April 19, 2026 • 15 mins
The Green Party have just had their annual State of the Planet Address, and this year they're calling for a National Electrification Plan.
They say it's in response to the current fossil fuels crisis, and would add to their previous calls for free public transport and solutions to ease the cost of living.
The plan would lay out a clear plan to reduce reliance on fossil fuels, and use renewable energy like solar panels to reduce the cost of living.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Green Party have now have just delivered its annual
State of the Planet address, with a big focus this
year on the Green Sorry, on the national electure for sorry,
I'll start that again with a big focus this year
on a national electrification plan. They say it's the answer
to the current fossil fuel shocks, the cost of living,
(00:31):
in our long term energy security with more renewable energy
things like solar, and less reliance on global fuel markets.
And it sits alongside there broader push on things like
cheaper public transport and tackling inequality, among many other things.
In that speech. Anyway, Green Party co leader Chloe Swarbrick
joins me, Now, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm good good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Look I wasn't able to listen to the speech, but
I have digested the copy that was sent through to us,
and I guess one of the things that popped out
at me first was the villains that you've mentioned, Christopher
luxin seven or eight times. You've got Trump, the big corporates,
the rich. So is this about? I mean, those people
are not going to be around forever? Is it? All
their fault.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, it's not. But I think that when we're talking
about the current state of the planet, it's pretty critical
that we identify who the current people are that are
making decisions which are impacting and saturating our daily lives
and shaping the opportunities that New Zealanders have access to
and those that they do not. So when we're talking
about the government as a whole, it's important that people
understand which government we're talking about. But you'll see both
(01:35):
in my speech and in Martamers that we've been also
pretty plain that this has largely been a state of
affairs occurring for the last forty years as successive governments
have subscribed to kind of trickle down economics, whereby we've
seen pepperd centrism deliver a bit of a breeding ground
for right wing extremism. And that, of course, is also
what we're seeing around across the rest of the world
(01:55):
at the moment. And the point that we're making in
the speech and in my speech in particular, is that
there is a heck of a lot of talk about
building security at the moment. The world looks incredibly chaotic
and unstable, and there's a small country at the bottom
of the world, in the middle of the Pacific. There
is actually only so many things that we have real
control over. And what we're talking about is building real security,
(02:18):
which means energy, sovereignty, and an affordable way of living
for New Zealanders so that everybody has a decent life
and the ability to participate in democracy. So that's part
and parcel of the National Electrification Plan, but also in
reasserting our independent foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Our independent foreign policy what no allies.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
No, not at all, but being consistent and principled. So
it means I think friends don't let friends abuse human rights.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
This is kind of the point that the Greens have
been making for decades now. We have consistently says that
when anybody, be it our allies or our historical opposition,
or enemies, or however you want to construc or characterize it,
we call out equally for abuses of international law and
human rights. And I think you can see from our
(03:08):
track record on these things, particularly in this past term
of parliaments, but also over the last thirty years or
so that the Greens have been a parliamentary political force,
that we have always been consistent and principled on that basis,
and we've copped a heck of a lot of flack
for doing so. But I'm proud of the fact that
there's probably only one party in Parliament who can claim
that very consistency and principal start.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, I guess because you're not also dealing with a
very capricious administration in the US. So, I mean, I
think it's I think it is a bit of a
catch twenty two in some ways to say to put
your head above the parapet and say something that's going
to might end up giving you another ten percent terif
on things. I guess, well, well, I mean, but I'm
just saying that that is you know, that's the reality.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Totally hear you. I totally hear you. And I guess
this is the conversation that I've been part of with
many New Zealanders all across the country who are just
kind of understandably coming and ring about what position we
take with somebody who is incredibly volatile and incredibly unpredictable.
And I'd say the first thing is Donald probably doesn't
respect people who roll over and take it more than anything. Well,
(04:10):
we're assistant in principles, Yeah, we are critical I.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Mean, I actually because you mentioned right wing extremism and things,
but we've just seen Victor robarn in Hungary defeated, and
I would say that the visit by JD Vance was
the nail in his political coffin. Do you think that,
just from a global perspective, that actually people are tiring
of this and we are sort of finding our spines again.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
One hundred percent. That's actually one of the things that
I also put in this feature alongside kind of talking
about some of the problems that we're starting to see
and merge where you know, we're seeing across particularly in
the UK. If we want to take that as a
case study, there is a really fascinating thing playing out
whereby you've seen the rise of the Reform Party, which
is capitalizing on people's understandable frustration about a backsliding of
(04:58):
their material well being, you know, the cost of everything
escalating rapidly, but they're directing that from stration towards all
kinds of minorities while also doing the bidding of those
at the top, the corporations that are just looking to
fleece regular people. Yet simultaneously, as Reform has looked to
overtake and has been outpolling the UK governing Labor Party.
