Key questions remain unanswered about the Prime Minister’s role in his Government’s stopping an IRD review of our secretive foreign trust industry, the Green Party said today. Prime Minister John Key told National Radio this morning that his lawyer, Ken Whitney, misrepresented his exchange in an email to then Minister of Revenue Todd McClay by saying, ‘I have spoken to the Prime Minister about this and he advised that the Government has no plans to change the status of the...

The Green Party is calling the fishing industry’s legal challenge against the Kermadec Sanctuary self-serving and a step too far. The New Zealand Fishing Industry Association today filed legal proceedings in the High Court against the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill. "The fishing industry has overstepped the mark, with a self-serving attempt to override New Zealanders’ and the government’s ability to regulate and protect our oceans," said Green Party environment and fisheries spokesperson Eugenie Sage. “The industry’s legal action against the...

The Green Party is asking the Prime Minister to tell New Zealanders why he failed to mention that his own lawyer was the person in the foreign trust industry he’d discussed foreign trusts with and referred on to the Revenue Minister. The Green Party revealed yesterday that the Prime Minister’s lawyer, Ken Whitney, wrote to the Revenue Minister in late 2014 with his concerns about an Inland Revenue Department (IRD) review of foreign trusts, claiming the Prime Minister had told...

The Government stopped the IRD from reviewing New Zealand foreign trusts shortly after the Prime Minister’s lawyer wrote to the Revenue Minister claiming John Key had promised him the regime would not be changed. Correspondence obtained by the Green Party shows that the Prime Minister’s lawyer Ken Whitney initiated a lobbying campaign that started with the Prime Minister and appears to have successfully stopped the IRD from reforming the foreign trust regulations in 2015. “This shows how powerful vested interests...

The Green Party is calling on the Government to require all public fund managers to disclose their exposure to climate risks following a report by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE) highlighting the financial risks of climate change for New Zealand. The PCE, in her submission on the Emissions Trading Scheme review, said today that climate change poses a threat to New Zealand's the financial resilience and long term prosperity. Finance Minister Bill English has previously dismissed the PCE's...

New Climate Minister Paula Bennett has notched up her second major fail for the climate in a week, overseeing a decision to keep burning coal at the Huntly power station until 2022, the Green Party said today.

The Government’s failure to fix Auckland’s broken housing market has forced the Reserve Bank to keep the Official Cash Rate (OCR) higher than normal hurting exporters and jobs, the Green Party said today. The Reserve Bank kept the OCR unchanged today at 2.25 percent despite economic conditions that favour further cuts. The Bank cited high Auckland house prices and a need for additional housing supply there. “Housing market pressures are building in some other regions,” it added. “National’s failure to...

Mortgage-lending stats released today by the Reserve Bank show that the Government’s unwillingness to put rules in place for property speculation means investors are snapping up houses at the expense of first-time buyers, the Green Party said today. The Reserve Bank’s figures show that 7,006 new mortgage loans were approved for investors in the month to March, while just 2,044 were approved for first-time home buyers. The amount of money lent to investors to buy property was almost three times...

Hawke’s Bay Regional Investment Company (HBRIC) should dump the Ruataniwha Dam proposal, as it has barely scraped together enough interested farmers to use the scheme, the Green Party said today.   “The Ruataniwha Dam has become a farce and should be called off,” said Green Party water spokesperson Catherine Delahunty.   “HBRIC has only just scraped together farmers to commit to use 43 million cubic metres of water, when they need subscribers for 45 million cubic metres of water to...

The National Government must change its economic strategy if it is to have any hope of stopping climate change, the Green Party said today. The comments come following the release of a Royal Society NZ report showing wide-ranging measures must be adopted to curb climate pollution in New Zealand. “New Zealand's top scientists have shown in this report that reducing emissions will require a re-think of the current strategy for agriculture, and that climate targets won’t be met by relying...