Te Awa Issue 62 - Winter 2019

#62 Winter 2019 Climate change challenges

james shaw, gareth hughes, thomas nash

Non-violence shines a light marama davidson

How to fund home ownership malcolm laird

Remember please!

Copy deadline for the Spring 2019 issue is July 15.

Cover photography

by Tim Onnes

#62 Winter 2019 greenparty@greens.org.nz Phone 04 801 5102 Level 1, 17 Garrett Street, Te Aro, Wellington PO Box 11-652, Wellington

Advertising editor.magazine@greens.org.nz

Copy editor Moea Armstrong

Te Awa Board elected members Ron Elder, Philippa Stevenson Caucus rep Chlöe Swarbrick Executive Peter Hughes Policy Nick Marryatt Te Rōpu Pounamu Rochelle Surendran

Art director Bryce Groves Designer Charis Robinson

Authorised by Gwen Shaw, Level 1, 17 Garrett St, Wellington

Editor Shenagh Gleeson 021 965 752 editor.magazine@greens.org.nz

Information for contributors Before submitting material, please check with the Guidelines for Contributors, which you can obtain from the editor.

Opinions expressed in Te Awa are not statements of Green Party policy, and must not bring the Green Party into disrepute.

Te Awa is published quarterly in Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer.

To have Te Awa sent to you as a pdf rather than as a paper copy, or for queries about Te Awa distribution options.magazine@greens.org.nz

The Green Party Charter

Te Marautanga Kakariki

The charter is the founding document of The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Ko te kawenata te pukapuka whakaū o te Rōpu Kākāriki o Aotearoa, Niu Tireni.

The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand accepts Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of Aotearoa New Zealand; recognises Māori as Tangata Whenua in Aotearoa New Zealand; and commits to the following four Principles:

E whakaae ana te Rōpu Kākāriki ko te Tiriti o Waitangi te pepa whakaū (kawenata) o Aotearoa, Niu Tireni; e whakaae ana te Rōpu kākāriki ko te iwi Māori te tangata whenua o Aotearoa, o Niu Tireni, ā, ka mau pūmau te rōpu Kākāriki ki ngā mātāpono e whā e whai ake nei:

Ecological Wisdom The basis of ecological wisdom is that human beings are part of the natural world. This world is finite, therefore unlimited material growth is impossible. Ecological sustainability is paramount.

Tikanga Toi Potapotae Ko te putake o te tikanga toi potapotae ko te tangata he wahanga no te ao tuturu. Ko te ao nei he taparepare, waihoki, kihai e taea kia tupu haere mo ake tonu atu Me ukauka te tikanga toi potapotae koia ra te tino taumata.

Social Responsibility Unlimited material growth is impossible. Therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally.

Kawenga Papori Kihai nga rawa o te ao e tipu haere tonu. Waihoki, ko te mea nui ke ko te kawenga papori, e whiwhi ai tena ki ona tikanga ano ki era rawa, ki te wa kainga nei, ki tawahi ranei o te ao.

Appropriate Decision-making For the implementation of ecological wisdom and social responsibility, decisions will be made directly at the appropriate level by those affected.

Whakarite Totika E oti tika ai nga tikanga toi potapotae, me nga kawenga papori, ma nga whakarite totika a nga hunga e pa pumau tonu ana ki era take, ara, ki nga hua hoki a era whakarite.

Non-Violence Non-violent conflict resolution is the process by which ecological wisdom, social responsibility and appropriate decision making will be implemented. This principle applies at all levels.

Aukati Whakarekereke Me aukati te whakarekereke, e kitea ai te huarahi tika, e eke ai nga tikanga toi potapotae, nga kawenga papori, tae noa atu ki nga whakarite totika, e tau ai te rangimarie. Ko tenei ahuatanga e pa ana ki nga tairanga katoa.

• The forest-based material in this product is recycled.

• The FSC® label on this magazine ensures responsible use of the world’s forest resources.

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CONTENTS FROM TE AWA 02 Refresh! bryce groves

FROM THE PARTY 03 Campaign planning on track pleasance hansen

03 Letters

lois griffiths, kit withers, jacinta o’reilly

BRIGHT SPOTS 04 wendy harper CLIMATE CHANGE 05 When I say ‘student’, you say ‘power’ adam currie

06 Getting into gear on climate action james shaw

08 With just 12 years left it’s now or never: get amongst it thomas nash

FROM THE BENCHES 10 Party principle of non-violence shines a light marama davidson

12 Doing things differently jan logie

13 Onshore permits a kick in the guts gareth hughes

FLAXROOTS 14 Let’s stop using corflute billboards jenny elliot

14 Poseidon misadventure liz remmerswaal

LOCAL ELECTIONS 15 Small pay, lovely job, leads to community board and Greens robyn parkinson

GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY 16 Delivering on own-home dreams malcolm laird

18 Opposing the Afghan war: our honourable record keith locke

19 Food choice a false premise philippa stevenson

20 Catastrophe of a lost history lois griffiths

21 No innocence in wood-smoke kimbra taylor

GOING GREEN 22 Fit-for-purpose new builds need better code jason quinn

OUR PEOPLE 23 An insider’s view of life in a Green minister’s office teall crossen

GREEN WORLD 24 lois griffiths BOOK REVIEWS 26 catherine delahunty, mike collins, janine mcveagh, moea armstrong LOOKING BACK 28 Forest fight tactics still good to go mike collins

CONTENTS

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Whakatauki Ko te pae tawhiti, whaia kia tata Ko te pae tata, whakamaua kia tina

PICTURE: WILL VAN WINGERDEN UNSPLASH

Pursue distant horizons and cherish those you attain

Your will matters

Refresh!

Welcome to issue 62, and our fresh new look. Like the Green Party brand itself, Te Awa’s design is also a living and breathing thing that is always evolving.

When you’re competing with a world of apps and short attention spans, it’s important that our members’ magazine is not only full of great content, but also easy to read and just as great to look at. With this redesign, we’re celebrating our members, contributors, MPs and of course our country with a new emphasis on photography.

Our new page layouts are designed to not only make information easier to take in, but make flipping through and discovering articles by chance a visual treat, to entice the more casual reader.

We’ve also taken a good look at our production. Te Awa is now printed by Soar – a family-owned business with the strongest sustainability credentials of any New Zealand printing company – using vegetable-based inks and certified, sustainable paper.

The Te Awa refresh has been led by the Fundraising, Marketing and Communications Committee (FunMark), and Charis Robinson, an experienced designer/entrepreneur with a love (and a flair) for great magazine design.

Enjoy the read.

Bryce Groves, design lead, FunMark

02 FROM TE AWA

Bequests are a wonderful way to make a difference.

The party has already been the grateful recipient of several bequests and a number of people have been in touch to say that they are remembering the party in their wills too.

If you want to know more or are considering including the Green Party in your will, please contact Sonja Deely by phone on 04 801 5102 or email to Sonja.deely@greens.org.nz

Corrections In the last issue, photographer Rick Zwaan's name was misspelled. Sincere apologies Rick.

Also, the article, Three ticks Green in 2020, was written by Chlöe Swarbrick, not Pete Huggins.

PICTURE: BEN MIEREMENT, NOAA

Letters to the editor Let’s help raise awareness of plastic pollution In March I watched the film, A Plastic Ocean. You can see the trailer at https://plasticoceans.org/projects/. I thought I knew it all but was so wrong. Germany has been recycling plastic since 1991. US aircraft carriers destroy all their waste using a plasma torch. Both these solutions are available to our cities. So what’s holding us back?

In the movie we saw so many seabirds dying from their guts clogged with plastic. And a whale. We saw a seal saved by having a plastic rope cut from its neck. We saw the results of biopsies of dolphins. We learned how carcinogenic chemicals clinging to plastic pieces in the ocean become part of the food chain. We learned how even the plastic baby bottles we use leach phthalates that damage the liver, kidneys, lungs, and reproductive system - particularly the developing testes. And how the US FDA is in denial about this.

Let us help plasticoceans.org raise the awareness of plastic pollution and existing solutions. Let us help them bring this message to our government, city councils, schools, universities and environmental organisations. Let us help create policy and social change around the world.

Kit Withers, Wellington Central

We profit from war on our children American historian Howard Zinn writes: “I wonder now how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out

Campaign planning on track

the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, or napalm on Vietnam, or wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children.”

Kathy Kelly, of Voices for Creative Non-Violence, has written an article, Every War is a War against Children, which can be found on the VCNV website. The article describes the ongoing destruction of Yemen by Saudi Arabia, using weapons sold by the West. So many Yemeni children are dying from disease and famine.

There is a New Zealand connection. Our Superfund invests in Raytheon, a major producer of bombs used on Yemen. In other words, we here in New Zealand are war-profiteers. As war is waged on children, as children die, Superfund profits.

I want to make investment in military corporations a major issue. Is it too difficult to imagine that Yemeni children are our children?

