Labour has once again avoided taking decisions to protect ocean health and shown exactly why we need more Green MPs.

The Green Party welcomes the Government’s invitation to a Parliamentary select committee to inquire into seabed mining and whether current law and regulations are appropriate but says it would prefer faster action to ban seabed mining in our domestic waters and EEZ.

The Green Party has today launched a petition calling for conservation land to be protected from mining by big overseas companies such as Mineralogy International Limited, which Australian billionaire Clive Palmer is a director of.

Christopher Luxon and the National Party have once again presented another lazy, back-of-the-napkin policy to Aotearoa.

Today the Government adopted a long held Green Party position to increase the number of water entities to ensure a closer connection with communities they serve. However, despite the rebrand, significant concerns remain. 

New Zealand’s rivers, lakes and freshwater are in crisis and there needs to be a more ambitious Government plan to clean them up and protect against nitrate contamination, the Green Party says. 

The Green Party is today welcoming the release of the Government’s waste strategy, but says it has a big gap without action on the container return scheme for beverage containers.

The error Labour Ministers made by stopping work on a beverage container return scheme will be reversed by the Greens at the earliest opportunity as part of the next Government.

The Green Party is celebrating the signing of a historic United Nations Ocean Treaty, and calls on the new Oceans and Fisheries Minister to urgently step up protection for Aotearoa’s oceans. 

Today’s news of a Ministerial inquiry into forestry slash and land use in Te Tarāwhiti/Gisborne and Wairoa is welcome, but the forestry sector should have to compensate councils, landowners and communities for the enormous damage caused by land and logging management which has generated so much slash and sediment.