The Green Party today called on the Government to secure cross-party support to sell its investments in coal mining companies. The Norwegian Parliament’s finance committee agreed in a bipartisan motion yesterday to instruct the $1.2 trillion Government Pension Fund to sell its stakes in companies that generate more than 30 percent of their output or revenues from coal-related activities. “Coal has no future in our economy if we want a future free of runaway climate change,” said Green Party Co-leader...

Judith Collins’ backbench machinations in “her” caucus are putting workers’ lives at risk, the Green Party said. “National’s backdown on health and safety legislation shows that the Government is putting the interests of business owners in the forestry, agriculture, and fisheries industries ahead of workers’ safety on the job,” Green Party industrial relations spokesperson Denise Roche said. “Judith Collins’ successful backbench manoeuvring to delay and weaken vital workplace health and safety legislation shows that cracks are appearing in the National...

Today’s cut to Fonterra’s forecast farmgate milk price means that government-owned Landcorp must stop converting forests to dairy farms or risk doing serious damage to the rural economy, the Green Party said. “Landcorp needs to stop the dairy conversions until they can show how undertaking more conversions stacks up economically in the face of the lower forecast milk price. All the information that we’ve seen so far suggests that, in fact, dairy conversions may be hurting other farmers financially,” Green...

The use of private sector finance to build the Pūhoi-Warkworth motorway will make an already uneconomic project more expensive, the Green Party said today. The National Government today announced it was putting the financing and construction of the Pūhoi-Warkworth motorway out to tender as a public-private partnership (PPP). “Building the Puhoi-Warkworth motorway sooner doesn't stop it being an unwise use of money,” said Green Party transport spokesperson Julie Anne Genter. “Borrowing from the private sector to finance the earlier construction...

The Government’s closure of Relationships Aotearoa creates a worrying gap in the provision of specialist counselling services to Maori and domestic violence victims and perpetrators, the Green Party said today. “By shutting down Relationships Aotearoa, the Government is shutting down years of highly specialised knowledge and experience, which has made a real and positive difference to thousands of New Zealanders,” said Green Party women’s issues spokesperson Jan Logie.  “Relationships Aotearoa was New Zealand’s largest provider of counselling ­­– a national,...

New information shows the Government did a second dubious deal with a disgruntled Saudi businessman who was blocking progress on the Gulf States Free Trade Agreement (FTA), says the Green Party today.

It’s time for the Government to pull out all the stops to protect Maui’s dolphin in the wake of news that estimated numbers have fallen to between 43 and 47 individuals, said the Green Party today. Research from NABU International shows that the world’s smallest and rarest dolphin has only 10-12 mature females left, and could be extinct by 2029. It was previously thought that there were 55 individuals remaining. “We either do everything we can to save these unique...

The Green Party is calling on the Government to withdraw New Zealand troops from Iraq given the Iraqi army seems unwilling to fight the Islamic State, Green Party defence spokesperson Dr Kennedy Graham said today.

New Zealand is now experiencing the worst annual trade deficit since the height of the global financial crisis because the National Government has failed to diversify the economy away from dairy and oil, the Green Party said. “The $2.6 billion trade deficit for the year ended April 2015 is the largest since June 2009 when the global economy was deep in crisis,” Green Party Co-leader Dr Russel Norman said. “National has failed to put in place an economic strategy to...

The National Government has just handed SkyCity the last trump card in its convention centre deal, delivering the casino complete control over the centre, removing any last pretence that it’s a public facility, the Green Party said today. The Government and SkyCity today released a preliminary design on the convention centre, in which the casino has bought off the Government for millions of dollars so the public will have no more influence over the building or design of the facility....