The proposed merger of New Zealand’s largest newspaper publishers is bad news for a diverse media environment and shows the need for independent regulation to oversee media ownership issues, the Green Party said. “A free, diverse, and competitive media is hugely important for democracy,” Green Party broadcasting spokesperson Gareth Hughes said. “The proposed merger highlights New Zealand’s international outlier status, lacking rules regulating media ownership and diversity. “The Green Party has long advocated broader criteria for independent media regulation, similar...

It’s time for the Government to act to solve the housing crisis as the Reserve Bank again called for stronger Government action, the Green Party said. “The Government is moving too slowly and cautiously on housing, but actually there are many things it could do right now that would make a difference, including a proper capital gains tax (excluding the family home),” Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said. “The Government’s blaming everyone but itself for the housing crisis,...

The Green Party is today calling on the Prime Minister to apologise for smearing some of New Zealand’s leading charities, as well as a Green MP, in Parliament in an attempt to take the heat off his Government over the foreign trusts tax-dodging scandal. Yesterday John Key used Parliamentary privilege to wrongly claim that Amnesty, Greenpeace and the Red Cross had been implicated in the Panama Papers leak, and that Green MP Mojo Mathers had a foreign trust. The charities...

Data released today by LINZ gives no real insight into the influence of non-resident foreign speculators on the New Zealand housing market, the Green Party said today. “By LINZ’s own admission, this is nowhere near the full picture on how many non-resident foreign buyers are snapping up properties in New Zealand,” said Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei. “New Zealanders desperately need the Government to collect definitive information on the number of non-resident foreign housing speculators operating in New Zealand, and...

The Government can start the clean-up of the foreign trust industry as early as tonight by supporting the Green Party’s proposed changes to a Government tax bill being voted on this evening. Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter will put forward an SOP to the Government’s Taxation (Transformation: First Phase Simplification and Other Measures) Bill that will require trustees, settlors, and beneficiaries of foreign trusts to disclose to the IRD their name, date of birth, address, passport number and...

The National Government helped facilitate Mossack Fonsecca’s tax avoidance business in New Zealand when it put a stop to Inland Revenue’s proposed review of foreign trust regulation, the Green Party says.

The Government’s financial update today shows its focus on maintaining a wafer-thin surplus has come at the expense of real ideas about how to tackle the big economic problems we face, like child poverty, unemployment, and the housing crisis, the Green Party said. Government Financial Statements for the nine months to 31 March 2016, the last update before the Budget on 26 May, showed a modest $167 million operating balance before gains and losses and net government debt of $63.3...

The Green Party is calling on the Government to target aid towards Pacific Island communities forced to migrate because of rising seas, after a new study revealed that the Solomon Islands are already being significantly affected by climate-related sea-level rise. 

The Government’s new emergency housing fund money does nothing to address the underlying causes of Auckland’s affordable housing crisis, the Green Party said today. Paula Bennett today announced a $41.1 million-dollar emergency housing fund boost to be spent over the next four years. “The Government finding some money to help the outstanding organisations who feed, clothe and help house our homeless is a good step, but it doesn’t address the underlying causes of the Auckland affordable housing crisis or prevent...

The Government must urgently broaden its limited review of foreign trusts in light of new revelations of the extent of New Zealand’s involvement in the global tax avoidance industry, the Green Party said today. “Newly revealed leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca demonstrate that New Zealand has become an integral part of the global tax avoidance network,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. “It’s time for the Prime Minister to stop defending the tax avoidance industry and broaden the review of...