Lois Griffiths, Ilam

Support needed for Christchurch organisation In the wake of the shootings at two Christchurch mosques, Dr Zhiyan Basharati was well placed to anticipate some of the difficulties for local Muslims because, as a volunteer with a voice for the multi-cultural community within the Canterbury District Health Board, she has considerable experience in the area. In addition as a Kurdish Iranian Muslim herself, she is part of the community.

So from the first she recognised the need for a response led by and embedded within the community. To ensure a distinct and independent voice for this community in crisis, she initiated a dedicated organisation and charitable trust, the Christchurch Victims Organising Committee. Managing communication and advocacy on behalf of the community has involved hours of work carefully managing support on all levels, from delivering blankets to collecting data on needs and challenges.

In spite of a generous response from all over the world to Christchurch Muslims, the resources needed to manage this community response have not been easy to access. As a result, the two full-time and numerous part-time volunteers are working for no income, and dependent on the continuing support of the Phillipstown Community Hub for space to run their project.

The ongoing response to needs that are both changing and becoming clearer is a complex and demanding role. It’s important that, at a national and local level, support for this valuable grassroots and community-led organisation can be made available soon.

Jacinta O’Reilly, Christchurch East

PLEASANCE HANSEN

The Campaign Management Committee for this year’s local government elections and next year’s general election is up and running.

We are holding monthly Zoom calls, with additional calls in between, and campaign planning is underway and on track. We will need your input to make it work and you’ll be hearing from us soon.

The committee, appointed by the executive, are: • Pleasance Hansen, convenor • Marama Davidson, party co-leader

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James Shaw, party co-leader Wiremu Winitana, party co-convenor Jack McDonald, policy co-convenor Elizabeth Kerekere, Te Roopu Pounamu appointee • Pete Huggins, Parliamentary communications director • Gwen Shaw, general secretary • Ann Shacklady-Smith, general manager.

Members have advisory teams working with them to draw on party and specialist expertise and we’re looking forward to your input.

FROM THE PARTY

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PHOTO BY GRETA VAN DER STAR.

All is for All model Sophie wears Ingrid Starnes.

Bright spots COMPILED BY WENDY HARPER

Disability business initiative

http://tinyurl.com/y6og8tux Grace Stratton, 2017 Young New Zealander of the Year nominee, is a law student, keen fashion fan and a lifelong wheelchair user - which informs the way she shops for clothing. Grace has developed a website, All is for All, to support people with disabilities buy clothing online. She reviews clothing to inform a customer’s decision making. “We spend time doing in-depth object descriptions of the garments, we take more photos than an average website would, we shoot in high contrast with a lot of light and our whole website is black and white.”

Kaitaia College sets solar record

http://tinyurl.com/yxmpwdxl Some 60 per cent of Kaitaia College’s summer electricity needs will be met by 367 solar panels.

Integrating energy with learning, the school is engaging students to develop solutions to local challenges with energy monitoring and conservation becoming part of the junior curriculum.

Living Wage rises

http://tinyurl.com/y4k2dcak The Aotearoa Living Wage increased to $21.15 an hour on 1 April 2019. The Living Wage concept is very simple – it’s the hourly wage a worker needs to pay for the necessities of life and participate as an active citizen in the community. It reflects the

04 BRIGHT SPOTS

basic expenses of workers and their families such as food, transportation, housing and childcare, and is calculated independently each year by the New Zealand Family Centre Social Policy Unit.

Norway champions bottle recycling

http://tinyurl.com/y69hvsca Infinitum runs Norway’s collection scheme for plastic bottles and cans. A startling 97 per cent of all plastic drink bottles in Norway are recycled – and 92 per cent of these to such a high standard that they are used to make more bottles. Some bottles have been recycled more than 50 times.

How (and why) to stay optimistic

http://tinyurl.com/y29hua2b “Humans love optimism. It’s a no-brainer – optimism makes us feel good and wanting more. This attraction has deep neurological roots that affect both our brain functions and how we process new information.

For this reason, optimism is powerful. Optimistic individuals or groups frequently perform better in sports, are better negotiators in business, and recover faster from illness. Feeling optimistic may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Suggestions for this column are welcome and should be sent to wbh@students.waikato.ac.nz.

Wendy Harper is co-executive networker for Waikato province

PHOTO BY BEN MOORE

Young Greens and Marama Davidson support the Tamaki Makaurau School Strike 4 Climate on March 15.

When I say ‘student’ you say ‘power’ ‘Change is coming, whether you like it or not’

ADAM CURRIE

On Friday March 15, tens of thousands of school students took to the streets of 28 towns and cities across Aotearoa to demand the government make climate justice an urgent priority. Standing in unity alongside millions of others across the globe, they did not strike to “beg those in power to care”, in the words of School Strike’s inspiration Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, but instead marched “to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not”.

The Young Greens were proud to be a part of the strike, marching alongside the students with co-leader Marama Davidson, the only politician to be on the front lines of the Tāmaki Makaurau rally. James Shaw, sporting a black eye, also gave a rousing speech outside the Beehive outlining the government’s urgent plans to transition to a lowcarbon economy.

Two hours later, this day of inspiration and hope turned to one that will be remembered as one of the darkest in our history. A racist bigot had exerted untold horror upon our Muslim whānau, appearing not out of thin air, but instead nourished in a culture of hate, racism, and violence so thinly veiled below the surface of Aotearoa.

Rangatahi marching for climate justice is the very antithesis of white supremacy - it demonstrates a connected and unified movement that refuses to be divided by the ideology of separatism that white supremacy thrives on. To acknowledge that everything is connected is to acknowledge that our actions have consequences and therefore responsibilities, something white supremacy cannot shoulder.

As they sang “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world, indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”, the message of the School Strikers was clear - a united, diverse movement of rangatahi across the globe is changing the world, with or without legitimacy from adults. The response of many School Strike rallies to Labour MPs’ speeches was the repeated chant “Not enough”. Let us continue to be a party that stands by young people in fighting for a liveable future, and never shirk from being their radical voice in Parliament.

Adam Currie is Deep South representative on the Young Greens executive

CLIMATE CHANGE

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PHOTO BY ZOE ROBINSON PHOTO BY DAMON KEEN

Getting into gear on climate action JAMES SHAW

Top left: James Shaw at the Wellington School Strike 4 Climate.

Centre: school strikers hikoi for a planet they can live on.

Right: rising sea levels and storm surges mean havoc for coastal communities.

06 CLIMATE CHANGE

Lost amidst the carnage of the March 15 terrorist attack was the extraordinary energy and passion demonstrated by the thousands upon thousands of students who took time out from school to strike for the climate. I attended the Wellington event at Parliament steps – it was several times larger than even the pre-Paris agreement marches.

But that energy and passion hasn’t been wasted – and we expect to see more of it soon. The boldest changes in history have come about by people-powered movements, and I’m proud the Greens are at the heart of the government making this change. As climate change

minister, I’m dedicated to making sure we have new climate laws passed this year with support from across Parliament, to prevent them from being overturned by a change of government in the future.

Our Zero Carbon Bill is the centrepiece of the government response to climate change but is far from the only thing we are leading. We know that property owners and businesses are already facing the costs of climate change, so we’re getting alongside local government to build an adaptive system to manage the risks of natural hazards. We’ve updated our coastal hazards and climate change guidance to include a coastline planning process for councils and communities,

PHOTO BY GEORGE DESIPRIS PEXELS

and we’ve appointed an expert panel to build New Zealand’s first National Climate Change Risk Assessment framework. With this framework due in June and our first risk assessment to be completed by the middle of next year, local authorities will be able to plan for climate change challenges well before they hit the ground.

Since May 2018, the Interim Climate Change Committee has also been digging deep on agriculture and renewable electricity with the public, iwi, technical experts, industries, and other interested groups. They’ve been discussing how to bring agriculture into the Emissions Trading Scheme and the possibility of transitioning to 100 per cent renewable electricity by 2035. The committee’s future-mapping reports will be public by the time you read this and the government will be considering our response. We’ve promised to limit the rise of global temperatures and begin our transition to a low emissions economy, and we’ll start to make decisions and act on these goals once I’ve got the ICCC’s reports in hand.

‘On all fronts, this year is a monumental one for our decisions on climate change’ It’s important that our transition be “just”, equitable, and inclusive for all. Everyone’s voices will need to be heard to make sure that we manage the impacts and maximise the opportunities of the changes. To kick off this conversation, we brought representatives from iwi, communities, regions, and sectors together at the Just Transition Summit on May 9 and 10 in New Plymouth. We had debate and discussion on the Zero Carbon Bill, announced the day before, and heard from inspiring global speakers.

We announced funding for a new clean energy centre in Taranaki to act as a catalyst to clean energy transition.

Venture Taranaki recently also provided for a general transitional economy manager to develop the region’s low emissions roadmap, putting the region right at the heart of the country’s just transition work.

In sum, this work shows New Zealand’s passionate engagement with climate change issues and the party’s role in leading the work. More than 15,000 people and organisations have already had their say on the Zero Carbon Bill, and more will have a chance to get involved soon. Our bill has now, finally, been introduced to Parliament and it will move through the Environment Select Committee in the next few months, with a view to it passing this year. During the committee process, you will be able to put forward your own written submissions, or ask to talk to the committee in person.

