The Green Party is welcoming new financial protections for subcontractors as a win for the building industry after years of struggle following the collapse of Mainzeal in early 2013. Today, Parliament will pass the Construction Contracts Amendment Bill. “I’m really pleased to see the Government has finally listened to the building industry and put in place new protections for subcontractors, because for a long time it didn’t look likely,” Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter said. “The Green Party has...

The Government’s plan to curb childhood obesity is largely a rehash of existing programmes and offers very little to reduce the attraction of junk food. Green Party Health Spokesperson Kevin Hague says that real behaviour change happens when the environment changes that encourages unhealthy behaviour. The Government’s announced initiatives takes the easy way out by blaming individuals, while too many of us have the same problem. “Like the alcohol and tobacco industries, the junk food industry won't voluntarily sell less...

The Green Party is challenging Prime Minister John Key to tell New Zealanders what his next step will be, following his failure, over the weekend to secure any meaningful concessions on Kiwis detained in Australia.

The Green Party will press on with a human rights complaint about the detention and treatment of Kiwis in Australia, following an apparent failure of Prime Minister John Key today to secure any reasonable concessions from his Australian counterpart.   It's been reported today that Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull had made a vague commitment to increase resources to allow appeals over deportations and detentions by Kiwis to be processed more quickly.   "It seems John Key has failed to...

The Green parties of New Zealand and Australia will be lodging a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) about the detention and treatment of New Zealanders in Australia.

The Government has an opportunity with its obesity plan to put the health of New Zealanders ahead of the profits of multi-national junk food companies, the Green Party said today. Health Minister Jonathan Coleman is expected to make an announcement today on tackling obesity, however there are reports that there will be no extra regulatory measures put in place around the food and drinks that are making us fat. “Until the Government stops protecting the junk food industry at the...

The Green Party is calling for stronger controls on agricultural land and business sales to overseas investors following new information that Americans were the biggest investors in New Zealand farmland in the past two years. “New Zealand should be keeping ownership of the land and businesses that underpin our agricultural economy in New Zealand hands,” Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne Genter said. “It’s not just land being taken from New Zealand hands, but also ownership of all points in...

The Waikato Regional Council (WRC) is failing to protect the Waikato River and the communities who value it from increasing pollution, by allowing Landcorp’s upstream dairy conversions to continue and allowing others to take place without resource consent, the Green Party said today. WRC councillor Alan Livingston and Chief Executive Vaughan Payne were questioned by the Primary Production Select Committee at Parliament today in response to a petition by Green MP Catherine Delahunty calling for a moratorium on Landcorp’s conversion...

The Government needs to rule out borrowing to pay for tax bribes while funding for core education and health services continues to fall behind what’s needed, the Green Party said today. “Bill English’s surplus works out at $2.20 a week per person – about the price of a pack of chewing gum – so if he wants to cut taxes more than that he’s going to need to borrow to fund his tax bribes,” Green Party finance spokesperson Julie Anne...

The National Government’s plans for emissions reduction will melt Antarctica if all other countries follow our lead, the Green Party said today. New research published today in Nature magazine led by Nick Golledge, at Victoria University’s Antarctic Research Centre, has confirmed that Antarctica’s ice cap will melt unless ambitious action is taken to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the next five years. “If most countries followed New Zealand’s lead, global warming would exceed 3–4°C leading to major losses of...