We’re halfway through, so how is this Government doing?

Well, we are officially halfway through the election cycle. The coalition government has been in place for about 18 months now. David Seymour is our Deputy Prime Minister.

So, how are things going?

I did my first ever political roundup episode - I think it was episode three - and it ended up being one of our most popular ever.

Interestingly, you lot seem to care about what's going on out there, which is nice. So I thought we’d do a check-in, because it's been a year, right?

Just to set some guardrails: I'm very much talking about environmental and social issues. I'm not really diving into the economy (though it might get a mention), or the cost of living, or anything else like that. All big problems, all important topics - but I'm absolutely not educated enough to speak on them.

Much like the first time I did this, I'm going to try to be unbiased. I will probably fail, because I’m human, I’m violently sarcastic, and I’m obviously quite left-leaning.

Everything in here is factual. It’s been fact-checked. But as my mother would say: I might have a tone. Please forgive me.

In the episode let's talk about:

• Budget 2025 - the "no BS budget"
• What was cut in this budget?
• What were some budget additions that impact the environment?
• Some of the new legislation we should know about
• The Fast Track Approvals Act and what it means
• The shifting of the government's climate policy
• The agricultural legislation and how it impacts the environment
• Other changes including waste management, bottled water, and live animal exporting
• The impact of these changes on NZ's reputation and credibility
• The nonsense political narrative
• Some of the good things the government has done

The University of Canterbury submission's on Gene Technology Regulation:

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/0e1aa118-5e68-4b43-b395-2a4487d90aa4/content

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/fb5002ba-2e21-4a45-be4e-56d6259b4571/content

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/server/api/core/bitstreams/05dd6485-82e0-4f54-844b-8860e8548b68/content

Find our full podcast via the website here: https://www.nowthatswhaticall.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nowthatswhaticallgreen/

You can follow me on socials on the below accounts.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briannemwest/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@briannemwest

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briannemwest/

For our latest big project, find out more about Incrediballs here: https://incrediballs.com/

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Kyoto Kaitaki and welcome to NowThat's what I Call Green.
I'm your host, Brianne W, an environmentalist and
entrepreneur trying to get you as excited about our planet as I
am. I'm all about creating a
scientific approach to making the world a better place without
the judgement and making it fun.And of course, we will be
chatting about some of the most amazing creatures we share our
planet with. So if you are looking to

(00:26):
navigate through everything, green or not so green, you have
come to the right place. Well, we are officially halfway
through the election cycle. The coalition government has
been in place for about 18 months now.
David Seymour is our Deputy Prime Minister.
So how are things going? I did my first ever political

(00:48):
roundup episodes, I think it wasepisode 3, and it was one of our
most popular ever. Interestingly, you guys seem to
care about what's going on out there, which is nice, but I
thought we'd do a check in because it's been a year, right?
I will just with some guard rails in place.
I am very much talking about environmental and social issues.
I'm not talking so much about the economy, although it will be

(01:10):
mentioned, or the cost of livingor anything else.
All big problems. All things I am absolutely not
educated enough to speak on now,much like the very first time I
did this. I am going to try to be
unbiased, but I will probably fail because I am human, I am
violently sarcastic and I'm obviously quite leaf leaning if

(01:30):
we have to make it into a binary, so bear that in mind.
Everything in here is fact. It is fact checked.
But as my mother would say, I might have a tone.
Please forgive me. The logical place to start would
be Budget 2025. I think it was called the No BS
budget or I heard it referred toas the no Frills budget.
It was quite a significant shiftin priorities and let's go

(01:55):
through them one by one, shall we?
Let's start with cuts. Dock.
Department of Conservation dock suffered a lot of cuts and dock
are already chronically underfunded and they have a
massive amount of land to look after.
So the Nature Heritage Fund, which is used to help protect
ecologically significant privateland, that was scrapped, that
saved about $1.3 million annually.