Every piece of feedback will be taken into account and this process could either strengthen or weaken the bill.

On all fronts, this year is a monumental one for our decisions on climate change.

James Shaw is the party co-leader

CLIMATE CHANGE

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PHOTO BY NIVA KAY

PHOTO BY DENNIS SCHRODER NREL

With just 12 years left it’s now or never: get amongst it THOMAS NASH

Thomas Nash

08 CLIMATE CHANGE

Backed by the overwhelming weight of climate science and decoupled from corporate and individual self-interest, rational voices are getting some cut-through on the immediacy of the task before us. The last IPCC study gave humanity 12 years to reshape our systems of global production, consumption and energy.

Māori and other indigenous peoples have long been ahead of the curve on this and another recent study concluded the most effective climate action would be to return land to indigenous peoples. Kids get it too – they are mobilising around the world with the climate strike because they know their future is literally at stake. We need a massive, unprecedented global mobilisation of people, jobs, wealth and technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent warming above 1.5 degrees.

Meanwhile, in Thames Coromandel, local Mayor Sandra Goudie (who previously won the Coromandel parliamentary seat from Jeanette Fitzsimons) rejected a declaration signed by more than 50 New Zealand mayors calling for urgent

climate action. This climate denialism attracted another 20 other mayors around the country.

That’s what we’re up against.

If we’re honest, only genuinely transformational government will take us off our current course towards climate destruction, rampant inequality and increasing social isolation and division. It’s not enough to negotiate tweaks on the margins as we help the flawed systems of economic and industrial policy chug along in the same direction. As the Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi writes, the battle for the centre of politics is over. Amongst youth in the US, socialism is more popular than capitalism. After Trump, the politician getting the most engagement on social media is first-term Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from the Bronx. OcasioCortez rejects the “meh” politics of centrism, advocating radical shifts including a comprehensive Green New Deal.

We should take inspiration from this resurgence of radicalism and refocus our efforts on a concerted, unapologetically transformative agenda at the local government level. Council elections attract

far less publicity, prestige and voter turnout than general elections. This makes no sense given the power of regional, district and city councils and the shockingly regressive nature of many existing elected councillors – Hamilton City Council, anyone?

The Greens should focus our energy at the local level as the party that supports decisions being made by those closest to the issue. Many of the fundamental questions about how we as people interact with our natural environment are determined by local government. Infrastructure, transport, water, land, air quality, energy, economic development - these are all central functions of society and government that are managed by our towns, cities and regions.

Local government offers the Greens an opportunity to do what is arguably our most pressing task - to articulate a clear, coherent alternative vision for Aotearoa. There’s a moral imperative to do this (we don’t deserve to be in politics if we can’t) as well as a human survival imperative (we won’t survive unless we prevail with this transformation).

There’s also an electoral survival imperative for us to articulate this vision. The reason I’ve always voted Green is because we’re the only party that comes close to representing the values, vision and long term strategy for a harmonious world. Nobody else comes anywhere near this. They’re vulnerable to meh politics, if not straightforwardly captured by shortterm interests seeking to extract wealth and profit from society and nature. Being distinct from them is our comparative advantage.

Our radical transformative alternative vision is difficult to advance in central government, though.

People get swept up in the parliamentary club and its powerful culture of entitlement. Outside

Parliament there’s a constant, determined effort by businesses and bureaucrats to control law and policy. The media has been gutted as an institution of democratic accountability with only doughty little pockets of journalistic integrity remaining as a force for good in politics.

‘Local government offers the Greens an opportunity to do what is arguably our most pressing task - to articulate a clear, coherent alternative vision for Aotearoa’ This is not to say we should give up on Parliament and, looking at the talent within our ranks, there’s no danger of that. What it does suggest is that local councils might provide an additional, perhaps even an enhanced opportunity for us as a political party to communicate and advance a transformational agenda and alternative vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. Each province should determine its own priorities, candidates and campaign style, but there’s a strong argument for a set of high level national priorities – climate, water, transport, housing, jobs – that could boost the impact and influence of our local campaigning and build our support amongst voters and volunteers around the country.

On 12 October more than 2000 positions will be elected. Get amongst it and bring a radical transformative vision to your own council. We’ve got 12 years left, so it’s kind of now or never.

Thomas Nash is a member of Palmerston North branch

Top left: reflecting on solar future.

Right: Hauraki Coromandel Climate Action protest outside ThamesCoromandel District Council.

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Party principle of non-violence shines a light MARAMA DAVIDSON

The outpouring of aroha and compassion we have seen for our Muslim, migrant and refugee communities is a solemn reminder of who we are, and of the values we hold so dearly. We have prayed and sung together, and we have cried and embraced each other. The earth stood still in the wake of terror yet trembled under our haka and waiata of unity and aroha.

We have also been confronted by some uncomfortable truths and a need to reflect. I am encouraged by those who are doing just that. I went 10 FROM THE BENCHES

to the Aroha Nui concert in Auckland on April 14, a concert organised by the musos of Aotearoa coming together to show their love for our Muslim communities. Like many others since the attack, Mike Smith confessed that before the attacks, he realised that he harboured thoughts that were “a little bit racist”. People are now feeling moved to challenge the pillars of oppression, pillars that breed a worldview that seeks to harm others for their differences. The Green Party will always stand on the side of peace, justice and inclusion. It is more important now than ever that we share and connect and build relationships with each other so we can have an Aotearoa that embodies these values for everyone.

MPs, members and supporters have attended vigils around the country in the weeks after the attack to show that we condemn racism, bigotry and Islamophobia in all forms. Our focus has been on showing our aroha and compassion for the affected communities and making it clear that we stand for peace and for non-violence. We send our love to Muslim whānau around the country and the world, not just because you are us, but because you are you.

PHOTO BY RICK ZWAAN

Marama Davidson visits Masjid Al-Maktouma, a mosque in Mangere, South Auckland (left). Some of the thousands of flowers laid in Christchurch (above).

‘Our focus has been on showing our aroha and compassion for the affected communities and making it clear that we stand for peace and for non-violence’ In my role as co-leader I’ve been focused on meeting with various Muslim, migrant and refugee organisations and representatives to help ensure their voices are heard and carried into the heart of government. We owe it to these communities to be their champions as they seek to grieve and to heal.

We must also address the real concerns they have been raising for years about the rise of hate from white supremacists. I know that building bridges between communities, humanising each other and finding the common ground in our positive values – is how we resist terrorism and all forms of violence driven by fear and difference.

The party will be taking a lead role on our kaupapa of peace and non-violence as we seek to support the government and nation’s overall response to the tragedy. The upcoming Royal Commission of Inquiry into the surveillance agencies, and a fast-tracked review of hate speech laws, will be closely attended to.

Your Green MPs were involved in the government’s swift response on gun control. James and Eugenie represented us at the special cabinet meeting that agreed the overall shape of these

reforms. The changes to gun law are a longstanding part of our policy and caucus was united in agreeing to vote for the reforms.

Aotearoa needs to be the kind of place where we all feel truly safe and at home. It should not have taken such horrific tragedy to make these changes, but let us take this ripple of love and unity sweeping our nation and weave it into the enduring fabric of our society

Mā te rongo ka mōhio, mā te mōhio ka mārama Mā te mārama ka matau, mā te matau ka ora He aroha whakatō, he aroha puta mai Hui ē, tāiki ē!

If compassion is sown, compassion will be received Through understanding we can find peace Let us move forward together with purpose Marama Davidson is the party co-leader

FROM THE BENCHES

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‘Not tinkering at the edges: utterly transforming it and putting people first in everything we do’

Jan Logie at this year’s Young Green Summer Camp

We’re doing things differently JAN LOGIE

This is a big year for me. We’ve done a lot of setup, and now the work of fundamentally reconstructing our approach to family and sexual violence is underway.

We know the rates of family and sexual violence in Aotearoa are simply horrific. Women and children bear the brunt of violence, but it affects all of us – our families and communities and workplaces.

We also know that preventing future violence is our greatest opportunity for enhancing wellbeing in our country.

And ending family and sexual violence is possible. We know it.

We can make it happen.

Our new family violence laws will be fully in effect after 1 July.

They put victims’ safety at the centre of our decision-making and recognise dynamics of family violence that we’ve previously failed to adequately respond to.

There’s the new strangulation offence, which is a critical risk factor for increased violence. We’ve also made changes to Police Safety Orders – so they can be issued at the same time as an arrest is being made, and involve a risk and needs assessment, to help people using violence change their behaviour and keep victims safe.

The law includes forced marriage and dowry abuse – responding to feedback from ethnic and migrant communities.

We’ve clarified that caregivers and people being cared for can have a family relationship, and violence can occur in those relationships. Actions like denying people access to medicine or equipment they need can constitute violence both between

12 FROM THE BENCHES

family members and in a close caring relationship.

