Water wars; Three Waters and the Treaty
Twenty-three Mayors come to Parliament today to protest the Government’s Three Waters proposals. At the same time, another group has filed a claim in the...
Forget Groundswell; now farmers are in a real fight
Forget the tractors and the angry groundswell signs; the real battle between farmers and the Government kicked off yesterday when farmers got the formal...
Suburban angst; the opposition to the bipartisan housing proposal
If National is looking for reasons why it is stuck in the polls and why ACT is surging, it might look no further than...
Another climate change target in doubt
New Zealand’s climate change mitigation intentions appear to be hitting another wall. Already the Government has had to concede that two-thirds of the Nationally Determined...
Farewell to the “Quarter Acre, Pavlova Paradise”
The Government’s deal with National yesterday to ease planning restrictions on housing rests on a series of what are likely to be highly contestable...
Why James Shaw thinks the ETS fails
The Government has turned its back on 13 years of leaving tough economic decisions to markets and conceded that the Emissions Trading Scheme will...
Upton and Salmon’s problems with David Parker’s resource management reforms
Two of the country’s most eminent environmentalists, both with longstanding connections to the National Party, yesterday separately told a Parliamentary Committee they were not...
A matter of taste
As clashes go, the differences between Environment Minister David Parker and Tony Randerson, the retired judge he hired to review the Resource Management Act,...
Why Ardern and Woods need Tiwai Point to close
Contact and Meridian Energy’s announcement yesterday that they are proceeding with a plan to use the power Meridian currently supplies to the Tiwai Point...
Mahuta’s reforms will shrink Councils
Cabinet papers released yesterday concede that the Government's proposed water reforms will have a "significant impact" on the future of local Government. That will be...
Getting Council planners out of the way with the new RMA
Environment Minister David Parker’s sweeping reforms of the Resource Management Act unveiled yesterday will move significant aspects of the planning process from Councils to...
EV scheme hits potholes
The Government’s new fee-bate scheme to encourage electric car uptake yesterday started to hit some potholes. Toyota, the company that sells the largest number of...
Our nuclear free moment will depend on electric cars — if we can power...
New Zealand's nuclear-free moment, getting to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, will depend on electric cars. And the cars are going to depend on...
Maori lead protests against Shaw’s new environmental protection regulations
Faced with an unprecedented Maori backlash, Far North District Councillors and Government Ministers are having to call taihoa on a key Labour-Greens environmental initiative. Northland...
We have missed every emissions target so far
Figures released by the Government yesterday showed that between 1990 and 2019, total greenhouse gas emissions increased by 26.4 per cent. The figure is contained...