(02:18):
They also discontinued the CrownLand Acquisition Fund, which
basically supported expansion ofprotected areas.
There was quite a few other cutsin there, especially those for
community conservation and heritage protection.
DOC did not do well in this budget but they were saddled
with another priority too. So Predator Free 2050, the Crown

(02:38):
owned company was just established and DOC got to
absorb all its responsibilities.Of course, Predator Free 2050 is
all about removing the rats, theferrets, stoats, everything
except one of the biggest piece,which is of course fear or cats
from Altiro by 2050. I actually wrote a subtech
article about how we can even consider this as Predator Free

(02:58):
2050 if we are not considering feral cats because they kill up
to 100 million birds every year.But that's sort of by the by.
Now as this has been discontinued, our international
climate finance commitment was knocked down from 250 to 100
million. This funding was supposed to
support the adaptation and mitigation efforts in developing
nations, particularly the Pacific.

(03:19):
And this, it's particularly affected our international
climate leadership and has had quite a reputational effect
actually. The Waste Minimisation Fund has
gone. So this fund was actually
reallocated to support core agency functions within the
Ministry for the Environment andit was already funded by the
waste levy. So there is now significantly
less money available for projects like the circular

(03:40):
economy, innovation, community reuse programs, waste
infrastructure in general, all things I think we can probably
all agree that we need more of. There was of course absolutely
no new funding for freshwater and biodiversity in general.
In fact, WWF called this the no biodiversity budget, playing on
the No BS budget. So there was no new funding

(04:01):
allocated for implementation of the Timana or Ty freshwater
framework, nothing for wetland forestation, nothing for the
Timana or Tetayo Biodiversity Strategy and nothing for the
National Policy Statement on indigenous biodiversity, which
is coming soon. However, there were some
additions that have some impact on the environment and of course

(04:24):
the biggest one would be the oiland gas exploration.
Now, this coalition campaigned on bringing back oil and gas
extraction, which is just how tosay this in an unbiased manner.
You know what? It's absolutely scientific to
say that continuing to extract oil and gas is monumentally
moronic. This government has allocated
$200 million over the next four years to support the exploration

(04:48):
and development of petrol and gas resources.
Now just to give you some stats here because I did a lot of
research and wrote an article about this.
What I think is worth pointing out here is this is the
government right that understands the economy.
But this look at some numbers because this doesn't make any
sense whatsoever. It takes 7 to 10 years to start
extracting anything from a gas field.

(05:09):
So anything we find next year in2026 will not deliver gas and
therefore any money till 2033. Some are even longer.
Only about one in 10 explorationpermits ever return any gas.
And yet is ultimately that this will cost us money.
Yeah, cost us money, not earn usanything.
So in new field we might get royalties with about 40 to $60
million a year, which is a shit load of money.

(05:31):
Not going to argue with you, butjust in carbon pollution cost
alone, it will cost us about 120million a year.
I don't know if we're very good at maths, but over 20 years that
will mean we're about $1.4 billion in the red.
If we were to go and spend that same $200 million on renewables,
we would save about $26 billion over that same 20 years.
Brit's a humanly stupid decision, both environmentally

(05:53):
and economically. However, I'm biased.
They've also added the gene technology regulation, so they
allocated about 7 million to establish a new EPA based
regulator for gene tech. Now this country is a famously
anti GE genetic engineering and this budget item is specifically
linked to some upcoming legislation that is changing

(06:14):
some of our policy and GM regulations.
Now when I lecture is at university is actually probably
1 of Altero's foremost experts in GMOs or genetically
modifiable organisms and he thinks this is a terrible idea.
The University of Canterbury hasactually put together a
submission, but basically this would leave Altero as the least
regulated country for GMOs on earth.