These are significant steps to ensure everyone can be safe and can identify when family violence is occurring.

You can expect proposals to reform our sexual violence laws later this year; plus, we’re trialling safer court support systems and upgrading court buildings to provide a better environment for victims and complainants.

We’re doing things differently. The joint venture on family and sexual violence is engaging with Te Rōpū, our Māori advisory group, in a genuinely reciprocal and co-operative way – not just box-ticking.

The joint venture’s business unit has been established, which is essential to keep family and sexual violence a top priority for the government. We’re breaking new ground with the first-ever joint budget bid across multiple departments, and the joint venture will be accountable to Parliament for concrete actions and results.

As well as serving as the under-secretary to the minister of justice on domestic and sexual violence issues, I’m now also the lead minister for the joint venture.

We still face challenges in government. We continue to push for progress on LGBTQI+ freedoms, and resist the backlash that’s trying to undermine our trans and gender diverse whānau and roll back their hard-won rights. We continue driving the overhaul of our welfare system. Not tinkering at the edges: utterly transforming it and putting people first in everything we do.

I’m buoyed by the support and aroha I receive from Green Party members and supporters. We’re a party that unequivocally supports our rainbow communities. We’re a party that unequivocally wants to end poverty. Our kaupapa is strong and our ideas will win.

As I write this, the re-entry of Pike River Mine is just days away. This is something else we fought to change the government for: delivering justice for the families of 29 men who went to work one day and never came home. This happened because ordinary New Zealanders raised their voices, and now we’re in government, making it happen.

Jan Logie is under-secretary to the minister of justice on domestic and sexual violence issues and the lead minister for the joint venture

FROM THE BENCHES

PHOTO BY BRYCE GROVES

Oil permits a kick in the guts but 'we are winning on fossil fuels' This is an edited version of a letter sent to members in Taranaki by energy and resources spokesperson, GARETH HUGHES.

I know a lot of members feel very strongly about the recent Taranaki onshore oil permits and are disappointed in the government’s decision. At a time of climate emergency, opening up further areas to oil drilling isn’t wise and weakens our response to our generation’s greatest challenge.

As Green energy spokesperson, my priority in Parliament has been campaigning against deep sea drilling, fracking, coal and seabed mining.

I’ve worked alongside some amazing environmental and tangata whenua campaigners over many years on this issue and I know it feels like a kick in the guts to have the government on one hand say climate change is our nuclear free moment, yet allow more oil exploration.

I am disappointed to let down those campaigners and Taranaki locals, but also resolved to continue our important mahi on the issue.

I was incredibly proud we managed to achieve the historic end to offshore exploration permits but we weren’t successful at negotiating an end to onshore exploration. The government has been clear that there would be a block offer in Taranaki for the next three years, while they develop and promote the Taranaki Action Plan. We weren’t consulted about the permit announcement. This decision was

Gareth Hughes

‘I was incredibly proud we managed to achieve the historic end to offshore exploration permits but we weren’t successful at negotiating an end to onshore exploration.’

strictly ministerial and because it wasn’t legislative, we didn’t have the chance to veto it.

Members want to see us criticising bad decisions like this and have asked why we weren’t in the media. Unfortunately I was very sick the day it came out and couldn’t do a press release on it but Marama gave our formal response in a passionate general debate speech.

One area I have been focused on opposing is the permit extensions granted by Minister Wood, to companies such as OMV to drill. Existing permits allow drilling in some areas until 2046 and extensions push this date further out.

I drafted an amendment to stop permit extensions but didn’t have the support of any other parties.

I will continue to strongly oppose extensions and will be standing alongside tangata whenua and the [Taranaki] community fighting OMV’s application to drill under the EEZ Act. I’m also focused on getting rid of fossil fuel subsidies to the oil and gas industry.

As an environmental campaigner

of nearly 20 years’ experience I know change is slow and it is sometimes two steps forward, one step back. However, I am incredibly optimistic. We are winning on fossil fuels.

Even though we have been the only party pushing this issue in Parliament, we achieved the end to offshore exploration, we successfully pushed for councils and other entities to divest, and have improved safety and community standards in the industry.

We have changed the public debate on the issue and over the years we have seen Shell, Anadarko, Petrobras, Apache and other oil companies leave New Zealand.

Meanwhile solar is seeing phenomenal growth and the government is working towards 100 per cent renewable electricity.

While these Taranaki permits are bad news for the climate and a step backwards I believe by continuing to passionately push, to articulate the evidence and make our case to the public, we can keep the fossil fuels in the ground.

Gareth Hughes is the Greens’ musterer and spokesperson for Energy& Resources

FROM THE BENCHES

13

Let’s stop using corflute billboards

Hawke’s Bay branch billboard coordinators, L-R: John Ruth, Marilyn Scott and Alan Burke with some of the corflute billboards still in their garage from earlier elections.

JENNY ELLIOT

Hawke’s Bay branch members are asking the party not to use corflute billboards for next year’s election campaign.

“We believe it would be hypocritical for the Green Party to sanction the use of tons of single-use plastic in the form of unrecyclable plastic billboards,” the branch has told MPs and National Office.

“Surely we can find more innovative and Green ways of communicating with voters.”

Hawke’s Bay’s billboard co-ordinators for the past four elections, John Ruth and Marilyn Scott, have written to Green MPs and National Office outlining their concerns about the environmental impact of corflute. Their letter was strongly endorsed by the branch who agreed the issue needs to be debated nationally by the party and that we need to seriously consider whether corflute billboards fit the Greens ethos.

The branch believes the Greens may need to campaign without using billboards

‘Corflute…will degrade, turn brittle, and break into small pieces’ if no viable alternative material can be found.

“We need to show leadership in this regard before we are challenged on this, by the media for example, or before other parties take action on this issue,” says John.

“Making this a point of difference (campaigning without using plastic billboards) and challenging other parties to do likewise, could be a major winner for us in the next election and also meet with global approval while heartening all other environmentally conscious people.”

Corflute materials are not biodegradable and while many branches find creative ways to reuse them, eventually all of the plastic ends up in the environment, and those exposed to sunlight and weather (by far the greater bulk of them we suspect), will degrade, turn brittle and break into small pieces.

Marilyn says she and John have contacted a number of companies within Aotearoa NZ and followed several leads to find a suitable and affordable alternative but without success.

“We have reached a point where we are no longer prepared to support the use of new corflute materials each election year and we have indicated this to our local branch.”

Jenny Elliott is Hawke’s Bay branch co-convenor

Poseidon misadventure LIZ REMMERSWAAL

About 50 people attended a peace picnic at Parliament on the first sitting day this year in February, and presented a petition to Green defence spokesperson Golriz Ghahraman MP. The petition asks the government to reconsider spending $2.3 billion on four Poseidon aeroplanes with the ability to destroy submarines. This is far in excess of what is required to patrol our waters and safeguard New Zealand’s security, which would cost a fraction of this amount.

The picnic was organised by World Beyond War Aotearoa and the Berrigan House Catholic Worker Movement, and was attended by many different people of all ages including members of the NZ United Nations Association, Quakers, Otaki Summer Camp participants and Gareth Hughes MP. This is the first picnic of the year and we intend to come back again for as long as needed.

Liz Remmerswaal is a member of Hawke’s Bay branch

14 FLAXROOTS

PHOTO BY KAREN SPARROW

Five EV-owners on the Tawa Community Board L-R: Wellington City Councillor Malcolm Sparrow, Liz Langham, Deputy Mayor of Wellington Jill Day, chair Richard Herbert, and Robyn Parkinson.

Small pay, lovely job, leads to community board and Greens ROBYN PARKINSON

I never, ever thought I’d be a politician.

Not in my wildest dreams.

My fourth form social studies teacher ran a weekly current affairs quiz for our class. It was the only academic test I ever failed at school. Every week. The teacher gave up in sheer frustration.

University, with degrees in law and philosophy, helped a bit. But instead of becoming a lawyer I became a systems librarian, and then a full-time mother for many years. Neither of those career choices were really on my radar either.

With four young children, and then multiple older relatives going in to care, whanau came first. No part-time job ever came up with enough interest and flexibility to fit around that... until in 2014, I became a volunteer ‘lead’ on the newly launched Neighbourly website. From there, I offered to be a neighbour’s occasional gardener. Small pay, lovely job. Then some residents wanted a community garden.

A year later, I had coordinated Tawa’s volunteer gardeners alongside the council, and we had our very own community garden. I learned so much it seemed a pity to waste it, so I stood for the local community board in the 2016 election.

LOCAL ELECTIONS

‘I learned so much, it seemed a pity to waste it. So I stood for the local community board in the 2016 election’ I didn’t campaign on principle - and in the event, was elected unopposed.

The council induction process was super. We got almost the same initial support as councillors. There was the option to say our oath of affirmation in te reo, so with a big breath, a little coaching and a lot of practice, I did.

Someone came up to me afterwards to say it was unnecessary, as “we have no Maori in this suburb”. I promptly proceeded to take te reo night classes.

