An ardent advocate of genetic engineering (GE) should not be heading the body charged with protecting the environment, the Green Party said today. Former CEO of Wrightson Dr Allan Freeth has been appointed to head the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), and will take up the post in September. During his time at Wrightson, Dr Freeth was instrumental in pushing their adoption of GE grasses, and saw Wrightson buy into biotech company Genesis to work on GE pasture plants and GE...

National needs to immediately bring legislation to the House which lifts the ban on the right of prisoners to vote, said the Green Party.

The Green Party is calling on the Government to cancel its latest charter school application round, and disestablish the Partnership Schools/Kura Hourua Authorisation (PSKH) board, following the bail out of a problem-plagued Northland charter school. “Both the Education Minister and the PSKH board have put their desire to open charter schools ahead of the safety of the children in them, ignoring repeated warnings by the Ministry of Education that some schools were not ready to be opened,” Green Party education spokesperson...

The Green Party is demanding to know why SERCO’s contract has not been terminated yet despite at least six Performance Notices in the last three years.

Workers have been let down by the National Government’s new Health and Safety Reform Bill which in many ways is worse than what it replaces, the Green Party said following the release of the Select Committee Report into the bill today. “The review of health and safety laws was supposed to make workplaces safer for workers, but it looks like it’ll actually do the opposite,” Green Party workplace relations spokesperson Denise Roche said. “National seems to have given in to...

Fresh revelations of violence and injuries at Mt Eden Prison should prompt the Government to consider cancelling SERCO's contract to run the prison, the Green Party says. “It's time for the Corrections Minister to stop protecting SERCO and the Corrections Department and do what's right to ensure the proper management of the prison,” Green Party justice spokesperson Dave Clendon said. “Today the Minister confirmed SERCO had been fined for multiple breaches of its contract. One man has died as a...

The Government should not renew SERCO’s contract to run Mt Eden Prison, following confirmation from the Corrections Minister today that SERCO has been fined $300,000 for a myriad of failures in the last financial year.

The Green Party is calling on the Government to permanently ditch its plans for an ACC appeals tribunal and act immediately to ensure ACC has fairer and more just processes. The call comes after the release of research by the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre and  Acclaim Otago which highlights ''widespread and systemic barriers to access to justice'' when it comes to ACC. “The Government is doing nowhere near enough to address New Zealanders’ legitimate concerns about the way...

The cooling New Zealand economy has prompted the Reserve Bank to continue its stimulatory stance by dropping the OCR further, in the absence of any long term plan for economic resilience from National, the Green Party said. “With the economy slowing down rapidly, prompting the Reserve Bank to drop the OCR, National’s failure to put in place long-term measures to ensure continued productive investment and job creation has been exposed,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. “Lower interest rates will...

  Prime Minister John Key’s comment that he “believes” low income New Zealanders could one day buy a home is an insult to Kiwis who have been priced out of the market by Government inaction on housing, the Green Party says. John Key and Bill English were reported today to have conceded that rising house prices were contributing to inequality, but neither were prepared to take any responsibility for the fact. “To admit that the housing crisis in Auckland is...