To: Hon David Parker
Minister for Oceans and Fisheries

Tēnā Koe Minister

He mihi tuatahi mō ngā roopu kaitiaki ō te Taiao me ngā moana ō te motu.

Toitū te marae a Tane-Mahuta.    

Toitū te marae a Tangaroa.

Toitū te tangata.

With your extensive experience on environmental and climate change issues, I hope you receive this letter with deep comprehension and care for what is at stake.

As you’d be well aware, our oceans are the lifeblood of our planet. They are home to precious habitats, wildlife, and vast ecosystems that keep our blue planet stable.

Despite this, they are under threat.

Over decades, successive governments here in Aotearoa New Zealand have enabled our oceans to be exploited for short-term economic gain.

Overfishing and sediment pollution from our activities on land, and proposals for seabed mining, put the health of our precious oceans at risk.

When it comes to overfishing, we are already seeing the impacts up and down our coast.

Fisheries such as crayfish in the Hauraki Gulf have collapsed and the East Coast tarakihi fishery has been overfished and depleted.

There is a suite of measures that could improve fisheries management and help our oceans thrive, but right now, there is one particular change we could make to give our oceans a better chance of flourishing and help shift to sustainable fisheries management.

Minister Parker, I ask that you urgently stop the dirty, degrading fishing practice of bottom trawling. You have recognised the public concerns about the impacts of bottom trawling. Now is the time to act to end it.

Seamounts are biodiversity hotspots. Bottom trawling involves dragging heavy weighted nets over the seabed to catch species such as orange roughy. It destroys centuries-old communities of deep sea corals, sea sponges and other marine life. They will take centuries to recover; if they do at all. It is an indiscriminate fishing method. Urgently ending bottom trawling would signal that Government is serious about healthy fisheries and thriving oceans.

We are running out of time.  

The United Nations has called for action to protect seamounts from destructive fishing practices. Chile has banned bottom trawling on 98 % of the seamounts in its jurisdiction. I ask that you prioritise a ban on destructive bottom trawling so that Aotearoa New Zealand plays its part in sustaining our oceans.

Ngā mihi nui 

Help end discrimination towards our Rainbow whānau

Dr Elizabeth Kerekere MP has a plan to amend the Human Rights Act to change the law so we’re all free from discrimination, no matter our gender identity, gender expression or sex characteristics.

We need your help to get as many other MPs to support the change. 

Can you email an MP with why you would like them to support it?

Email your elected Members of Parliament

Tell them why it's important to support Elizabeth Kerekere's Members Bill. 

Personal stories are is a powerful way of persuading people.

We've set up this email to start with: 

"Kia ora,

Dr. Elizabeth Kerekere has a Member's Bill to amend the Human Rights Act. It will help protect us from discrimination no matter our gender identity, gender expression, or sex characteristics." 

Throughout the COVID-19 response, we have all relied on low-wage essential workers. Those who stack shelves, care for our most vulnerable in rest homes, and transport goods around the country have been putting themselves at risk to sustain the rest of us through lockdown.

Many of these essential jobs have been undervalued for too long, well before the pandemic, meaning many of these workers barely earn enough to live.

We believe these heroes deserve to earn a dignified wage.

Here’s our 3 point plan to help make this happen: 

1. Introduce law to enable Fair Pay Agreements for essential workers as soon as possible. These Fair Pay Agreements would set out specific minimum standards for wages and working conditions. They would create a framework for employers and unions to negotiate, and once agreed upon, would become legal requirements for all people working in that sector.
   
   
2. Extend the living wage beyond core public sector workers to include contractors and government funded not-for-profit staff. This would mean workers such as hospital cleaners, would have their wages increased to a dignified, liveable wage.
   
   
3. Set up a hospitality sector working group. This would bring employers, unions and Government around the planning table to get the industry on a more sustainable footing going forward.

Support Climate Action.
Stop funding fossil fuels!

“Ten years from now, New Zealanders will look back at the climate action their politicians took today. The Greens know we have a responsibility to that future, to do everything we can to ensure it’s flourishing.” - Green Party MP Chlöe Swarbrick.

The Green Party in Government has succeeded in ensuring we’re saving for a better future, by getting default KiwiSaver funds out of fossil fuels. But we know we need to go further and faster if we are going to truly tackle the climate change challenge.

We’re now proposing changing the rules for all public investment funds, so they stop bank-rolling big-money, big-time polluting fossil fuel industries.

You can get across the details on what what we’re proposing here. 

"We're proud of our democratic MMP system, we need to secure equal access to it and protect against corruption"
- Golriz Ghahraman MP, Green Party spokesperson for electoral reform.  

You can find more detail of the changes we're proposing here.

Sign on to show your support for an Independent Commissioner for Animals so we can give animals a voice and end cruelty.