Oral Questions for 16 July 2025
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Newsroom
an hour ago
- Newsroom
Climate Commission delivers inconvenient truths to Govt
Analysis: Climate policy is in many ways one of the most wickedly complex areas of government. The workings of the Emissions Trading Scheme, aligning scientific findings about difference greenhouse gases or climate impacts with policy design and even just measuring emissions from a cow can all be embroiled in subjective, heated debates. On occasion, though, it can be as simple as basic arithmetic. That's where the Climate Change Commission has landed with its progress report on the Government's climate policies, released early Friday before markets opened. Chief executive Jo Hendy tells Newsroom it's the commission's first chance to 'run the ruler' over the Government's climate plan, released in December. It's only the second-ever progress report, with last year's version having mostly evaluated then-cancelled Labour policies because the Government hadn't yet announced its own approach. While a lot of complex analysis underpins the independent watchdog's findings, the headline information is the result of a simple adding up exercise that effectively cuts through the Government's spin on how ambitious its climate plan really is. New Zealand is on track to meet the first five-yearly emissions budget – here, the commission agrees with the Government. The rest of the picture looks far less rosy. For the second budget, covering 2026 to 2030, there are moderate to significant delivery risks – and much greater ones than featured in last year's report. The Government's own projections leave it with just a couple million tonnes of headroom, which could easily be wiped out by a dry year prompting the burning of Huntly's coal stockpile, a wildfire or big storm destroying a large enough forestry block or the failure of the already shaky carbon capture policy. The real concern comes for the third budget and the 2050 net zero target, where again the delivery risks have grown. 'Current plans are insufficient to meet the third budget and further action is required. There are also significant risks for meeting the 2050 target unless further action is taken,' the commission writes. The Government's projections show it still has to cut emissions by over nine million tonnes over the third budget period. While Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says the Government will sort out how to do so in its third emissions reduction plan in 2029 (a point by which he also presumably hopes to no longer be responsible for sorting that out), the commission says that leaves it too late. Watts' current climate plan cuts emissions by just 3.3 million tonnes in the second budget period and he's already pretty confident that's everything the Government can do. (The commission, for what it's worth, has found tens of millions of tonnes of additional cuts that a sufficiently motivated government could implement.) How, then, is a future government to nearly triple that total with a plan in 2029? 'The Government needs to act ahead of the next emissions reduction plan (due in 2029) as many options that would make a difference will take time to take effect. For example, New Zealand Steel's electric arc furnace took three years to progress from funding approval to operation,' the commission insists. Fortunately, the commission finds there are significant opportunities for the Government to make up the difference if it starts now. There are nearly 20 million tonnes of cuts New Zealand could achieve in the third budget period through fixing up the Emissions Trading Scheme and implementing additional targeted policies. Agricultural and power generation emissions alone could fall by enough to plug the gap through regulatory reforms and incentives for uptakes of new technologies. 'This isn't just about hitting a number on an emissions reduction target, it's also about doing it well so that we cut energy costs, create those new jobs, protect market access and ultimately it's about our competitiveness and resilience as a country – as well as making that better future for our kids,' Hendy says. The ball is now in Watts' court, but don't expect him to do much with it. The commission returns repeatedly in this report to another issue that Watts is sitting on: Whether the budgets actually need to be revised to be more ambitious, as it recommended last year. In brief, the commission found last year that accounting changes for how we measure the emissions of cows, cars and other greenhouse gas sources mean it will now be easier to meet the budgets. Those changes don't represent real action New Zealand has taken. If we wanted to preserve the original ambition the budgets represented when they were set in 2022, the commission reported, we would need to revise them downwards. Because those new recommended budgets are still on Watts' desk, the majority of the commission's report today checks progress against the existing targets. However, it does also note at points how much additional effort would be needed to meet its recommended budgets. For the second emissions budget, that would be another 15 million tonnes of cuts over the second half of the 2020s. For the third budget, another 18 million tonnes on top of that. Collectively, the revisions represent about half of New Zealand's annual gross emissions – or more than 30 times the reductions the Government claims will arise from its carbon capture policy. While there are some subjective inputs to these calculations by the commission, the bulk of it comes down to hard maths. Or, as Watts might label it, an inconvenient truth.
