wait lists by evicting families, selling up to 2000 homes in the next year, and building an additional 1000 state houses. “There are now 1500 fewer state homes...
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Landlords and developers winners from PM's state home sell-off
Prime Minister John Key’s fire-sale of state homes will line the pockets of landlords and property developers and drive up rents, while offering less security for New Zealand’s most vulnerable families, the Green Party says. “John Key’s speech on the future of so called “social housing” today was a pie in the sky wish list of maybes, that didn’t show a coherent plan for the building of a single new home, ” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said. ...
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Greens call for ring-fencing of state home proceeds
The Government must ring-fence the proceeds of any state home sales and spend every dollar raised on more Government-built homes in order to address the housing crisis, the Green Party says. Prime Minister John Key has indicated that his first major speech of the year will deal with housing, after Ministers last year admitted huge numbers of state homes could be on the block and aspects of state housing transferred to charities. “John Key will never be able to house...
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University students pushed further into debt
Students have become significantly poorer since National took office according to recently released data, the Green Party said today.
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National fails to produce evidence justifying attack on RMA
The National Government is misusing evidence provided in the Motu report on planning rules to justify gutting the environmental protections secured by the Resource Management Act (RMA), says the Green Party today. The Motu group’s research into the impacts of planning rules looked at the costs related to housing development but not the benefits of environmental protections and does not recommend significant changes to the RMA to reduce the cost of new house builds. “Environment Minister Nick Smith is misusing...
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RMA changes won't build more homes
The National Government must stop using the Resource Management Act as the straw manfor its own failure to build more homes and put an end to the country’s housing crisis, the Green Party says. Today, Environment Minister Nick Smith announced the first tranche of plans to weaken the RMA saying that it was ‘crucial’ to addressing housing supply and affordability. However, property developers and planners today said the Act isn’t standing in their way. “Changing the RMA won’t build a...
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RMA not responsible for housing crisis – the Government is
A survey showing that only a tiny fraction of resource consent applications are declined makes a nonsense of the Government’s claims that the Resource Management Act is getting in the way of housing development, the Green Party says.
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Chief Archivist to investigate Prime Minister
The Green Party welcomes the decision by the Chief Archivist to investigate their complaint into the Prime Minister’s practice of deleting official text messages. On 28 November 2014, the Green Party asked the Chief Archivist to look into John Key’s admission that he does not keep text messages that came to him from Cameron Slater or anyone else. The Archivist has confirmed she’ll look into the Prime Minister’s record keeping practices and whether there was a breach of the Public...