(06:36):
I'll actually put the link to the submission in the show notes
should you want to read it because it's there's a lot in
there. But to say this is not a great
idea would be a note statement. This budget has also removed
about $56 million from the Energy Efficiency and
Conservation Authority, you'll probably know it as Eker, and
they've got rid of the Electric Bus Fund.
So All in all, a big middle finger to the environment.
There's no additional investmentin community LED conservation,

(06:58):
there's nothing in EWI and hapu environmental management,
There's no funding for climate resilient housing, flooding,
infrastructure, nature based climate adaptation and there's
no increase in support for localgovernment to go and implement
biodiversity or climate resilience plans.
I mean, did anybody expect thereto be?
Probably not. This is a government that has
made its priorities very clear. The government has described

(07:19):
this budget as rebalancing so that we can enable growth and
productivity. And this is a government that is
focused on making Altierro more productive.
And that is something I absolutely agree with, right,
within reason. You can't have growth for
growth's sake, and you can't have growth without impact
elsewhere, but you can have a healthy economy and a healthy
environment. Unfortunately, we're only

(07:41):
focused on one of these things now.
Let's move away from the budget and talk about some of the
legislation this government has introduced and passed some of
the most significant and contentious constitutional and
environmental legislative changes in decades.
And that's actually not an overstatement.
First up, of course, is the Treaty Principles Bill.
This was introduced by ACT and it was part of the coalition

(08:02):
agreement. If you missed the drama around
this, this bill aimed to redefine the principles of
Tesserati or Whitangy in legislation, basically replacing
protection and partnership with a more narrow interpretation of
the text, and it would ultimately have significantly
reduced the Crown's obligation to a gauge with Maori.
I think this is the bill that received the largest number of

(08:25):
submissions in history, over 300,000 submissions and 90% of
them were against this bill. It was amazing and if this
doesn't show you the power of people, I don't know what the
heckoy in March 2025 saw 10s of thousands of New Zealanders
March around the multi. It was amazing.

(08:46):
It was so cool to see people actually standing up for what
they know is right. I mean obviously it's in no way
wonderful that they had to in the 1st place.
But that, ladies and gentlemen was democracy in action.
Of course, in April the bill wasvoted down in Parliament and it
was only ACT that supported it. All the other parties voted
against it and that bill of course has failed as it

(09:07):
absolutely should have. It was not only done in in a
really rather underhand manner with absolutely no consultation
of most parties, but lawyers andjudges actually said that there
was no legal authority for ACT to even put that forward because
the treaty is between the Crown,IE King Charles and Mali, not
anything to do with the New Zealand government.

(09:29):
Anyway. Interesting.
There is plenty of very good analysis on that should you want
to read more about it. But while that bill has failed,
another passed and of course there was less scrutiny, but
still a fair bit of outcry. And that was the Fast Track
Approvals Act and that came intoforce last year on Christmas Eve
actually. And this is exactly what it
sounds like. It allows ministers to directly

(09:50):
approve infrastructure and resource projects outside the
normal Resource Management Act. So projects are assessed by an
independent advisory panel. But the final decision rest was
just three ministers, Chris Bishop, Shane Jones, Simeon
Brown. They are not bound by the panel
advice and they can approve or reject projects as they feel the
need. If I talk a bunch about Shane

(10:11):
Jones I will definitely be crossing the bias that I'm so
desperately failing not to. But I'll just read you a quote
which might give you an idea. He's talking to a Green MP in
this quote. He said you and I have a very
different view about the climate.
I happen to think that it's largely moral hysteria and I
have said this for many years. That's why I am a proud
supporter of the extractive fossil fuels industry.

(10:35):
What a misinformed muppet. He also doesn't think that the
Maui dolphin is a separate species of dolphin.
I could go on and on about the number of ways that Shane Jones
has been wrong, but you can sleep easy at night Altierro
knowing that he is one of just three ministers who can make
decisions Willy nilly with no requirement for public
consultation or consideration ofthe environment.