(05:19):
We've now seen the surge of the UK Green Party,
who is posing a complete alternative vision where everybody has
their basic needs met and we look after the planet
that we rely on, the survival as we know it.
So there are indeed sparks of hope here and I
think that this is where, you know, if I can
just kind of leave your listeners with anything, it's that
(05:39):
I really hope that the selection year, New Zealanders get
to have a conversation not only about the things that
we are opposed to or that we want to defend
ourselves from, but for the first time in a really
long time, we get to have a yarn about the
kind of country that we want to be, what we
want to stand for, the stuff that we want to
build and create and work on together. Because that's where
(06:00):
we get that sense of who we are as a country.
And I think that we are incredibly vulnerable as long
as we don't have that shared vision or understanding or
identity as New Zealanders.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So, you know, one of the things that struck me
about the fuel crisis we've got with the straits of
hormos is you know, I think it's struck a lot
of people about how utterly reliant and dependent we are
on fossil fuels. But I sort of got the feeling
reading the contents of your address that you know, we're
going to fix that sort of thing. It's like, well,
(06:33):
you know, it's a very very long journey with you know,
adopting new technologies and things. I mean, isn't the honest
answer around this is transition to whatever we end up
transitioning to is going to be very long process, and
it's also going to be limit expensive.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, no, there's some things that we can actually do immediately.
And one of the things that we could do immediately
would be to cancel some of the incredibly dumb, incredibly expensive,
incredibly lows out your projects. This government is plowing not
only millions, but billions of dollars New Zealanders tax payer
money into to continue fostering dependency on fuels, for example,
(07:11):
the billion dollar LNG import facility. That money could go
into billions of better things. And one of the things
that we pointed out in that speech today was rolling
out immediately the rate payer assistance scheme for solarization of
our homes and our schools and our farms, and we
know that on average right now, if we were to
(07:32):
deploy a scheme such as that that that would save
the average household around one thousand dollars per year on their.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, what would said would cost the average household via
taxes though, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, it would be put on the effective rate payer bill,
which can be spread out across twenty to thirty years
to pay back.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sorry out, I mean, you know, if you're in Wellington,
you're going, what the hell that's going to cost? Water?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
No, this is against people's rates, So it would go
against an individual's property and be effectively paid back over
a period of time at which it becomes far more afordable.
So it removes the upfront cost and is ideally a
zero interest loan. But all of that is dependent obviously
on the workings with regard to central and local government
in the deployment of it. But it ultimately means that
(08:18):
we remove that upfront cost for people solarizing their households,
and in turn we wipe off a thousand dollars of
the average electricity bill per year for every New Zealander.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So how on are you saying there's a loan against
the rates which sort of goes against my property. So
when I sell it then some money gets taken away.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It would be paid off over the period agreed to
under the rate payer Assistance scheme, which is currently being
worked through by local government New Zealand And has been
supported by the lacks of rewiring old t or. But yes,
it is effectively, effectively a low interest loan that every
rateable property in ald t is able to get access to.
And it sits with longer payback periods and flexible payment
(09:00):
options including deferral repayments until, as you say, the sale
of the property, which basically just means that we remove
the upfront capital costs and financing becomes more accessible so
that people are able to get solar and batteries.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Would I mean, in a way, isn't the private sector
sort of looking after some of these things. I got
an email from a bank the other day offering me
a one percent loan to get solar installed in my place.
I mean, do we need to legislate the stuff? Can't
we work it out because people go, well, it has
my power, but I'm going to save X. I'll make
this decision for me on what I want to borrow
to install solar.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I mean, we could take the approach of this current
government and wash our hands and take our hands off
the wheel of the economy and say the market sorting
it out because the cost of living is going forts
through the roof for regular New Zealanders. Or we could
do something active and pull all of the leaders available
to us so that we supercharge the renewable energy transition.