Being on a community board is an odd thing. I do bigger stuff like submissions on waste management; and little stuff, like multiple calls, emails, and followups to just get one streetlight fixed. Our board - a real mixed bag of political views - has done well, despite having very little actual, delegated power and a tiddly budget.

So, 2018. A fellow board member who was elected to council asks me to research an electric car for her. A few phone calls later, I confess to the lovely car salesman

that the person I am acting for is actually the deputy mayor of Wellington. It sure is fun to hear a salesman go really quiet on the other end of the line.

One of my daughters partners up with a highly active Young Green. He hands me a Te Awa magazine and I read the Green Party’s values. Surprise! They are all pretty much how we run our community garden. The light dawns that maybe it is time to actually join a political party.

I spot a job opening, with the car firm we bought our EV from in 2017. I score an amazing job as an electric vehicle specialist. My first sale is to the wonderful local councillor who sits on our board. He loves a good photo shoot, so we arrange a shot of the EV owners on the community board - now five out of eight!

Who knows what this year will bring?

Bring on the local elections. Kua tae te wā.

Robyn Parkinson is a member of Tawa branch

15

PHOTO BY AARON BIRCH UNSPLASH

Delivering on own-home dreams MALCOLM LAIRD

This article is designed to start discussion about reviving the State Advances Corporation to provide mortgages with very low interest rates, fixed for the life of the loan. If such a scheme existed today it would help progress the key Green Party economic goal of reducing inequality. We talk about building resilience and wanting citizens to thrive. The security of living in your own home with a fixed cost path to freehold ownership helps achieve these things.

I think we should expand our Kiwi Bank policy to include creating a stand-alone institution solely to issue home mortgage credit with the following features: • This is a once-in-your-lifetime offer.

• Interest fixed at 1.75 per cent.

• For the life of the loan, equity in the home may not be leveraged for other borrowing. That benefit is given up in exchange for a very low interest rate. This is a key feature

16 GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

to safeguard the institution against losing capital in a mortgagee sale.

• You must save a deposit, or be refinancing your existing home without withdrawing equity.

• After set-up costs, the scheme is funded by interest income.

No dividend is paid to the government.

• Legislation governing the scheme should draw heavily on that governing banks, with clear rules specifying how much credit the new institution may create at any one time given its capital adequacy constraints.

The original State Advances Corporation

In 1951 the corporation produced a brochure designed to convince tenants to buy the state houses they were renting. This was under a National Government and reads like a public service announcement.

Other State Advances loans went to first home buyers such

‘The interest rate is fixed for the life of the loan and so the risk of being forced to sell because of rising interest rates is eliminated’

as my parents who received a loan fixed at three per cent for 30 years. That would be music to the ears of today’s “generation rent”. At my Rongotai branch meeting in August 2018 when I first presented this proposal a member of Renters United was present. Her comment was “where do I sign up”.

Possible objections

Shouldn’t we focus solely on the poorest?

We have policies to lift people out of poverty, but like prisoners getting out of an economic prison, we need policies that keep them out by building personal financial resources. If a person (or family) suffers a life setback, owning your own home means one less thing to worry about.

Does this sound like middle class welfare?

Two generations from now we may not have a middle class.

Hollowing out of the middle class is a problem that needs to be addressed too. This is a policy aimed at reducing state dependency by creating personal wealth for “the many”, not “the few”.

Won’t this push house prices up?

The government is addressing supply issues with more social housing and the Kiwi Build initiative designed to build more affordable houses. This should dampen house prices over time.

Prices for houses funded by bank mortgages are market driven. But the State Advances Corporation is not a profitdriven bank. It could reign in lending or extend more credit with social-good motives.

What about the negative equity trap?

If Kiwi Build success or rising bank interest rates push prices down, some home owners may experience a negative equity situation.

Because this scheme still requires people to save a deposit and capital is paid off more quickly due to the low interest rate, buyers “get out of the danger zone” more quickly. The interest rate is fixed for the life of the loan and so the risk of being forced to sell because of rising interest rates is eliminated.

Other observations

In New Zealand, the commercial banks' home mortgage business carries very little risk but earns large profits. My recollection is that in 1970 about 10 per cent of bank business was house mortgages. Today, according to the Reserve Bank, for bank and non-bank lending institutions combined, this figure is about 57 per cent.

I think banks should concentrate on business banking where risk assessment is a valuable service.

The longer a reborn State Advances Corporation survives the more obvious the benefits become and therefore the harder it is for future governments to remove.

Is it a vote winner? Of course it is. I hope my suggestion will trigger vigorous debate that will lead to the development of a formal policy.

1951 State Advances Corporation brochure

Mortgage comparison State Advances Home price 10 per cent deposit

$400,000 $40,000

State Advances credit

$360,000

1.75 per cent interest

Monthly payment Total payments

$2,400 $406,557

Freehold in 15 years

Interest paid Commercial bank Home price

$46,557

10 per cent deposit

$400,000 $40,000

Bank credit

$360,000

6 per cent interest

Monthly payment Total payments

$2,400 $667,083

Freehold in 24 years

Interest paid

$307,083

Calculations made at www.sorted.org.nz/tools/ mortgage-calculator

Malcolm Laird is a member of Rongotai branch

GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

17

Opposing the Afghan war: our honourable record KEITH LOCKE

I was surprised at Chantal Grut’s article in the Autumn Te Awa making a case for United States and New Zealand soldiers to remain in Afghanistan.

America’s Afghan war has been an 18-year disaster, causing untold death and destruction. The Greens have been against it from the start. On the day the Twin Towers fell our then coleader Jeanette Fitzsimons stood up in Parliament to say “it is not a time for revenge but for justice and healing”.

As Foreign Affairs spokesperson I also argued for a peaceful solution. We didn’t get any support in the House. But we continued to argue against military action and voted against our SAS being sent to Afghanistan.

Over the years we have explained how New Zealand’s reputation has been seriously compromised by our SAS’s involvement in this dirty war. We’ve explained how the SAS has been on raids that have killed innocent villagers and townspeople. We’ve exposed how the SAS handed over prisoners to the Afghan National Directorate of Security, where they were likely tortured.

Our association with American troops has been so damaging. The US has conducted the war with so little regard for human rights that the International Criminal Court is currently investigating US war crimes in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is doing everything it can to block this investigation, even denying a US visa to the chief ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

Over the years, myself and other Greens were slandered as Taliban supporters because of our opposition to the war. The response I always gave is that it works the other way. In fact, the fortunes of the Taliban were boosted by the presence of foreign troops. It enabled this extremist organisation to present itself as a nationalist force, protector of 18 GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

Keith Locke is a long-time peace activist.

Today the Taliban control more of Afghanistan than at any time since they lost power in 2001.

the nation against foreign invaders. The facts speak for themselves. Today the Taliban control more of Afghanistan than at any time since they lost power in 2001.

Clearly the answer is not more war, but a negotiated settlement involving all parties, and it is good that the US is talking with the Taliban. I can understand the worries of some of Chantul Grut’s Afghan friends about the inclusion of the Taliban in a future coalition government.

But as I read it, the main wish among Afghans today is for a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Our current campaign to end New Zealand military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq fully accords with our Green Charter principle for peace and non-violence. We see an important role for New Zealand in the world. But this is as a peacemaker, not a warmaker.

Keith Locke is a former Green MP

PHOTO BY GABRIEL UNSPLASH

‘Do we just need to smarten up? Is it buyer beware?

What about free choice?’

Food choice a false premise PHILIPPA STEVENSON

The local supermarket has reorganised its stock and now has a healthy food aisle.

Under the psychology of supermarket layout this health food corral is right next to the fruit and vegetable section’s airy spaces, which are designed to lull shoppers into a relaxed if not mindless state in order to part them from more of their money.

But if the fruit and veg and corralled items are designated healthy what does that say for the rest of the supermarket stock?

Manufacturers find little value in whole foods unless they can be tweaked or amended, added to or subtracted from. Fast food is the same. It may be cheap but is usually high in fat, salt, sugar, and additives. To win in this toxic environment do we just need to smarten up? Is it buyer beware? What about free choice?

Boyd Swinburn, Professor of Population Nutrition and Global Health at Auckland University, describes supermarkets as “absolute experts in knowing where to place foods and how to price them and market them in a way that will increase sales.

The trouble is that they apply all the skill and knowledge to tilt the environment towards the wrong products.”

He is, like the Green Party, in favour of a sugar tax to address one aspect of poor food.

“It is one of the most widely used systems with the most evidence around reducing consumption of junk food around the world,” he says. “It has the strongest evidential credentials, but because it hits the back pocket of highly profitable industries – namely sugary drinks – they put in millions of dollars to fight very hard against it, and they’ve spooked the government.”

But what of free choice? The Green Party’s food policy notes that “food policy is also about democracy”.

“Citizens have a fundamental right to know what is in their food and where it comes from, and to participate in decisions about what they purchase and eat.”

Auckland University Business School’s Dr Milind Mandlik argues that while calls for government interventions on the sale of items like sugary drinks are important, there are many other factors that must be considered in obesity prevention.

