Protecting our water from pollution has never been more important, as we can’t take the water from our taps for granted anymore, the Green Party said today. The comments come on the back of a report released by the Havelock North drinking water inquiry showing that dysfunction between local authorities, poor infrastructure and faecal contamination led to more than 5000 people becoming sick with campylobacter. “New Zealanders want clean water. It’s not good enough to say we’ll just chlorinate the...

Plans to protect some of our most precious species won’t be worth the paper they’re written on if the Department of Conservation doesn’t get a significant funding boost, the Green Party said today. “DOC funding has been chopped by some $336 million since National came to power. Maggie Barry’s plan to increase the number of species DOC protects will fail dismally if the department continues to be asked to do more with less,” said Green Party conservation spokesperson Mojo Mathers....

MPs have the opportunity to support women being paid what they’re worth by voting for Jan Logie’s Equal Pay Amendment Bill in Parliament tonight, the Green Party said. The Bill would get employers to add gender as a payroll reporting requirement and allow employees to request access to this information to ensure that they are being paid fairly. “It’s wrong that women are still earning so much less than men in 2017, and I want each MP to ask themselves...

National should follow today’s advice from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and implement deposit insurance to protect New Zealanders’ savings, the Green Party said. The IMF’s Financial Sector Assessment Programme recommended today that introducing deposit insurance is “the best option” to strengthen the Reserve Bank’s crisis resolution framework. “New Zealand is the only developed country in the world where we can lose our savings if our bank makes a bad decision, and that’s because we don’t have deposit insurance,” Green...

Thousands of heavily-mortgaged first home buyers in Auckland could be hit hard by rising interest rates, thanks to out of control house prices, according to documents released to the Green Party under the Official Information Act. An email from Reserve Bank analysts to senior Beehive staff in January 2017, titled “response to PM’s questions”, highlights a “significant likelihood of financial distress” for people who have recently got mortgages in Auckland, in the event interest rates rise as predicted. “The Prime...

The Government must immediately put the full resources of the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and the Department of Conservation (DOC) towards finding the cause of the myrtle rust incursion and preventing a wider outbreak, the Green Party said today.

A new gas power plant granted consent today in southern Waikato is a step backwards for New Zealand’s efforts to generate more renewable electricity, the Green Party said today. “New Zealand is blessed with an abundance of renewable electricity options like solar, geothermal, and wind, so there’s no good reason we should be allowing new power plants that burn fossil fuels in the era of climate change,” Green Party energy and resources spokesperson Gareth Hughes said. “It’s irresponsible that climate...

New data shows rising rents are hitting people on modest incomes and beneficiaries in the pocket, while the cost of living for wealthier households is more manageable, the Green Party said today. In the last three months, the cost of living rose 1.4 percent for beneficiaries and 1.3 percent for low expenditure households, compared to just 0.5 percent for high expenditure households, according to the Statistics NZ Household Living Costs Price Index. “Under National, it’s getting harder for people on...

Mental health services have been in such a dire state for such a long time that only a full inquiry and a significant injection of Government money will make a difference, the Green Party said today. The Health Minister today announced that mental health services will get a cross-Government approach, mainly funded within existing baseline funding. “Families of people experiencing mental health problems are being short-changed by a Government that has been missing in action for far too long,” Green...

Conservation Minister Maggie Barry will have to go against the will of the New Zealand public if she pushes ahead with more open-cast coal mining on conservation land on the West Coast, the Green Party said today. It has been revealed that the Government is planning to open up areas of the West Coast’s Buller Plateau for open-cast and underground coal mining, home to kiwi, geckos, and other rare plants and animals. “It looks like Maggie Barry herself is at...