
David Seymour's Bill Harms Our People And Environment
Press Release – New Zealand Labour Party
Just like the Treaty Principles Bill, its another concession by Christopher Luxon to David Seymour soon to be Deputy Prime Minister thats out of touch with what Kiwis want and just takes New Zealand backwards.
David Seymour's Regulatory Standards Bill would take New Zealand backwards by making it harder to protect our people and the environment.
'This Bill favours corporate interests ahead of our communities, environmental protections, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi,' Labour regulation spokesperson Duncan Webb said.
'Just like the Treaty Principles Bill, it's another concession by Christopher Luxon to David Seymour – soon to be Deputy Prime Minister – that's out of touch with what Kiwis want and just takes New Zealand backwards.
'Laws that keep people healthy and safe, like requiring landlords to heat homes, would be at the whims of whether David Seymour thinks they're a good idea or not. It would make it harder to keep our air and rivers clean and reduce climate emissions.
'It's ironic that the man who thinks that women's pay is wasteful spending also thinks that we should be spending $18 million a year administering his new scheme for evaluating regulations.
'But it's no surprise, given that the whole show would be overseen by a board appointed by, and answerable to, David Seymour, giving him sign-off power over every minister and department.
'This Bill is a dangerous power grab that is not in the interests of the majority of New Zealanders,' Duncan Webb said.
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Otago Daily Times
24 minutes ago
- Otago Daily Times
Climate scientists decry govt's approach to methane
By Eloise Gibson of RNZ The prime minister has dismissed international climate scientists as "worthies" for criticising the government's approach to methane. But the Green Party says New Zealand appears to be on a "climate denial bandwagon" and needs to end the speculation over what it plans to do about the country's single biggest source of emissions. Christopher Luxon received a letter from 26 international climate change scientists accusing the government of "ignoring scientific evidence" over plans to lower its methane target. New Zealand has one of the highest per-capita methane rates in the world because of its farming exports and the current target is reducing methane by between 24 and 47 percent by 2050. Farmer lobby groups are demanding the government lower the target, and back away from any plans to put a price on methane. Carbon dioxide - a slower acting but longer lived planet-heater than methane - has been priced in New Zealand since 2008. Side-stepping advice from the independent Climate Change Commission, the government last year appointed its own scientific panel to tell it what level of cuts would be consistent with a goal of creating "no additional warming" from farming. "No additional warming" is a concept approved by Federated Farmers and Beef + Lamb, but criticised by many climate scientists as a weak basis for climate action. Adopting a target of "no added warming" would allow the farming sector, which produces more than half of New Zealand's emissions, to keep up its contribution to global heating at today's levels, indefinitely, regardless of new technology and farming methods promising to lower the impact. The panel found cutting methane 14-24 per cent off 2017 levels by 2050 would achieve no added warming, but Cabinet has not said whether it will adopt that range as a target. In the open letter, the scientists say aiming for "no additional warming" implied that current methane emissions levels were acceptable, when they were not. It said the government's approach ignored the weight of evidence showing that methane had to reduce to get control of global heating, which saw 2024 again break heat records globally. The letter says the government's path "creates the expectation that current high levels of methane emissions are allowed to continue [and] that it is acceptable to ignore emissions responsible for 30 percent of the current level of global warming". It says this jeopardises New Zealand's climate commitments and its commitment to the Global Methane Pledge Luxon came out swinging when asked about the criticism, which was prominently reported in UK business newspaper the Financial Times. He said it was lovely there were "worthies" who wanted to send him letters, but academics "might want to direct their focus and their letters to other countries" because New Zealand was already managing methane emissions better than "every other country on the planet". "I'll stack New Zealand's record up against any other country on the planet Earth around our methane emissions," said Luxon. "We're not shutting down New Zealand to send production to other countries that are infinitely less carbon efficient." Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick said Luxon was missing the point, by confusing carbon efficiency with criticism of how the country was setting its future targets. "It's really clear that Christopher Luxon has to end any further speculation that his government is on the climate denial bandwagon, they have wasted a year playing around with this mythical notion of 'no additional warming' and now international alarm bells are ringing," said Swarbrick. "Obviously the Climate Commission has been really clear that any entertainment of "no additional warming" would mean households and business carrying a far higher burden and its time to draw a line in the sand." Swarbrick said the government's approach posed huge risks for exports. 'Dangerous precedent' Paul Behrens - a global professor of environmental change at Oxford University - was one of those who signed the letter. In a statement supplied to RNZ he said: "Setting a "no additional warming" target is to say that the wildfires in America, drought in Africa, floods across Europe, bushfires in Australia, increasing food insecurity and disease, and much more to come are all fine and acceptable." "The irony is that agriculture, one of the sectors most vulnerable to climate impacts, has many large, vested interests that resist and lobby against the very changes and just transitions needed to avoid those impacts," he said. Another scientist behind the letter told the Financial Times that the New Zealand government's approach was an "accounting trick" designed to hide the impact of agriculture in countries with big farming sectors, namely Ireland and New Zealand. Drew Schindel - a professor of climate science at Duke University in the US and chair of the 2021 UNEP Global Methane Assessment - said locking in heating from farming at today's levels would mean richer countries with big livestock sectors could avoid responsibility for reducing their climate impact, while poor countries with small animal herds would not be able to grow their farming sectors to produce more of their own meat and milk. "The New Zealand government is setting a dangerous precedent," he said. "Agriculture is the biggest source of methane from human activity - we can't afford for New Zealand or any other government to exempt it from climate action," he said. Federated Farmers has said it will never accept the current target of reducing methane, while Beef + Lamb says its "bottom line" is reducing the target in line with causing "no additional warming." But lowering the target would go against advice from the independent Climate Change Commission, which says reductions of 35-47 percent are needed for New Zealand to deliver on its commitments under the Paris Agreement. It says there are good reasons for New Zealand to raise the target but no basis to lower it. Cabinet needs to respond to the commission's advice before the end of the year. Both Swarbrick and Beef + Lamb say the ongoing delays in making a decision were a problem, with Beef + Lamb saying the delay was creating confusion and concern. Climate Change Minister Simon Watts said Cabinet was still carefully considering the matter. He said he did not take the letter's commentary to heart and "it doesn't stop the direction of travel we are following in undertaking a scientific review". Watts said he remained happy with the context of the review and the expertise of the scientists the government selected to conduct it. New Zealand has separate targets for methane and carbon dioxide, recognizing that methane is shorter lived. Carbon dioxide needs to fall much more steeply to net zero by 2050, affecting drivers, energy users and non agribusiness. When Watts was asked which sectors of the economy would be asked to do more to cut emissions, if methane contributed less to the overall 2050 goal, he said no sector would necessarily need to do more, in contrast to what the Climate Change Commission has found. Methane has caused most of New Zealand's contribution to heating so far, partly because it acts more quickly than carbon dioxide, front-loading the impact before it tails off. Scientists - including the government's pick for prime minister's chief science adviser John Roche - expect methane-quashing drenches and other options to be available to farmers as soon as next year, and that consumers of dairy will be open to farmers using them. But Federated Farmers and Beef + Lamb say farmers should not have to use new technology to reduce their climate impact. Fonterra, meanwhile, is under pressure from its customers over its climate impact and is offering its dairy farmers cash incentives to achieve emissions goals. The open letter is not the first time the government has been criticized for convening a panel to advise on a "no added warming" target. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has dismissed the science review as a purely political exercise, saying that contrary to claims by the farming lobby, there was no new science on methane to justify a fresh review. Upton also said there was no particular reason why farmers should get to 'keep' today's levels of heating, particularly given farming's climate impact is larger than it was in 1990. A top Australian climate scientist told RNZ last year the government's goal was problematic. Professor Mark Howden, Australasia's top representative on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said taking a "sensible" mid-point from various IPCC pathways, methane would need to fall by roughly 60 per cent by 2050 to meet global climate goals, though not all of that reduction needed to come from agriculture.

RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
'I've had to reconcile that' - Ngāti Hine leader reflects on King's Birthday tohū
Ngāti Hine leader Pita Tipene speaking at Waitangi. Photo: RNZ Tipene is to be a [ Companion of the King's Service Order] for his contribution to his community through governance as a Māori leader for more than 30 years. Tipene has been the chair of the Ngāti Hine Forestry Trust for 20 years, helping grow and transform the financial assets, chaired Te Kotahitanga o Nga Hapū Ngāpuhi for 16 years and has chaired the Manuka Charitable Trust, which protects Manuka as a taonga in the global market. He is the chair of Motatau Marae and is a familiar face to locals and politicians at Waitangi, often speaking at the dawn ceremony as chair of the Waitangi National Trust from 2018 to 2025. He is also a member of the National Iwi Chairs Forum and has presented to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi since 2010. Speaking to RNZ, Tipene said service to his people before himself is the most important measure of his career. His mahi means he often has to fight against the Crown to recognise Māori rights and interests under Te Tiriti o Waitangi - the same Crown who have just recognised him for his services to Māori. "I have had to reconcile that, in talking with my own whānau," Tipene said, "I'm talking about my wife, tamariki and the wider whānau." In March, Tipene was nominated for and won the Tai Tokerau Māori Business Leader Award, a tohū he initially refused to be nominated for. "[That was] until I was reminded of my father's first cousin, Sir James Henare who was given his knighthood in 1978. He would come up to our home in Motatau and talk with my dad because they were both 28th Māori Battalion and they were first cousins and they were good friends." "Sir James alerted my dad to the fact that he had been nominated and asked what my dad thought. From what I can remember, there was a tenseness for him to even receive that award." While that was "all history now" and people remember Sir James with pride, the conversation still rings through his head. "I remember him saying, 'e kore e te tangata e taea te mea he māngaro ia, ko hau tāu he kumara'." "He was saying that the māngaro is the sweetest of all of the kumara and a person or human being cannot allow themselves to be described as that. It was one of the things that we've been raised on - whakaiti or humility." "What Sir James was saying is, to be awarded a knighthood, a whole lot of people in the local community who he served had put his name forward as well as the wider regional and even national community supported him to receive a knighthood. "Who was he, despite all his humility - and we remember him for his humility - who was he to deny everyone else's support for him to become a knight?" Those words meant Tipene "reluctantly" accepted the Māori Business Leaders Award. "Given my approach to the business leaders award, why would it be any different to this, knowing full well that it's a government award - there's that part of it too. That needs to be reconciled, but the same thing applied to Sir James Henare. "I'm certainly not putting myself in his category. Not at all. He was a leader of… a real leader. Put it that way. "But the principle of why he accepts is the same principle upon which I'm accepting something that I've tried to reconcile because he in his very diplomatic way, but no less strong, opposed successive governments in his time." Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf Tipene was raised in Opahi, south of Moerewa on a small dairy farm only milking about 50 cows, and is the third youngest of 11 children. "When I was being raised, our parents always spoke in te reo Māori and so we grew up being bilingual, bicultural, having gone to Motatau school and having a generation of kaumatua and kuia who are very much still part of our hearts and minds today and who handed us values of humility of to this to the people before service to self. "They are values that I hold dear to and have been reflected throughout my life," Tipene said. "There is no fulfilment that is more important than serving your own people and doing your best to put your shoulder to the wheel to improve the circumstances of your communities whether they be in Motatau, Opahi, Ngāti Hine or Tai Tokerau." Shane Jones and Pita Tipene at the Ngāti Hine joint venture launch on May 31. Photo: RNZ / Lois Williams Pita was educated at Māori boy's school St Stephens, which he credits as giving him a more "national" and "international" outlook on the world. "Coming from Motatau, you never went to Auckland or very rarely. So, St Stephens was another great part of my life journey that I savour and remember with much fondness." From St Stephens he moved to Waikato University and was lectured by the likes of Timoti Karetu, Te Murumāra John Moorfield, Hirini Melbourne, Wharehuia Milroy and John Rangihau and even flatted with former Education Minister Hekia Parata in his first year. "The relationships that were made really strong with all my peers of the time are all really strong leaders throughout Aotearoa. "I think I've been very fortunate because through all that time our mum and dad sacrificed much because they were running a dairy farm. "Not only did they have to pull the money together to pay for my fees and my time at St Stephens over five years, but they were also doing it without somebody who could help on the farm. "In hindsight, that was a significant sacrifice for them to make, so, anything that I've done to honour the aspirations that they had for all of us as children, all of my siblings, cousins, has all been brought out of those values and sacrifice." Ngati Hine leader Pita Tipene during the 175th anniversary commemorations of the Battle of Ruapekapeka Pā in 2021. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf Tipene is a keen historian, a trait he credits to his mother. "For us here in Ngāti Hine, we place a lot of stead on what our tupuna said and did in their times and sacrificed. For instance, Kawiti signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi along with his two sons in 1840. Kawiti refused, on the 6th of February, by the way, and incidentally signed in May almost to the week. "He then was one of the main leaders against the British in war, five years later in 1845 and 46, so only a couple of weeks ago we commemorated one of those big battles raged here in the mid-North on the shores of Lake Omāpere." He said not long after those battles in 1846, Kawiti was credited with a phrase commonly called "Te Tangi a Kawiti". "Ka kakati te namu i te wharangi o te pukapuka, ka tahuri atu ai kotou," Tipene said. "He sent a message to future generations saying 'I have committed myself to a partnership through Tiriti o Waitangi', which is the 'pukapuka' described in that line… and therefore, given my commitment to this partnership, should that partnership ever be threatened, you and each generation must stand up and uphold what I have committed to. "We will all stand up continually to how we envisage the Crown is doing its best to undermine the honour of Kawiti and all of his peers who signed Te Tiriti o Waitangi which really leads to the work I've done in the Waitangi Tribunal and anything to do with Te Tiriti o Waitangi. "Kawiti's words ring in our hearts, and it really motivates and drives us here in 2025," Tipene said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.


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