And that's effectively what we're proposing here. And I want
(09:55):
to be really clear that the ratepayer assistance scheme is
just one potential idea that has already been put on
the table by local governments across this country and by
an incredible organization known as Rewiring Altero, which you may
know has been championed by an amazing farmer down in
Southland called Mike. And all of this is ultimately about
how we pull all of the levers currently available to
(10:16):
us to build our energy resilience and sovereignty, to lower
the cost of living for New Zealanders and to remove
that dependency and that volatility that we experience because of
that teather to fossil fuels.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So if we were I mean, if I get an
ev it's going to be a reliant on stuff that's
been mined. Where are you at with us mining our
resources for the things that we might want to rely
on for cleaner future.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, So, I mean they're kind of talking about critical minerals,
and I think, first and foremost, it's really important to
address some of the kind of miss and disinformation that
we sometimes see circulating on social media. For example, so
EV's of course do currently require critical minerals in order
to be produced, But in terms of the lifetime impact
of a vitrol vehicle or a diesel vehicle versus a
(11:06):
ev an EV is far far better for the planet
and also obviously for people's wallets in terms of lower
cost of living and lower input costs for the running
of that vehicle. So to your point of the critical
minerals that are necessary to go into the production of
that electrical vehicle and the fact that we potentially had
some of them here at home in Alta IOA well,
first thing first, this government promised everybody when it was
(11:27):
producing its critical minerals strategy that all of those minerals
would apparently be used for our clean green energy transition.
Yet as things have transpired over the last six months
or so, largely as a result of a lot of
digging where the Greens have also been doing, it's become
abundantly clear that in fact, this Luxom government's plan with
those critical minerals, our very limited critical minerals, is to
(11:49):
funnel them into effectively Trump's war machine. And that's not hyperbole.
These are the things which the Trump administration themselves have
said that they want to form these critical minerals partnerships
with other countries in order to help facilitate their own
security and intelligence. Needs to go back to the basics.
If we are to agree that we are going to
need these critical minerals for that transition, then why on
(12:12):
earth would we be currently open to channeling the very
finite critical minerals that we have available to us right
now into Trump's war machine as opposed to into the
needs of every day hard work.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, I guess we get paid for it, at least
that we well in the short term.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
But we absolutely do have to pay for things somehow.
And this is also why, you know, I'm really proud
of the work that we've done over the last two
years to put, for example, our industrial strategy on the
table around mid last year, where we showed, through active
government putting its hands back on the wheel of the economy,
that we could actually plan for the kind of jobs
(12:51):
that we want and create them instead of losing them offshore.
Because right now, so many of the decisions about our economy,
and particularly our primary industries, are made by offshore shareholders
who are more than happy to throw hard working, particularly
rural New Zealanders on the scrap heap when the numbers
don't add up and balance sheets and distant boardrooms.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So what are you saying, You're against overseas companies having
a stake in New Zealand or what.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
No. I think that that's a pretty ridiculous extrapolation from
what I'm just said.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It sounded like you didn't like overseas shareholders making decisions
on businesses who are employing New Zealanders. So I think
it's quite a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I don't like overseas shareholders having control of the economy
that should be controlled by New Zealanders. So that's not
an absolute position.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I mean, it's a funny one, isn't it, because they
are a participant in our economy. Ideally, the control of
the economy is probably through the legislators but they're still here. Well,
I just mean it's you know, it's a difficult one
to nail down. I get. I mean, I've had a
bunch of texts come in exactly saying that it sounds
like you don't like overseas investment in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
No, but it's not at all I'm saying. What I'm
saying is that when it comes to our quest assets,
and I think this is something that all New Zealanders
should probably hopefully agree on. If we want to have
a sense of control and agency over our own economy,
our critical assets should be owned within New Zealand and
controlled by New Zealanders. To give us an example of
some of the ludicrousness of that overseas ownership at the moment,
(14:24):
as a result of successive governments making decisions around, for example,
the ability to sell off our gent tailor's partially or
our banks for example, but also even in our forestry sector.
Off the top of my head, I think around seventy
percent of our plantation forestry is currently owned offshore. Of course,
they don't have any stake in producing our value added
jobs along the supply chain. They'll go for the cheapest
(14:46):
possible outcome, which means exporting those raw logs and then
importing them back and we're all paying higher cost of
living as a result and losing the jobs along the way,
not to mention.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The last climate sound in New Zealand first Chloe, but.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Oh mate, we're the real New Zealand first starting.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Hey, look, I could chat for ages, but I've run
in a time, so thank you for.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yours, Chloe, give me on next week.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You okay, thanks Chloe, all Right, there we go, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The Green Party have now have just delivered its annual
State of the Planet address, with a big focus this
year on the Green Sorry, on the national electure for sorry,
I'll start that again with a big focus this year
on a national electrification plan. They say it's the answer
to the current fossil fuel shocks, the cost of living,
(00:31):
in our long term energy security with more renewable energy
things like solar, and less reliance on global fuel markets.
