The Consumer Guarantees Act Amendment (Right to Repair) Bill has passed its first reading and submissions to the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee have now closed.

Now's our chance to encourage Scott Simpson, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, to back the Bill.

Let's get the Right to Repair Bill past its second reading in Parliament! Please sign and share today.

Read our open letter to Chris Bishop below, and add your name if you support completing 300 publicly-owned homes as promised.

Kia ora Minister,

Every person in Aotearoa has a right to live in a warm home. 

In Te Whanganui-ā-Tara, you have the opportunity to complete 300 publicly-owned homes through the Arlington housing development in Mount Cook. 

We call for you to make the right decision, listen to our communities, and house people who have nowhere else to go.

There are so many reasons why we need to complete this development, and here are just a few of them:

We’ve got a site, and the mahi is already underway

The Government has already spent $48 million on the project for site preparation, including consenting and design. If the project doesn’t go ahead the consents will expire and the investment will go to waste and leave our at-risk communities without the homes that they have a right to. The most cost-effective and efficient way to build on the Arlington site now, is to proceed with what has already been designed - even if in a staged manner. 

Kāinga Ora needs leadership that recognises the scale of our housing crisis, and creates the solutions using the vacant sites in Mount Cook. We can use the resource that Kāinga Ora holds to plug the gap - yet the National-led Government has allocated no budget towards new builds after 2026. Arlington is ready to go now, yet it hasn’t been allocated funding before or after 2026. We must do better for those without a roof over their heads.

We can support local and save jobs - let’s play our part 

Let’s work together with Kāinga Ora to continue to engage local companies that were contracted to complete the Arlington development. Local companies like Aoraki Construction and McKee Fehl undertook a comprehensive procurement process but the uncertainty and delays means they have had to lay off workers in Wellington, with flow-on effects for subcontractors too. 

Our chance to create homes and reduce the public housing waitlist

As you know, the original design included 300 publicly-owned homes. We understand that you may now be considering a mixed-tenure development of public housing, private rentals and home ownership for this project. We strongly advise against this.

This is our opportunity to house 300 families in our communities who can’t afford to buy a house or rent in the private market in the current climate. 

There are 2,519 people on the public housing waitlist in Wellington, who are locked out of the private market and need decent, affordable public housing. There are a mixture of rentals and owner-occupier housing in the neighbourhood surrounding the development which provide the same benefits of mixed-tenure without privatising publicly-owned land. 

There is a need here - you have an opportunity to house people with the greatest need. 

Minister, there isn’t enough social housing in Wellington and reducing the supply has flow-on effects for other providers. For example, the Wellington City Council announced that they will be vacating 14 of their social housing complexes in order to carry out earthquake strengthening. There is so little social housing in Wellington that the Council will have to put out a tender for alternative accommodation, at great cost to our city.  

Our request

That the Minister supports the Arlington Kāinga Ora development to proceed with the original design and original tenure for desperately-needed public housing in Wellington City.

Signed by:

Politicians

Tamatha Paul MP

Mayor Tory Whanau

Councillor Ben McNulty

Councillor Teri O’Neill

Councillor Iona Pannett

Councillor Thomas Nash

Councillor Nīkau Wi Neera

Local businesses

Aoraki Construction Ltd 

Richardson Drilling Ltd

High Rise Group Ltd

Hot Chilly Limited

Lit Contracting Ltd

Vertbuild Ltd

Advanced Siteworks Ltd

GT Electrical Ltd

JD Rigging Services Ltd

Local organisations

Mount Cook Mobilised

Newtown Residents Association

Renters United

Everybody Eats Te Aro

ActionStation

Public Housing Futures

St Peter’s on Willis 

Victoria University of Wellington Students Association

Ngāi Tauira Māori Students Association

Historic Places Wellington

Live Wellington

Mount Cook School

Wellington High School

Sign on this page to send your quick submission to the Select Committee on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill. Fossil fuels are not our future.

The Government has introduced legislation to overturn the offshore oil and gas ban. This is dangerous and irresponsible in the midst of a climate crisis, where we need to be taking all steps possible to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. 

It’s obvious why New Zealanders are so proud of our natural world. Few places across the world possess such stunning natural environments and unique taonga species.  

But the Prime Minister wants to fast-track away our natural environment for industry profits, opening the door to big business to override our environmental protections and shut out public voice.  

The Fast Track Bill will allow the government to destroy our unique and natural environment. This could see us lose our endangered and taonga species forever. That is why we are calling on the Government to ditch the Fast Track.  

Petition Begins 

Dear Prime Minister Luxon, 

We ask that you take seriously your duty of care to protect, regenerate and restore our environment, not take environmental protection backwards. This bill is anti-environment, anti-democratic, and fails to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  

We call on you to abandon your Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill now. 

Ends

Kia mau ki te reo Māori o Aotearoa. Ākona te ao. Pūpuritia!

Retain the Māori language of Aotearoa. Teach it to the world. Preserve this national treasure!

Te Reo Māori is a taonga unique to Aotearoa New Zealand. Seeing and hearing it across the motu and on the world stage unites our nation and reaffirms our commitment to honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi.  

Aotearoa New Zealand has a goal of having 1 million te reo speakers by 2040, and a crucial part of that mahi is teaching te reo Māori in schools. We have taken great steps towards this over the past few years, with a steady rise in New Zealanders speaking te reo Māori in everyday conversation. 