1News
2 hours ago
- 1News
'People will be disgruntled' — leak of National MP talking up Labour policy
National MP Sam Uffindell told a meeting of retirees if the Government didn't take action on reforming retirement villages legislation people would be disgruntled. He was concerned that retirement village residents would believe National hadn't yet delivered and that Labour was doing something about the issue. Audio of the meeting was leaked to 1News, featuring Uffindell praising a private member's bill from Labour MP Ingrid Leary. If drawn out of the tin in Parliament and passed, the bill would require retirement villages to pay, within five days, 10% of what was owed to residents or their families if they moved to higher care levels or died — and the rest within two months. When asked about reforming the current legislation, Uffindell told the meeting in Mosgiel: "Ingrid Leary... has quite cunningly put forward a member's bill which would address some of this. And she's savvy enough to have garnered up a lot of attention around retirement villages. ADVERTISEMENT "And so that's in the pipeline as well. We need to arrest or take the key parts out of that [which] are workable and make sure we build that into something." The Tauranga MP went on to say that he knew voters were concerned. "But importantly, it needs to go through the House before the end of this term, because if it hasn't, we're going to have a whole bunch of disgruntled people and retirement villages who all vote and all talk to each other about it. Who will go, 'oh, National hasn't actually delivered and Labour was going to do this'." Uffindell also told the meeting that he raised the issue with the Prime Minister. "Maybe every three months or so… the Prime Minister will invite eight to 10 backbenchers up to his office. We sit around and have pizza and Pepsi Max. PM standard diet drinks – a lot of that stuff. Anyway. Went up there. Sat around and he asked us a bunch of questions about a number of different things... One of them he brought up was the Retirement Villages Act. And what we thought about that and [National MP] Tom Rutherford and myself, obviously Bay of Plenty heavy in retirement villages, we said, 'look, we need to do it this term. You know, this is a big issue for a lot of our folks'." He described Casey Costello, the Minister for Seniors and Tama Potaka, the Associate Minister of Housing as "very accessible", saying they agreed with him that they wanted to bring the reforms forward. When asked about his comments today, Uffindell said: "[The] Retirement Villages Act review is a really big concern. I go around to a lot of the retirement villages in Tauranga, and I know Tom does in the Bay of Plenty, and you hear a lot of the concern from those residents there. ADVERTISEMENT 'Ministers Potaka and Costello are looking at how we can improve the current arrangements. We're open to all good ideas out there, and New Zealanders would expect nothing less. National's determined to make sure that we get the legislation right for the retirement villages residents." Lose votes to Labour? Asked if he believed that National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the Retirement Villages Act, Uffindell said: "Look, this is a big constituency out there, and they want this issue addressed, and they want us to get on, and that's why our ministers are getting out there and looking at ways that we can improve the Retirement Villages Act so it delivers. And I'm committed to doing my part to delivering for the residents in retirement villages here in Tauranga." Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said: "There was work underway under the previous government around retirement villages. What we said before the election is we'll continue that work and we are. Tama Potaka and also Casey Costello, as the relevant ministers, are leading that work and we'll have more to say about that in the coming months as well." He didn't directly answer the question about whether National would lose votes to Labour if they didn't reform the act. "We've been committed since before the election to continue the work around retirement villages and I'm proud of the work the ministers are doing,' he said. "They're very engaged on the issue. They've been talking a lot with people affected on all sides of the proposals and we'll have more to say about that shortly." Leary: 'Do it because it's the right thing to do' ADVERTISEMENT Responding to the leaked audio, Labour MP Ingrid Leary said: "It's great to hear that National Party MPs are supporting my bill, that's the right thing to do. But they should be supporting it because it's the right thing to do, not just because it's politically expedient. 'I think Christopher Luxon needs to show some leadership. We need a law that mandates fair repayments, nothing about incentivising because the only thing that will work in this case is actually requiring the operators to give the money back." She said the Prime Minister should listen to his backbenchers, acknowledging that Uffindell raised the matter in his office on level 9 of the Beehive. Leary said she believed there was a lot of public support for her bill. "I've spoken to numerous seniors and their families who are just really concerned and anxious about having access to their own money. They live with the uncertainty of not knowing when they'll get repaid, if they'll get repaid or if their families will be able to get the benefit of what is their own money,' she said. 'So I really want to see things move quickly. People have been waiting for decades for a change and currently there are people living in retirement villages who really want to see a change and are worried that they may not be around when the law change finally happens. We need to honour and respect them and make sure that we do the right thing by them."
Scoop
3 hours ago
- Scoop
Youth Homelessness Crisis Escalates: Urgent Action Needed
Kick Back, a Youth Development organisation responding to Youth Homelessness, is calling for the Government to act with urgency in response to the growing Homelessness crisis children and young people are experiencing. The recent Homelessness Insights Report confirmed what front line services and our communities have been telling our Government. The Homelessness crisis is escalating. Kick Back is concerned that an increasing number of children and young people are experiencing homelessness. About 30% of young people and children Kick Back has served through our outreach and crisis centre, The Front Door, came to Kick Back within 2-4 weeks of their experience of homelessness. Kick Back is concerned that there is a growing number of new children and young people experiencing homelessness. No child or young person should ever be without a safe or stable home. Kick Back believes this crisis can be solved, but we must act now! Though recent Government decisions have increased the risk of homelessness for our children, Kick Back believes it is important to recognise that Homelessness is a product of a housing system which views housing as a commodity, rather than a basic human need we all have as people. "We believe it is important to acknowledge that Homelessness is a manufactured crisis. No service, charity or amount of wrap around services, can fix this problem. If we are going to achieve housing justice for our young people we must begin to understand the manner in which homelessness serves as a product of Capitalism and Colonisation! Until we address the structural issues that allow homelessness to persist, we will never bring this crisis to an end. Our #Right2Housing as people, is a fundamental human need, essential to the thriving of our communities." Says Aaron Hendry, co-founder and General Manager of Kick Back. Kick Back calls on the Government to act with urgency in response to this crisis by: • Immediately rolling back the Emergency Housing Reforms • Providing fast release funding to support local communities to activate community solutions • Begin an escalated project of work to progress #Duty2Assist Legislation to ensure rangatahi and whānau can access the housing support they need • Resource a Strategy to End & Prevent Youth Homelessness • Fund a rangatahi specific Immediate Housing System to support young people in Immediate Housing need • Commit and resource a strong Public Housing build program with a mandate to #HouseThePeople "The time to seek advice and gather information has passed. The Government knows what they need to do. Our tamariki are suffering, our rangatahi are dying, the Government must act!' says Aaron Hendry.
