A new national median of over half-a-million dollars puts a first home well out of reach for too many New Zealanders, the Green Party said today.

More and more New Zealand children are being hospitalised for tooth decay issues, and the Government needs to implement a sugary drinks tax to help turn this around, the Green Party said today. Ministry of Health figures show the rate of hospitalisation for dental caries (or basic tooth decay) for young people has increased 13 per cent from 2008-09 to 2013-14. 6471 young people were hospitalised for tooth decay in 2012-14. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out...

Reports that Housing New Zealand is about to run out of money, just as it’s supposed to be building new houses to alleviate the housing crisis, is a symptom of National’s economic mismanagement, the Green Party said today. “Bill English has run Housing New Zealand into the ground and now he’s going to have to do an emergency bail-out,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “Bill English should have used Housing New Zealand to kick-start a Government-building programme back in...

New Zealanders’ health is being put at risk by a chemical in commonly used weedkillers that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn’t even require companies to publicly disclose is in its compounds, the Green Party said today. At least 89 herbicide and pesticide products in New Zealand, including products commonly found in many Kiwi garden sheds, contain polyoxyethylene tallow amine (POEA), which has been named in today’s Pesticide Action Network monograph as having serious health effects. The EU Commission has also...

Bill English owes it to prospective first-home buyers to name a price for the houses the Government is proposing to build and sell in Auckland, the Green Party said today. “Aucklanders need to be able to trust the Government to build houses they can afford, but so far National hasn’t delivered on anything they’ve promised,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said. “If the Government’s plan to fix the housing affordability crisis is to build houses that will sell at market...

The National Government’s refusal to cancel out fraudulent Russian carbon credits by using the surplus authentic carbon credits it holds, puts the integrity of our international climate commitments at risk, the Green Party said today. Climate minister Paula Bennett is continuing to refuse to cancel bad carbon credits purchased from Russia and the Ukraine between 2013 and 2015 to offset the carbon emissions of New Zealand businesses. It was subsequently found that approximately a quarter of those carbon credits were...

 

Labour, the Green Party and the Māori Party are calling on the Government to immediately adopt the 20 recommendations set out in today’s Ending Homelessness in New Zealand report. This morning, the Cross-Party Inquiry into Homelessness has released its final report. Over the last several months the Inquiry has received hundreds of written and oral submissions from around New Zealand, which have been brought together into one report along with a set of 20 recommendations. Notable recommendations include: Rolling out...

Bill English should release the details of the new houses he says will be built by the Government, including how affordable they’ll actually be, the Green Party said today. Finance Minister Bill English has announced that the Government’s building programme in Auckland will increase under the Unitary Plan, after years of insisting the Government shouldn’t be building houses itself. “It looks like National may have finally discovered how to build houses, just in time for the election next year, but...

A United Nations report has today directly challenged New Zealand to take action to address child poverty, including establishing a national definition of poverty, according to Metiria Turei, co-leader of the Green Party.