News

  • Landcorp’s ‘dairy at all costs’ strategy is not working

    The Green Party is calling for Landcorp to change direction and consider other pastoral uses for Wairakei Estate now that it has been revealed it is not locked into dairy farming the upper Waikato.  Landcorp chief executive Steve Carden told The Dominion Post that the contract Landcorp, a state-owned enterprise, signed with landowners Wairakei Pastoral in 2004 is to convert 26,000ha of the pine forest to “pastoral use”, which could include cropping, beef, sheep, horticulture and forestry. “Landcorp’s financial results,...
  • Greens to prioritise fixing health and safety law

    Changes to improve workplace health and safety law will be a priority for the Green Party when it is in Government, the Party’s Workplace Relations and Safety Spokesperson, Denise Roche, said today. The Government’s widely criticised Health and Safety Reform Bill is set to pass its final stage in Parliament this afternoon. “With the Government having voted down Green and Labour amendments to improve the Bill earlier this week, we are going to see a deeply flawed law coming onto...
  • Green Party Bill will bring NZ rental laws into the 21st century

    Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei is launching her Residential Tenancies (Warm, Safe and Secure Rentals) Amendment Bill today, which will instigate a warrant of fitness for all rental homes, and encourage longer, more secure tenancies. “The million-odd New Zealanders who rent the homes they live in will greatly benefit from this Bill,” said Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei. “Renting is a fact of life for more than a third of all Kiwi households, yet they have so far been largely...
  • Greens to vote against bad World Cup booze law

    The Green Party will today vote against David Seymour’s Rugby World Cup booze Bill after National and Act went back on their word to improve the Bill, and problems with special licences proved to be exaggerated at best. “We would have absolutely supported a Bill that allowed Kiwis to watch the rugby at bars during key World Cup games, as long as all of the appropriate safety and anti-harm measures were also included,” said Green Party health spokesperson Kevin Hague....
  • Stock market crises demand new thinking from Govt

    The Green Party is calling on the Government to embrace new ideas to steer New Zealand away from global economic turmoil following stock market crises in China and the USA, or else risk repeating the mistakes it made in 2009-10. “The Government’s response to the last financial crisis was to borrow billions of dollars and spend it on tax cuts for the rich and motorways with dubious business cases,’ Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “Six years and billions of...
  • Greens to call for personal vote on Government’s Easter trading u-turn

    Parliament’s Speaker David Carter needs to consider allowing a personal vote on legislation to relax Easter trading laws, the Green Party said today. “MPs have traditionally exercised personal votes on Easter trading,” said the Green Party’s Workplace Relations & Safety spokesperson, Denise Roche, who will be writing to Mr Carter requesting the personal vote “Past voting has not been along party lines, with eight current National MPs, including Workplace Relations Minister Michael Woodhouse himself, voting against Easter Sunday trading in...
  • SERCO must be put on final warning

    SERCO should now be issued with a final warning following new revelations a staff member at the Mt Eden Correctional Facility was caught on camera fighting with an inmate, said the Green Party today.
  • Pig-farm fire shows why it’s time for farrowing crates to go

    The horrific deaths of 400 mother and baby pigs in a Waikato farm fire is another example of why farrowing crates must go, the Green Party said today. “I am extremely saddened by the appalling deaths of these intelligent animals,” said Green Party animal welfare spokesperson Mojo Mathers. “Not only did these pigs lead terrible lives, living in cramped pens with little room for movement, they ended up suffering horrible, traumatic deaths as well. "This is another example of why free-range...
  • National MP caught misleading on TPPA

    National Party MPs are continuing to mislead the New Zealand public, claiming they will be able to have input into the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) once it is signed. “Backbench MP Shane Reti was today caught out trying to tell Northlanders that the TPPA comes before Parliament to be debated and modified – something that is blatantly not true,” said Green Party Trade spokesperson Dr Russel Norman. “Steven Joyce had to correct a similarly untrue statement in Parliament in...