Currently, a primary objective for schools is to take “all reasonable steps to make instruction available in tikanga Māori and te reo Māori”. This recognises the unique place of te reo Māori in Aotearoa. It is a taonga which the Government has an obligation to protect, resource and promote, and that New Zealanders love to learn and use te reo. But the National-led Government is putting this at risk by de-prioritising the teaching of te reo in schools, making it a secondary objective for school boards. 

The Government wants to deprioritise te reo and replace it with a blanket directive to prioritise student achievement. This will make it more difficult for students and communities to expect that schools will offer it. It also reduces the responsibility of the Government to properly fund and support the teaching of te reo. 

Sign our petition on this page – join us in calling on the Minister of Education, Erica Stanford, to protect the priority of te reo Māori in schools and not make proposed changes.  

Kia kaha te reo māori ake ake ake! 

Petition Begins: 

We call on Erica Stanford, Minister of Education, to: 

• Give te reo Māori the priority it deserves in our kura  

• Not introduce the proposed changes to section 127 of the Education and Training Act 

• Keep the references to students’ rights as set out in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and the Human Rights Act 1993 

The changes proposed in the consultation to Section 127 of the Education and Training Act would deprioritise the teaching of te reo Māori and make it more difficult for students and communities to expect that schools will offer it. It also reduces the responsibility of the Government to properly fund and support the teaching of te reo. 

Petition Begins:

The Coalition Government plans to superpower the climate crisis with new coal mining. We’re here - and we need you - to stand up and fight back.

For generations, people across Aotearoa New Zealand have mobilised to make it clear to politicians that the future of our environment and climate must be protected. We have stood up and rejected political choices that destroy conservation land and our native ecosystems. 

But now, National, Act and NZ First are trying to gaslight the country into opening up new coal, oil and gas exploration and extraction in the midst of a climate and biodiversity crisis.

This is not our future.

Destroying ecosystems and wiping out endangered species to make a quick buck for fossil fuel and mining executives is no way to protect the scientific fundamentals for life on earth as we know it, nor as we aspire for it to be.

On what planet?

Any politician who pretends that we can have a thriving economy on a burning planet is lying to you.

The International Energy Agency has told governments across the world that any attempts to mine and burn more coal, oil, and gas will send planet Earth over a dangerous threshold of warming into climate catastrophe.

Time and again, the Coalition Government shows its priorities in bypassing democratic process and undermining hard-fought climate and environmental gains.

They will only get away with it if we let them.

We can’t mine our way to a liveable planet.

Sign our petition to tell the Coalition Government to keep coal in the ground.

Join our movement for the clean, green future we all deserve and don’t leave politics to the politicians.

Together we can make climate change history.

The Zero Carbon Bill will create a pathway for Aotearoa to transition to a net zero emission economy by 2050. We need your help to make sure our plan for the future is the best it can be and that it doesn't let anyone fall behind.

This Bill will affect us all. It will create new jobs, make it quicker and cleaner to get around in our cities, and it will lower our power bills. Most importantly it will protect our children's future. The Zero Carbon Act will set to achieve these three components:

1. Set where we are going by setting greenhouse gases targets in law
2. Establish an independent Climate Change commission
3. Ensure we're planning for the effects of climate change along the way

How that looks will be shaped by your input on how we can minimise harm and maximise benefits.

We want you to tell us how this Bill will affect your kids, your community, your business, your whānau and you. Pledge today to make a submission or submit an online submission.

Find out more at http://bit.ly/ourclimateyoursay

New Zealanders deserve a positive and solutions-focused discussion on access to medicinal cannabis, which should be legal, and affordable.

Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick has a medical cannabis Bill which Parliament will consider very soon! The Bill will legalise access to cannabis products for New Zealanders suffering from terminal illness or any debilitating condition.

We’ve seen a sea change in public attitudes about medicinal cannabis in recent years, thanks to the many many brave people who have spoken out about their experiences with chronic pain and terminal illness.

We need to take action. Chlöe's Bill legalises cannabis and cannabis products for people who are suffering from terminal illness or any debilitating condition, with the support of a registered medical practitioner.

It's safe and it's got wide support in the community. Sign on to help us make it law.

The Green Party wants to help parents when they need it the most, by ensuring they have time and money to focus on raising happy, healthy kids.  

We were going to put up a big long survey to find out what you think, but we know you don’t have time for that.

So just tell us what would make your life easier and let us take care of the rest.

The Grey District Council is considering a proposal to break out the chainsaws and allow logging of native forest on three Council reserves. This would renege on the expectation when the Government gave the West Coast $120 million in 2001 that native forest logging on public land had ended for good.

West Coast rain forests should echo with birdsong, not ring to the sound of chainsaws.

The proposal is to log and remove ancient native rimu and beech trees from steep hillsides at Mt Buckley and Mt Sewell in the Grey Valley and at Lake Brunner’s Cashmere Bay.

When trees like rimu and beech take centuries to grow, logging them is not “sustainable.”

These forests are likely to provide habitat for threatened birds like kaka and kakariki/parakeets, pekapeka/bats and other special wildlife.  Logging will destroy habitat for our precious native plants and wildlife, scar the landscape, and re-invigorate the native forest logging industry which was winding down.

Find out more

Watch TVNZ footage of the areas that are under threat from logging.

A blogpost by Green MP Eugenie Sage that highlights the history to the issue.

Photo: Mattinbgn