“The truth is we are more than consumers – we are people leading busy lives and living with personal struggles,” he wrote in a recent Newsroom column.

Free will promotes individual freedom to consume, without inhibitions, whatever is desired…and places responsibility for choice directly on the consumer, wrote Dr Mandlik.

“But western society concern with ‘individual choice’ is a false premise: our research shows multiple fast-food outlets are not a genuine choice. Food marketers have created desires and steered our choices towards their products. They market food as entertainment, opulence and indulgence with the result that almost all of our research participants talked about the pervasiveness of institutionally-driven food marketing campaigns.”

Attempts by governments to regulate the food industry are slammed as nanny-state actions reducing our choice and disempowering us, he said. “But this free-will ideology of foodrelated consumption choices has led us to where we are today.”

Today 30 per cent of the New Zealand population is classified as obese and, for the first time in history, the mortality rates of preventable diseases like diabetes, hypertension and stroke will outstrip those of infectious diseases.

“We need a collective endeavor where individuals, communities, institutions of all kinds and policymakers genuinely work together to make meaningful improvements to our stance on obesity.”

More regulation of food is the way out, he says, “we just have to want it”.

Philippa Stevenson is Waikato branch convenor

GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

19

PHOTO BY AHMED ABU HAMEEDA UNSPLASH

Catastrophe of a lost history ‘The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history’ LOIS GRIFFITHS

May 15, Nakba Day, is an important date for the Palestinian people. It’s the day when Palestinians commemorate their history and their culture. While Israeli nationalists and Zionist supporters celebrate the forming in 1948 of the state of Israel, the “birth” of Israel, Palestinians remember the Nakba, the catastrophe, ie, what was done to the indigenous people.

It’s a memory that the Israeli regime has tried to outlaw, to erase. Decades ago Israel deliberately renamed, ie “Hebrewised”, village and geographical locations. Some destroyed villages were covered over with pine forests, hiding evidence that people had lived there.

George Orwell has pointed out that, “the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history”.

Palestinian academic Edward Said warned, “part of the main plan of imperialism…is that we will give you your history, we will write it for you, we will re-order the past…what’s more truly frightening is the defacement, the mutilation, and ultimately the eradication of history”.

The Israeli historian Ilan Pappé has coined the word 20 GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

“memoricide”, to describe the Israeli efforts to erase knowledge and evidence of a Palestinian past.

The Nakba is more than an historical event. It is an ongoing process. The Nakba continues today as Israel continues to destroy houses, farmlands, schools - yes schools too - in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as Israeli snipers continue to shoot to kill or permanently maim unarmed Gazan demonstrators, as Israeli forces continue to attack Gazan fishermen and bomb Gaza.

Writer Ramzy Baroud says about the birth of Israel, “That blood-stained birth callously required the destruction of an entire nation; people with a unique history, language, culture and collective memory. It was thus absolutely necessary for the Palestinians to be wiped out to quell any possible sense of Israeli guilt, shame and legal and moral responsibility for what has befallen millions of dispossessed people. The Nakba is not merely a question of history, but an ongoing reality that has affected several generations of Palestinians. It is not a celebration of victimhood, but the impetus for an ongoing resistance. It is not an ‘event’ assigned a specific political context and analysis, but is now a state of mind; the Palestinian people’s strongest rapport between them and their past, present and future.”

I know that I am not the only Green Party member who cares passionately about what is being done to the Palestinian people. I am not the only member who wants our party to offer opportunities for members to meet and share information about the Palestinian cause. I am not the only one who wants our leaders to be unafraid to speak out and demand justice.

Lois Griffiths is a member of the Ilam branch

PHOTO BY CRAIG ADDERLEY PEXELS

No innocence in wood-smoke The wood burner industry has been very effective in creating the perception that woodsmoke from dry wood is eco-friendly and harmless

KIMBRA TAYLOR

Many people have a perception that woodsmoke is natural and therefore harmless. This is understandable - we all have a primal attachment to fire. In fact wood-smoke from dry wood is a carbon-based climate change gas and is also highly toxic, containing the same particulates and gases as cigarette smoke and car fumes.

When any substance including dry wood is burned, toxic PM2.5 particulates and gases (smoke) containing carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, aldehydes, benzene, toluene, xylenes, poly-nuclear aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxin are produced (1). According to Dr Leigh Crilley, an air pollution scientist in Britain, a wood-stove produces more harmful air particulates per hour than a modern diesel lorry (2). Exposure to wood-smoke can cause cancer, strokes, heart attacks, immune system illnesses, and many respiratory ailments.

Dr Gerd Oberfield, an epidemiologist in Austria’s Unit for Environment Health, says, “I saw very strong associations between tonsillitis, frequent cough, croup, exercise-induced wheezing, food allergies and wood-smoke exposure in children.

I think wood-smoke is one of the most harmful air pollutants we have on earth.”

The wood burner industry has been very effective in creating the perception that wood-smoke from dry wood is eco-friendly and harmless. They claim that burning wet wood is harmful but burning dry wood in a “low emission” wood-burner is sustainable and ecological. The harmful effects of burning dry, cured macrocarpa, pine etc on health and the environment is well documented – it produces the same poisonous gases and particulates as burning wet wood, oil, coal and tobacco.

The low-emission burners being advertised by the wood-burner industry produce smoke under most circumstances. They run efficiently ie, producing the clear gas, carbon dioxide, when the box is very hot and the operator is maintaining a bright, rolling flame, but as soon as the flame dies down the box cools and the chimney produces fumes. The only

actual low-emission wood-burners are the Pyro Classic wood-burner and pellet burners, and they both emit carbon dioxide – a climate change gas but not so hazardous to the health. I’m sure people in the industry are not consciously misleading the public but are simply uninformed.

Councils are aware of winter smoke pollution issues but because wood fires have always been a primary source of heating they tolerate the damage and maintain what they call “a passive stance”. The winter air in Raumati South was monitored several years ago by the Wellington Regional Council - toxins were found to be over the world health standards and included arsenic, produced by burning treated wood. No action was taken. There is no support from authorities for the many New Zealanders who live in smoky neighbourhoods and experience a negative impact on their health.

The Green and Labour parties, to their credit, are both developing strong policies around climate change and pollution from industry, agriculture and vehicles. The Greens are revisiting the Emissions Trading Scheme which states that industrial and agricultural polluters are to be fined. Effectively every individual who runs a domestic wood burner (albeit the latest model) is also contributing to climate change and pollution, but under the current policy on wood-smoke, they are not viewed as such.

Our policy endorses the replacement of old burners with new “low emission” burners and the burning of dry wood. In the light of the evidence this seems to be at odds with our commitment to carbon zero by 2050. Wood-smoke emissions will continue to detract from gains made elsewhere. I understand that this information can be challenging and it is not my intention to judge, but to begin a shift in perception.

1. https://www.thoughtco.com/smokechemistry-607309 2. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/ feb/22/wood-diesel-indoor-stoves-cities-pollution Kimbra Taylor is a member of Otaki branch

GREENS HAVE THEIR SAY

21

An example of a passive house, Browne Residence. Photo by Architype

Fit-for-purpose new builds need better code JASON QUINN

Living in this country has been a shocking experience for me. I’ve discovered that some Kiwis don’t think anything of wearing a winter jacket inside when it’s cold.

As a building scientist and Passive House Institute NZ certifier, I’ve seen some pretty horrific examples of homes and buildings, even brand new builds, that are not designed to stay dry and mould-free.

That’s why I wrote my first book, Passive House for New Zealand, which was launched at the Passive House Institute conference this year – I want to see change.

The simple answer is to insulate and ventilate – we need to design houses to work under modern conditions.

Having a shower in the morning then closing up your house shouldn’t cause the problems we see.

We know the level of premature deaths and expensive health costs associated with unhealthy housing are unacceptable and unnecessary. There are practical solutions available now but the Building Code doesn’t require them. And it’s not just houses – it’s all sorts of buildings, including schools, hospitals and offices.

One of the first steps is inexpensive – installing continuous ventilation that runs all the time. NZ 22 GOING GREEN

Building Code needs to learn from international passive house experience and adopt overseas standards when it comes to ventilation and insulation, particularly with the push to build significantly more houses.

The passive house concept is more than a mechanical fan, and much more than passive solar, although both of these are part of it. The most important aspect is using building science to ensure that you’re getting a house that will work in your climate.

Other countries are already doing this, and when you factor in climate change, we need to set more effective standards and reduce our emissions.

While passive house design might add 10 per cent to the cost of a new home build, the total energy costs for running that house are about the equivalent of running a fridge – reducing fuel poverty.

Research shows poor housing inflicts massive costs on our health system – and on individuals’ quality of life. At a time when we’re building huge numbers of houses, we should be thinking long-term.

The book is available free at warmhealthyhomes. co.nz, more information is at phinz.org.nz, and an interview with Kathryn Ryan is at radionz.co.nz.