And it sits alongside there broader push on things like
cheaper public transport and tackling inequality, among many other things.
In that speech. Anyway, Green Party co leader Chloe Swarbrick
joins me, Now, good afternoon.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
How are you.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I'm good good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Look I wasn't able to listen to the speech, but
I have digested the copy that was sent through to us,
and I guess one of the things that popped out
at me first was the villains that you've mentioned, Christopher
luxin seven or eight times. You've got Trump, the big corporates,
the rich. So is this about? I mean, those people
are not going to be around forever? Is it? All
their fault.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
No, it's not. But I think that when we're talking
about the current state of the planet, it's pretty critical
that we identify who the current people are that are
making decisions which are impacting and saturating our daily lives
and shaping the opportunities that New Zealanders have access to
and those that they do not. So when we're talking
about the government as a whole, it's important that people
understand which government we're talking about. But you'll see both
(01:35):
in my speech and in Martamers that we've been also
pretty plain that this has largely been a state of
affairs occurring for the last forty years as successive governments
have subscribed to kind of trickle down economics, whereby we've
seen pepperd centrism deliver a bit of a breeding ground
for right wing extremism. And that, of course, is also
what we're seeing around across the rest of the world
(01:55):
at the moment. And the point that we're making in
the speech and in my speech in particular, is that
there is a heck of a lot of talk about
building security at the moment. The world looks incredibly chaotic
and unstable, and there's a small country at the bottom
of the world, in the middle of the Pacific. There
is actually only so many things that we have real
control over. And what we're talking about is building real security,
(02:18):
which means energy, sovereignty, and an affordable way of living
for New Zealanders so that everybody has a decent life
and the ability to participate in democracy. So that's part
and parcel of the National Electrification Plan, but also in
reasserting our independent foreign policy.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Our independent foreign policy what no allies.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
No, not at all, but being consistent and principled. So
it means I think friends don't let friends abuse human rights.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
This is kind of the point that the Greens have
been making for decades now. We have consistently says that
when anybody, be it our allies or our historical opposition,
or enemies, or however you want to construc or characterize it,
we call out equally for abuses of international law and
human rights. And I think you can see from our
(03:08):
track record on these things, particularly in this past term
of parliaments, but also over the last thirty years or
so that the Greens have been a parliamentary political force,
that we have always been consistent and principled on that basis,
and we've copped a heck of a lot of flack
for doing so. But I'm proud of the fact that
there's probably only one party in Parliament who can claim
that very consistency and principal start.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Well, I guess because you're not also dealing with a
very capricious administration in the US. So, I mean, I
think it's I think it is a bit of a
catch twenty two in some ways to say to put
your head above the parapet and say something that's going
to might end up giving you another ten percent terif
on things. I guess, well, well, I mean, but I'm
just saying that that is you know, that's the reality.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Totally hear you. I totally hear you. And I guess
this is the conversation that I've been part of with
many New Zealanders all across the country who are just
kind of understandably coming and ring about what position we
take with somebody who is incredibly volatile and incredibly unpredictable.
And I'd say the first thing is Donald probably doesn't
respect people who roll over and take it more than anything. Well,
(04:10):
we're assistant in principles, Yeah, we are critical I.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Mean, I actually because you mentioned right wing extremism and things,
but we've just seen Victor robarn in Hungary defeated, and
I would say that the visit by JD Vance was
the nail in his political coffin. Do you think that,
just from a global perspective, that actually people are tiring
of this and we are sort of finding our spines again.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
One hundred percent. That's actually one of the things that
I also put in this feature alongside kind of talking
about some of the problems that we're starting to see
and merge where you know, we're seeing across particularly in
the UK. If we want to take that as a
case study, there is a really fascinating thing playing out
whereby you've seen the rise of the Reform Party, which
is capitalizing on people's understandable frustration about a backsliding of
(04:58):
their material well being, you know, the cost of everything
escalating rapidly, but they're directing that from stration towards all
kinds of minorities while also doing the bidding of those
at the top, the corporations that are just looking to
fleece regular people. Yet simultaneously, as Reform has looked to
overtake and has been outpolling the UK governing Labor Party.
