The Green Party is calling on the Government to permanently ditch its plans for an ACC appeals tribunal and act immediately to ensure ACC has fairer and more just processes. The call comes after the release of research by the University of Otago Legal Issues Centre and  Acclaim Otago which highlights ''widespread and systemic barriers to access to justice'' when it comes to ACC. “The Government is doing nowhere near enough to address New Zealanders’ legitimate concerns about the way...

The cooling New Zealand economy has prompted the Reserve Bank to continue its stimulatory stance by dropping the OCR further, in the absence of any long term plan for economic resilience from National, the Green Party said. “With the economy slowing down rapidly, prompting the Reserve Bank to drop the OCR, National’s failure to put in place long-term measures to ensure continued productive investment and job creation has been exposed,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. “Lower interest rates will...

  Prime Minister John Key’s comment that he “believes” low income New Zealanders could one day buy a home is an insult to Kiwis who have been priced out of the market by Government inaction on housing, the Green Party says. John Key and Bill English were reported today to have conceded that rising house prices were contributing to inequality, but neither were prepared to take any responsibility for the fact. “To admit that the housing crisis in Auckland is...

The Government should review benefit levels, following official advice showing that a family of four on welfare is likely to have $72 less per week than what they need to provide for the core essential items, the Green Party says. Advice provided by the Prime Minister’s department for the Budget 2015 included a budget breakdown for a family with two children on a benefit showing that they were $72 in the red each week without even paying for some basic...

The National Government ought to listen to the public and raise the ambition of its climate change target, the Green Party said today.

Communities are saying no to genetically engineered (GE) trees and pushing back against the National Government’s attempt to remove the right of councils from controlling the release of GE trees in their regions, the Green Party said today. At public meetings held around the country to consult on the proposed National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry, which will replace existing plan rules for many plantation forestry activities, attendees have voiced concerns over allowing the planting of GE trees to be...

Growing economic pessimism is justified and will be reinforced further by National’s failure to grow the internationally competitive part of our economy, comprising of exports and import competing industries, the Green Party said today.

The Green Party’s Independent Prison Inspectorate Bill would have brought to light the prison fight club problem much earlier, said the Green Party today.

The Government shouldn’t have argued against the Waitangi Tribunal fast tracking two claims regarding the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) because this has worrying implications for natural justice, the Green Party said today. “The Tribunal should be bringing forward an urgent hearing, as they did with the water claim for the sale of state owned power companies, because it’ll be too late if these claims aren’t heard before the TPPA is finalised,” Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said. “The Government...

The Green Party is welcoming a new system for recycling plastic bags as a useful first step but one that is not by itself enough to solve the problem of plastic bag pollution.   “While the new recycling system announced by the Government is a positive step in the right direction, it won’t fix the problem of plastic bags ending up in our waterways and on our beaches because it won’t actually lead to any fewer plastic bags being used,”...