Jason Quinn is a Whanganui branch member

Jason Quinn

‘The simple answer is to insulate and ventilate’

An insider’s view of life in a Green minister’s office ‘I learnt to converse in Treasury speak, how to describe fish passage to anyone who would listen, and a whole lot about what other countries are doing to tackle plastic pollution’

TEALL CROSSEN

When Eugenie asked me to work as her political advisor, saying yes was the only answer. As an environmental lawyer, how could I not work for the Minister of Conservation, Land Information and Associate Minister for the Environment. The experience gave me first hand knowledge of how the government actually works. And I got to take my dogs to work.

At times, my job felt like a never-ending climate change negotiation. When I worked as a legal advisor at the international climate change talks, I quickly learnt that getting anything done required consensus. At the United Nations, you had to convince around 195 countries to agree. At least with the New Zealand government you only need agreement between the Greens, Labour and NZ First. My role was being the political link between the parties to make sure the conservation initiatives Eugenie was leading as Minister had the necessary support to get across the line.

It’s amazing what you can achieve when you get agreement. I felt privileged to be part of the work leading to the biggest increase in the Department of Conservation’s funding since 2002, the introduction of a bill to better protect our freshwater fish, and the ban on single use plastic bags. I learnt to converse in Treasury speak, how to describe fish passage to anyone who would listen, and a whole lot about what other countries are doing to tackle plastic pollution.

One of the less high profile successes was helping deliver on the commitment in the confidence and supply agreement to end government subsidies for large-scale irrigation. While not glamorous, stopping government funding to pollute our waterways is essential to making rivers swimmable again.

I also had the honour of meeting extraordinary people. Visiting Te Kura Whare, a living building that is the centre of governance and the meeting place for Ngāi Tūhoe in Taneatua was particularly inspiring.

Hearing the story of how Te Urewera Act 2014 came into being first hand, enriched and deepened my understanding of the recognition of Te Urewera as a legal entity.

An unexpected part of the job was being able to bring Hadlee, Moses and Carter to work. Early on I heard a rumour that dogs were allowed on the precinct. It wasn’t until I bumped into Speaker

Former political advisor Teall Crossen outside Parliament. Photo by Maggie Tait

Trevor Mallard taking his dog out for a walk on Parliament’s lawn that I believed it. After that, the boys became frequent visitors; providing a break from the constant meetings, copious briefings, questions in the House, media queries, and the everimportant political strategy discussions.

There were of course frustrating parts of my job. The pile of paperwork, including reviewing written parliamentary questions, never seemed to get smaller. The hardest part was feeling like you weren’t getting enough done, or not doing it fast enough, no matter how hard you worked. And bold, systemic change is what is needed. That’s why I got into politics.

Leaving the job was a big call, but it felt right. I want to be in a position to express my own political voice. I will be back at the environmental coalface advocating for nature in our courts, learning te reo at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa and doing some writing on climate justice. I am grateful I had the opportunity to contribute to the current government, but now I am thinking about the next one, with a bolder environmental agenda.

Teall Crossen was a senior political advisor to Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage from December 2017 to February 2019. She is a member of the Rongatai branch.

OUR PEOPLE

23

Green World COMPILED BY LOIS GRIFFITHS

USA

‘The people of Venezuela shouldn’t be made to suffer a bloody civil war to satisfy the greed of foreign investors – Jill Stein’

Poster: The US Green Party launched the Green New Deal concept in 2009

24 GREEN WORLD

Howie Hawkins, one of the founders of the Green Party, hopes to be the presidential candidate in next year’s election. An experienced activist in peace issues, workers and community issues, Hawkins wants to build the Greens into a socialist and eco-socialist party funded by “people instead of billionaires”.

The Greens are calling for a Green New Deal, a “WWII-scale national mobilisation to halt climate change, the greatest threat to humanity in our history”. They are convinced that the country’s energy sources could be 100 per cent renewable by 2030. Oil wars would then be obsolete, and the massive military budget redirected to provide green jobs.

Pennsylvania Greens co-chair Alan Smith issued the following statement after the terrorist attack in Christchurch on 15 May: “Asalaam Alaikum. Peace be unto you. This phrase is the root meaning of the word Islam, and as such it is the foundational belief of one fourth of the human population. Peace also serves as the foundation for Green parties worldwide.

“The Green Party of Pennsylvania stands in solidarity with the Muslim community as we mourn, seek comfort, healing and understanding in response to the tragedy in New Zealand. We must unequivocally stand against the dehumanisation of Muslims and against white supremacy anywhere and everywhere. Let us open our doors and arms to the traumatised. Let us open our hearts and minds to rediscover, repair and rejuvenate the connective

tissue that holds this planet together. Let us be the antidote to this terrible sickness of terror and violence today and every day. May peace be unto us all.”

Jill Stein, a medical doctor and former Green candidate in the US presidential elections in 2012 and 2016, rejects the Trump administration’s attempt to destabilize Venezuela in order to grab its oil resources.

“The people of Venezuela shouldn’t be made to suffer a bloody civil war to satisfy the greed of foreign investors. Bolton and Trump have said outright: we want their oil. [The] US desperately needs a true opposition party and independent media that won’t just rubber-stamp war for profit.”

Earlier several Greens were part of a week-long peace delegation to Venezuela. Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese said: “When we talked to Venezuelans, one thing they commonly told us was ‘thank you for coming to Venezuela, now you can tell people in the United States the truth about our country when your politicians and media lie about us’.”

The delegates said the people of the United States were being misled in order to create support for the Trump intervention in Venezuela which includes the economic war, an attack on the electrical system and the threat of war and militarism.

“Juan Guaido’s self-appointment as president violated the constitution of Venezuela. Guaido is the butt of jokes in Venezuela with very little support among the population while Maduro is seen as working for the necessities of people and fighting against US imperialism.”

Assange arrest a disaster for free press Australian Green leader Dr Richard Di Natale finds the arrest of Julian Assange very disturbing.

“Regardless of what you think about Assange as an individual, he is facing extradition to the US on charges relating to his work to shine light on potential war crimes – an act that won him Australia’s highest honour for journalism.

“Seeking to punish Assange for exposing evidence of US atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan would put a chilling effect on moves towards open and more transparent democracy.

“If extradited to the United States, Assange will be on trial for alleged crimes he committed while not even in the country.”

“Foreign nations must not be able to extradite and charge journalists who have exposed their wrongdoing. It sets a terrible precedent and would be a disaster for the free press.”

The Greens oppose a planned $500m expansion of the Australian War Memorial, and want that sum used to fund cultural institutions instead.

Green Party leader Senator Di Natale said, “The Greens value the War Memorial as an important part of our national heritage and it should be properly resourced to commemorate Australia’s experiences of war. But the Liberal Government’s planned half-billion dollar expansion to showcase military hardware is deeply inappropriate. This government’s priorities are all wrong.”

Former Senator Milne added, “Our museums, galleries and archives have been deliberately starved of vital funds to continue their work.”

Green candidate Tim Hollo said, “Funding our national institutions should not be determined by the political priorities of the government of the day, especially an anti-culture government like this one.

It’s well past time we had a memorial to the Frontier Wars as part of the memorial precinct. We can never achieve reconciliation until we truly grapple with our history, and understand that the land we live on was taken through war and never ceded. Building a memorial and recognising and funding the Tent Embassy are a small part of working genuinely with indigenous people, in full knowledge of our past, towards a future together.”

provoking writer, but the vision she outlined for a better planet has stayed with me. She has influenced me politically, outlining how we need a change in policy to press a reset button on our institutionalised environmentally destructive practices. I am proud that the Green Party has followed her lead and embedded ending ecocide into our policies.

“In an era of record temperatures, mass extinction and when plastic pollution is entering our food chain, her campaign to end ecocide is more relevant than ever. Her vision is one that will continue to spur on generations of environmentalists, and challenge the operations of governments and business.”

Rampion Wind Farm, off the coast of Sussex in England.

Completed in late 2018 the 116 turbines have a capacity of 400MW.

PHOTO BY BRYCE GROVES

AUSTRALIA

UK

Green Party deputy leader Amelia Womack supports Polly Higgins in her efforts to make ecocide a recognised international crime. “Polly is a pioneer, working to ensure that our planet is protected by clear legislation that would dramatically change the way that business and governments have to operate.

Her vision and leadership are inspirational. I met Polly in 2013 and she inspired me to write my MSc thesis on ecocide after reading her book, Earth is Our Business.

“Not only is she an incredible and thoughtGREEN WORLD

25

Book reviews Money Land – Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World & How To Take It Back

By Oliver Bullough Profile books, 2018 I enjoy our policy (and social media) discussions about how to make economics fairer, how we might work towards a Universal Basic Income, a Tobin (transaction) tax, carbon taxes and other ways to arrange the money economy so it might serve people and the environment better. I also like the discussions on how we could have a different kind of economy altogether, one not based on the current model of corporate capitalism. It is serious and necessary work.