(05:19):
We've now seen the surge of the UK Green Party,
who is posing a complete alternative vision where everybody has
their basic needs met and we look after the planet
that we rely on, the survival as we know it.
So there are indeed sparks of hope here and I
think that this is where, you know, if I can
just kind of leave your listeners with anything, it's that
(05:39):
I really hope that the selection year, New Zealanders get
to have a conversation not only about the things that
we are opposed to or that we want to defend
ourselves from, but for the first time in a really
long time, we get to have a yarn about the
kind of country that we want to be, what we
want to stand for, the stuff that we want to
build and create and work on together. Because that's where
(06:00):
we get that sense of who we are as a country.
And I think that we are incredibly vulnerable as long
as we don't have that shared vision or understanding or
identity as New Zealanders.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
So, you know, one of the things that struck me
about the fuel crisis we've got with the straits of
hormos is you know, I think it's struck a lot
of people about how utterly reliant and dependent we are
on fossil fuels. But I sort of got the feeling
reading the contents of your address that you know, we're
going to fix that sort of thing. It's like, well,
(06:33):
you know, it's a very very long journey with you know,
adopting new technologies and things. I mean, isn't the honest
answer around this is transition to whatever we end up
transitioning to is going to be very long process, and
it's also going to be limit expensive.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Well, no, there's some things that we can actually do immediately.
And one of the things that we could do immediately
would be to cancel some of the incredibly dumb, incredibly expensive,
incredibly lows out your projects. This government is plowing not
only millions, but billions of dollars New Zealanders tax payer
money into to continue fostering dependency on fuels, for example,
(07:11):
the billion dollar LNG import facility. That money could go
into billions of better things. And one of the things
that we pointed out in that speech today was rolling
out immediately the rate payer assistance scheme for solarization of
our homes and our schools and our farms, and we
know that on average right now, if we were to
(07:32):
deploy a scheme such as that that that would save
the average household around one thousand dollars per year on their.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Well, what would said would cost the average household via
taxes though, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
Well, it would be put on the effective rate payer bill,
which can be spread out across twenty to thirty years
to pay back.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Sorry out, I mean, you know, if you're in Wellington,
you're going, what the hell that's going to cost? Water?
Speaker 3 (07:56):
No, this is against people's rates, So it would go
against an individual's property and be effectively paid back over
a period of time at which it becomes far more afordable.
So it removes the upfront cost and is ideally a
zero interest loan. But all of that is dependent obviously
on the workings with regard to central and local government
in the deployment of it. But it ultimately means that
(08:18):
we remove that upfront cost for people solarizing their households,
and in turn we wipe off a thousand dollars of
the average electricity bill per year for every New Zealander.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
So how on are you saying there's a loan against
the rates which sort of goes against my property. So
when I sell it then some money gets taken away.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
It would be paid off over the period agreed to
under the rate payer Assistance scheme, which is currently being
worked through by local government New Zealand And has been
supported by the lacks of rewiring old t or. But yes,
it is effectively, effectively a low interest loan that every
rateable property in ald t is able to get access to.
And it sits with longer payback periods and flexible payment
(09:00):
options including deferral repayments until, as you say, the sale
of the property, which basically just means that we remove
the upfront capital costs and financing becomes more accessible so
that people are able to get solar and batteries.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Would I mean, in a way, isn't the private sector
sort of looking after some of these things. I got
an email from a bank the other day offering me
a one percent loan to get solar installed in my place.
I mean, do we need to legislate the stuff? Can't
we work it out because people go, well, it has
my power, but I'm going to save X. I'll make
this decision for me on what I want to borrow
to install solar.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I mean, we could take the approach of this current
government and wash our hands and take our hands off
the wheel of the economy and say the market sorting
it out because the cost of living is going forts
through the roof for regular New Zealanders. Or we could
do something active and pull all of the leaders available
to us so that we supercharge the renewable energy transition.
