John Key needs to unequivocally say whether Foreign Minister Murray McCully misled Cabinet over his actions in the Saudi sheep deal, or provide evidence that he didn’t, the Green Party said today. “All we keep hearing is more obfuscation and word-games from John Key about whether Minister McCully misled Cabinet over his role in this shonky deal,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. “There’s a very simple question here that the Prime Minister needs to answer: Did McCully mislead Cabinet...

National showed in the House today that they have learned nothing from the dairy price collapse and are failing to take reasonable steps to turn a crisis into an opportunity, the Green Party said today. “Bill English showed he’s taking no new initiative in response to collapsing dairy prices in response to questions in the House today,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. “National continue to downplay the impact a $7 billion hole would leave on the economy, the effects...

Genesis Energy’s announcement that it will end coal-fired generation at Huntly in 2018 is welcome news for the environment and shows leadership where the Government has failed to take action, the Green Party said today. “This is the beginning of the end for coal use in New Zealand. This move by Genesis will reduce our carbon emissions significantly and gives us hope for the future,” said Green Party co-leader James Shaw. “Genesis’ coal use at Huntly generated 1,624kt of CO2...

Following revelations of serious concerns expressed by both the Auditor General and Treasury, the Green Party has once again written to the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) urging her to investigate the pay-offs made to Saudi businessman Mr Hamood Al-Ali Al-Khalaf.

The Green Party is calling on John Key to develop a clear plan to reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions, following US President Barack Obama’s announcement of a plan to drastically cut emissions from the US energy sector. “It’s great to see President Obama showing real leadership with a plan to act on climate change. The New Zealand Government also needs to develop a plan to ensure we do our fair share in the global effort to prevent climate change,”...

New information released by the Green Party today shows that the Reserve Bank has failed to forecast inflation accurately over the last four years meaning interest rates have been kept higher than necessary, hurting businesses and households. Analysis by the Parliamentary Library of Reserve Bank inflation forecasting versus the actual inflation rate shows that the Bank has consistently mis-forecast inflation over the last four years, resulting in a higher Official Cash Rate (OCR) than necessary to control inflation. Higher cash...

The Green Party is demanding to know why SERCO’s contract has not been terminated yet despite at least six Performance Notices in the last three years.

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...

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

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.