The Green Party has today begun the new Parliamentary term with a refreshed caucus and portfolio list focussed around leading on the two most important issues facing New Zealand and the world – Inequality and Climate Change.

New Zealand has an opportunity to make a major contribution to the strengthening of international law and institutional capacity through its upcoming two-year tenure on the United Nations Security Council, Green Party spokesperson on global affairs, Dr Kennedy Graham said today.

The Green Party is challenging Treasury officials to work for a week without eating properly, in light of their advice to Government that a food in schools programme is not needed.

The National Government must do more to help make New Zealand workplaces a safer place to work in, Green Party industrial relations spokesperson Denise Roche said today.

If John Key is serious about tackling child poverty he must approach it with an open mind, and overcome his ideological block to raising incomes as a solution, the Green Party said today. Papers released to Radio New Zealand today show that officials' advice to Government Ministers is that raising incomes was "positively associated with virtually every aspects of child wellbeing that is measured". The advice was to inform Ministers' response to the solutions recommended by the Children's Commissioners' Expert...

The Green Party has today written to the Prime Minister asking him to engage in wider consultation prior to changing any laws as a result of the recently announced terrorism law reviews, said the Green Party today.

John Key is misleading the public to push through terrorism law changes under urgency, the Green Party said today.

The National Government is stooping to a bizarre new low in blaming “planning processes” for  poverty and inequality, after spending six years doing nothing about either the housing market or child poverty, the Green Party said today. Finance Minister Bill English reportedly said today that urban planning processes had done more to increase income inequality and poverty in New Zealand than “most other policies,” saying that inequality would have been improving if it wasn’t for growing house prices. “After spending...

National's decision to shift the state provision of housing to third parties is a smokescreen for the Government decreasing the provision of affordable housing, the Green Party said today. "What National should be doing is increasing the supply of both social and state housing," Green Party housing spokesperson Jan Logie said. "Newly appointed Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett admits that the demand for state housing exceeds the supply. There are currently over 3,000 applicants with a severe and persistent need...

National ignored official advice and is spending less than half what was originally recommended by the Ministry of Transport on urban cycleways, the Green Party has revealed today. Documents obtained under the Official Information Act show that the Ministry of Transport (MOT) recommended in July that the Government spend $260 million on upgrading urban cycleways. The Government rejected this advice, announcing only $100 million of new spending over four years despite years of ‘insufficient funding’. “National’s $100 million investment into...