And that's effectively what we're proposing here. And I want
(09:55):
to be really clear that the ratepayer assistance scheme is
just one potential idea that has already been put on
the table by local governments across this country and by
an incredible organization known as Rewiring Altero, which you may
know has been championed by an amazing farmer down in
Southland called Mike. And all of this is ultimately about
how we pull all of the levers currently available to
(10:16):
us to build our energy resilience and sovereignty, to lower
the cost of living for New Zealanders and to remove
that dependency and that volatility that we experience because of
that teather to fossil fuels.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
So if we were I mean, if I get an
ev it's going to be a reliant on stuff that's
been mined. Where are you at with us mining our
resources for the things that we might want to rely
on for cleaner future.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Yeah, So, I mean they're kind of talking about critical minerals,
and I think, first and foremost, it's really important to
address some of the kind of miss and disinformation that
we sometimes see circulating on social media. For example, so
EV's of course do currently require critical minerals in order
to be produced, But in terms of the lifetime impact
of a vitrol vehicle or a diesel vehicle versus a
(11:06):
ev an EV is far far better for the planet
and also obviously for people's wallets in terms of lower
cost of living and lower input costs for the running
of that vehicle. So to your point of the critical
minerals that are necessary to go into the production of
that electrical vehicle and the fact that we potentially had
some of them here at home in Alta IOA well,
first thing first, this government promised everybody when it was
(11:27):
producing its critical minerals strategy that all of those minerals
would apparently be used for our clean green energy transition.
Yet as things have transpired over the last six months
or so, largely as a result of a lot of
digging where the Greens have also been doing, it's become
abundantly clear that in fact, this Luxom government's plan with
those critical minerals, our very limited critical minerals, is to
(11:49):
funnel them into effectively Trump's war machine. And that's not hyperbole.
These are the things which the Trump administration themselves have
said that they want to form these critical minerals partnerships
with other countries in order to help facilitate their own
security and intelligence. Needs to go back to the basics.
If we are to agree that we are going to
need these critical minerals for that transition, then why on
(12:12):
earth would we be currently open to channeling the very
finite critical minerals that we have available to us right
now into Trump's war machine as opposed to into the
needs of every day hard work.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, I guess we get paid for it, at least
that we well in the short term.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
But we absolutely do have to pay for things somehow.
And this is also why, you know, I'm really proud
of the work that we've done over the last two
years to put, for example, our industrial strategy on the
table around mid last year, where we showed, through active
government putting its hands back on the wheel of the economy,
that we could actually plan for the kind of jobs
(12:51):
that we want and create them instead of losing them offshore.
Because right now, so many of the decisions about our economy,
and particularly our primary industries, are made by offshore shareholders
who are more than happy to throw hard working, particularly
rural New Zealanders on the scrap heap when the numbers
don't add up and balance sheets and distant boardrooms.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
So what are you saying, You're against overseas companies having
a stake in New Zealand or what.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
No. I think that that's a pretty ridiculous extrapolation from
what I'm just said.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
It sounded like you didn't like overseas shareholders making decisions
on businesses who are employing New Zealanders. So I think
it's quite a lot.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
I don't like overseas shareholders having control of the economy
that should be controlled by New Zealanders. So that's not
an absolute position.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
I mean, it's a funny one, isn't it, because they
are a participant in our economy. Ideally, the control of
the economy is probably through the legislators but they're still here. Well,
I just mean it's you know, it's a difficult one
to nail down. I get. I mean, I've had a
bunch of texts come in exactly saying that it sounds
like you don't like overseas investment in New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
No, but it's not at all I'm saying. What I'm
saying is that when it comes to our quest assets,
and I think this is something that all New Zealanders
should probably hopefully agree on. If we want to have
a sense of control and agency over our own economy,
our critical assets should be owned within New Zealand and
controlled by New Zealanders. To give us an example of
some of the ludicrousness of that overseas ownership at the moment,
(14:24):
as a result of successive governments making decisions around, for example,
the ability to sell off our gent tailor's partially or
our banks for example, but also even in our forestry sector.
Off the top of my head, I think around seventy
percent of our plantation forestry is currently owned offshore. Of course,
they don't have any stake in producing our value added
jobs along the supply chain. They'll go for the cheapest
(14:46):
possible outcome, which means exporting those raw logs and then
importing them back and we're all paying higher cost of
living as a result and losing the jobs along the way,
not to mention.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
The last climate sound in New Zealand first Chloe, but.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Oh mate, we're the real New Zealand first starting.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Hey, look, I could chat for ages, but I've run
in a time, so thank you for.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yours, Chloe, give me on next week.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
You okay, thanks Chloe, all Right, there we go, Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to News
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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