Then along comes a book like this: it shows us that the scale on which these thieves and crooks operate is beyond our reckoning and certainly beyond our capability to rein them in. While it looks as though the title more or less sums up the content, it is well worth reading the whole thing.

It’s very well written for a start – it is actually entertaining – and it resembles a good detective story in that it takes you well out of your comfort zone into a world that is more or less invisible to most of us.

We in this little country might be among the most privileged on the planet, but the people in this book are another category of privileged entirely. And what they do and how they do it affects us all greatly. As one of my friends remarked: “At least it might be possible to round them all up and shoot them”. Technically, yes, they are relatively few in number but they emerge from a tangle of international laws they have contrived to create to benefit themselves. Which they continue to influence.

The second part of the title takes us beyond the audacity of kleptocrats and the blatant hypocrisy of lawyers, accountants and even governments (and yes, New Zealand is mentioned – remember the Panama papers?) to some sober consideration of what can be done.

Well worth reading to add some complexity and guts to our economic discussions.

Reviewed by Janine McVeagh

Fight for the Forests

By Paul Bensemann Potton and Burton, 2018 This book combines the large format and beautiful illustrations expected in a Potton and Burton publication, with the excitement and intrigue of a who-dunnit. The author’s meticulous research documents campaigns over the 50 years from Save Lake Manapouri and its forests in 1952 to the end of state forest logging on the West Coast in 2002.

Eighteen victories are summarised on a two-page spread in relief showing the sites where logging ceased, and there is a reproduction of the 341,000-signature Maruia Declaration petition to stop logging of native forest, one of the largest petitions in our history.

The three years that Bensemann devoted to research reveal the dedication of those involved in the campaigns. The author, an active campaigner, infiltrated the Forest Service head office to obtain information about logging plans and research, which were a closely guarded secret. He survived an official enquiry into the

26 BOOK REVIEWS

leaks but the strain of being a spy took a toll on his health and he resigned. It is a credit to both Paul and his former boss, director of research Colin Basset, that Colin helped Paul in the writing of this book.

The foreword is written by former prime minister Helen Clark, and an overview is given by Craig Potton who was a key member of the campaign. A prologue, ‘A Young Rabble of Protestors’ (a Muldoon phrase) describes the tree-climbing episode that was key to saving Pureora Forest.

The campaigns and lives of 31 environmental activists are featured, including an update on what they are doing now.

This book will also appeal to campaigners for any cause, but especially to environmental campaigners in these days of serious concern about the relative inaction of governments over the crisis of climate change.

It is a great read, broken up by some delicious photographs of native forest. I strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the environment.

Reviewed by Mike Collins

Listening to the People of the Land: Christianity, Colonisation and the Path to Redemption Ed. Susan Healy Pax Christi, 2019 This compilation “reaches into the underlying causes of harm done, efforts to address that harm, and the benefits to indigenous, non-indigenous and the earth when those of settler descent work to make right their relationships with tangata whenua”.

It analyses the ongoing impact on tangata whenua, and the whenua, of the introduction of capitalism and the imposition of European ideas of individuality, cultural superiority and competition over collectivism, but looks further to how a deeper understanding of ourselves in relation to indigeneity can bring faster change.

It has 14 contributors, among them Jen Margaret, Kennedy Warne, and Mitzi Nairn.

Editor and author Susan Healy was one of the writers of Ngapuhi Speaks (2012), an independent report on the Ngapuhi claim on the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Treaty of Waitangi. She brings the rich experience of the claimants’ perspectives to this new work and pushes ahead into the territory of tiriti-based constitutional change as one of the paths to redemption, and to living sustainably.

Part I looks at how the Christian Doctrine of Discovery underlined and ‘justified’ more than 400 years of European expansionism into and theft of indigenous territory. The doctrine still echoes today in such statements as “they are better off having been colonised”.

Part II examines the work of churches in Aotearoa from the 1980s to combat racism and honour the treaty, including the courageous changing of constitutions to reflect the treaty relationship. What has been learned in the process could benefit the country as a whole as the push for constitutional transformation continues, spearheaded by the Matike Mai report (2016).

Part III centres on the continuing need to listen to tangata whenua to better assess and question Euro-centric behaviours

ple to the Peo g in n e t Lis nd of the La Ch

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and assumptions as we consider the fairness of land ownership and resources, how to build respectful relationships between diverse communities, and how we make inclusive decisions to live sustainably on the earth.

Reviewed by Moea Armstrong This book can be ordered online at accentpublications.co.nz

Mountains to Sea: Solving New Zealand’s Freshwater Crisis Ed. Dr Mike Joy Bridget Williams Books, 2018 The concept driving this book is finding solutions to the freshwater crisis, and Mike Joy frames the debate with his unflinching clarity.

Tina Ngata inspires via her beautiful essay on wai maori.

Her hope is that despite colonisation’s ongoing damage we can recognise tangata whenua relationships with the water.

Nick Kim outlines the extensive contamination effects from a range of agricultural inputs. Vanessa Hammond points out that public health is overlooked in favour of commercial interests in water, an issue notably absent from the Land and Water Forum.

Paul Tapsell and Alison Dewes focus on better ways to nurture soil and water. Their work on public health, animal husbandry and water quality with Paul’s matauranga Maori at the core is excellent.

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Peter Fraser, an economist, refuses to buy into speculative irrigation projects. He has been a key player in the Ruataniwha and the Wairarapa dam proposals. His analysis of the Opuha dam brings us down to earth.

Kyleesha Foote focuses on what we measure and what really counts in a strong critique of how we fail to cost agricultural externalities.

Catherine Knight analyses the failure of central government to lead on water and blames “politics” for that failure. I agree that National excelled at this and that we are yet to see the new government make serious progress. The Pamu (formerly Landcorp) chapter shows how the government farmer has stepped up to the challenge which the Greens helped to put to them that more cows was not the answer.

Chris Perley is a landscape philosopher whose call that we need to decolonise and decorporatise our minds before we can heal our landscapes has powerful resonance.

Mike Joy summarises, challenging us to recognise that change is upon us and system change is essential, including deintensifying agriculture to meet the perfect storm. I applaud the range of voices, the urgency and focus of this book.

This book is a reminder to the Green leadership that only bravery and risk-taking will work. The time for watering down our approaches is done.

Reviewed by Catherine Delahunty

BOOK REVIEWS

27

The forest was being clear felled, burnt over and planted in pines

Whirinaki road block, 1978

PHOTO BY PAUL HUGHES

Forest fight tactics still good to go

BY MIKE COLLINS

Conservation veteran Mike Collins

28 LOOKING BACK

Reading Paul Bensemann’s Fight for the Forests brought back memories of hawking the Maruia Declaration petition around the streets of Rotorua and even the corridors of the Forest Research Institute, where I worked in the Timber Engineering research group. I also distributed copies of Beech Leaves, the journal of Native Forests Action Council, around the institute. It found a sympathetic audience among most of the science staff but there were a few dissenters as Guy Salmon, who produced it, could write some pretty inflammatory prose when it was needed.

A group of us, including other scientists at FRI, were inspired by the work of Guy and his partner Gwenny Davis, and formed a branch of the Native Forests Action Council. The immediate target was to stop logging in Horohoro Forest on the Mamaku Plateau close to Rotorua.

This forest had been identified by NFAC head office as a high priority for saving. It had areas of dense podocarps, principally rimu, and was home to a small population of kōkako, which is critically dependent on unmodified native forest. The forest was being clear felled, burnt over and planted in pines. The rimu logs were being milled by a railways department mill in Mamaku to provide timber for the maintenance of old railway carriages.

Our NFAC group conducted a short sharp campaign publicising the destruction to the citizens of Rotorua, and succeeded in having an area of the forest set aside

as a reserve. As Paul documents in his book, this was the first piece of North Island forest saved. The mill was sold and converted to milling pine logs.

One of the campaign tools was the organisation of busloads of Rotorua people to visit the forest and see the destruction for themselves. I remember being thanked by an elderly woman who had known the forest as a child and was horrified at what was happening.

The same bus trip tactic was used as part of an eight-year campaign to save Whirinaki forest, east of the Urewera National Park. A young lawyer, Tom Woods, and I planned a conducted walk through a particularly beautiful part of the forest as a field trip associated with an ECO conference in Taupo in 1978. However, the Forest Service officer in charge and Minginui residents blocked the public road and prevented four buses from visiting the forest. The road blockage received a lot of adverse publicity and probably contributed to the cessation of logging and creation of a Forest Park. The park advisory committee included myself and other NFAC and Forest and Bird supporters as well as locals.

With the major campaigns over, Green representation in government is valuable in protecting native forests from destructive activities such as dams and mining.

Mike was the party’s first membership secretary and a party councillor (executive member) in the early days.

He and his wife Meg are party members, retired from active involvement.

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shop.greens.org.nz Art by keminiko.com | Merch & promotion by FunMark | Photography by Tanya Piejus, Dan Monaghan, Ben Mierement | Authorised by Gwen Shaw, Level 1, 17 Garrett St, Wgtn Reference 1. theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/02 | Forest & Bird