The Government’s improving books give it scope to address the long-term deficits National has been running in health, housing, and the environment, the Green Party said today. The Treasury’s Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update, out today, forecasts the Crown’s fiscal position to steadily improve so that by June 2021, surpluses are expected to rise to $8.5 billion and net debt to reduce to 19 percent of GDP. “Treasury has signalled that the Government has scope to address the long-term...

New measures that will sit alongside GDP to chart the nation’s progress, as well as compulsory country-of-origin labelling on food, will be debated in Parliament following today’s Member’s Bill ballot. The Green Party had two bills pulled from the ballot today: Co-leader James Shaw’s Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill, and MP Steffan Browning’s Consumers’ Right to Know (Country of Origin of Food) Bill. “GDP is a highly imperfect measure of our country’s progress,” said Green Party Co-leader James...

The real cost of living has grown more for people on low incomes, beneficiaries, and superannuitants than it has for people on moderate and high incomes under National, the Green Party said today. New data from Statistics NZ’s Household Living-costs Price Indexes shows the effect of rent and power bills rising faster than the general rate of inflation. Low-expenditure households have seen their living costs rise twice as much as high-expenditure households since 2008. “National has built an economy where...

The Green Party has a plan to strengthen Kiwibank.  When the Reserve Bank recently cut interest rates again, many Kiwis wondered why the big banks didn't pass the savings along to us, their customers. Part of the problem is the National Government has limited Kiwibank’s ability to compete with the big four Aussie-owned banks leaving them free to make unnecessarily large profits off Kiwi households and businesses. We’ve got a plan to change that. We’d strengthen Kiwibank so it can...

The Green Party is calling on the National Government to introduce sector-wide deposit insurance following Kiwibank’s withdrawal of its deposit guarantee. Kiwibank announced to its customers yesterday that its deposit guarantee on savers’ money was ending on 28 February 2017. After February, no bank in New Zealand will offer protection of savers’ deposits. “New Zealand is the only country left in the developed world that doesn’t offer savers’ deposit insurance to protect them against possible loss if their bank ever...

The Green Party welcomes the New Zealand Superannuation Fund’s new climate change investment strategy, which highlights how some of the world’s smartest investors are moving out of fossil fuels, even while the National Government continues to back them. The Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation announced a new approach to investing its $31.4 billion of assets — one that will take into account the significant risks and opportunities climate change has for long-term returns. “The Super Fund has accepted the fact...

Reports that Housing New Zealand is about to run out of money, just as it’s supposed to be building new houses to alleviate the housing crisis, is a symptom of National’s economic mismanagement, the Green Party said today. “Bill English has run Housing New Zealand into the ground and now he’s going to have to do an emergency bail-out,” Green Party Co-leader James Shaw said. “Bill English should have used Housing New Zealand to kick-start a Government-building programme back in...

The Green Party is calling on the Government to hold the line in the face of foreign trust lobbying to water down new foreign trust disclosure reforms, the Green Party said today. “Less than a day after the Government was forced to accept most of the Shewan Inquiry recommendations, the foreign trust industry began a concerted campaign to weaken its response,” said Green Party Co-leader James Shaw. Information released to the Green Party under the Official Information Act shows that...

The Havelock North outbreak calls into question the Government’s growth-at-any-cost economic strategy, says Green Party Co-leader James Shaw today, in response to comments today by professors of public health, Alistair Woodward and Simon Hales

The National Government needs to now take responsibility and set some bottom lines around investment in cluster bombs, landmines, and nuclear weapons, the Green Party said today. The Police have today decided not to prosecute fund managers who have made investments in cluster bomb manufacturers, saying such investments do not breach the Cluster Munitions Prohibition Act. The legality of those investments now remains up in the air. “New Zealanders haven’t changed their opinion on the ethics of cluster bombs so...