(10:57):
The ACT is very specifically worded to allow development of
conservation land and projects can override existing
environmental protections. And the worst bit, there is no
appeals process, the decisions are final.
As of right now there are about 149 projects in the pipeline
under this regime. Mines, roads, aquaculture,
ports, butts, renewable energy and housing developments.

(11:20):
So I guess it's not all bad. This legislation has annoyed an
awful lot of people and organizations.
So Forest and Bird, Environmental Defense Society
and several E, we have all takenaction and there is a white
hungry tribunal urgent inquiry underway focusing on the
breaches of the treaty obligations and the total lack
of consultation. So that's the Fast Track Act.

(11:41):
Then there's the regulatory standards bill, which is
currently still before Select Committee and submissions are
actually closing today at 1:00 PM.
So by the time you listen to the, chances are it's already
closed. But I hope you got your
submission in. I'm not going to go into the
legal specifics about this, but according to experts,
effectively this creates a legaltest that prioritizes economic

(12:02):
outcomes over ecological, health, cultural or treaty based
protections. It undermines precautionary
principles that underpins most of our environmental laws, and
it empowers courts to strike down protections based on cost
benefit analysis without any considerations to things like
values or intergenerational outcomes, like, you know,
ensuring there is a planet for the future generations to live

(12:23):
on. It also weakens the treaty by
treating it as one interest among many as opposed to the
governing document of the country.
And this is actually something you should care about because
this isn't just one project. This is a shift in how the laws
will be made and measured. And it will make future
environmental, health and equityregulations much harder to
implement and much easier to challenge.

(12:44):
If you've listened to this before 1:00 PM, please go and
make a submission. It can be informal, it can be
personal, it can be short. But if you believe in evidence
based law, making your communityhaving a voice and long term
environmental care, then this isyour moment to say so.
Ultimately the theme here is systemic change, right?
So these laws are all about centralizing power, sidelining

(13:05):
independent science and community voices, and raising
the bar for protections, but lowering it for industry.
That's quite the redesign. I thought I'd discuss climate
separately because of course, the government's climate policy
has shifted massively in the last 18 months.
We've gone away from emissions pricing and regulation.

(13:25):
And I'm not saying it was perfect.
There was an awful lot more we should have done and some things
that we definitely did wrong. But now we're moving towards
fossil fuel expansion and voluntary technology adoption.
Not only can we not technologicalize our way out of
the climate crisis. And if you're wondering, yes,
that is a word, I'm going with it.
But voluntary has never worked when it comes to industry.

(13:47):
Unfortunately, you have to regulate big companies,
otherwise they just don't do it.So going back to Shane Jones,
the lover of extractive technologies and the climate
denier who of course now we're calling the climate confused,
back in April 2024, last year heconfirmed the official repeal of
the offshore oil and gas exploration ban that Labour put
forward in 2018. Now they've added the 200

(14:09):
million from the budget. The goal is to increase energy
security and unlock economic potential.
Again, I wrote an article about this quite in depth.
If you want to read the specifics on what this will
actually do for the economy and the environment, please head
over to our sub stack. It's less snarky than this
podcast episode. But now let's look at
agriculture, which is of course the single biggest contributor
to New Zealand's emissions and probably the most complicated

(14:33):
thing to tackle. Back last year, the government
cancelled a collaborative emissions pricing scheme for
agriculture. The partnership was between
government, industry and EWI called Hwoka Ikinoa, and it was
originally designed to implementfarm level methane pricing by
2025. They have since launched the
Centre for Climate Action on Agricultural Admissions with a

(14:53):
$400 million voluntary funder for four years.
The fund is to support things like methane reducing technology
like inhibitors, low methane breeding, feed additives like
that miracle seaweed. But there's no mandatory uptake,
no emissions caps, no penalties,there's no price signals.
Participation is voluntary againand there is absolutely no

(15:13):
mechanism to ensure that emissions actually fall.
Now New Zealand First and Activepublicly championed this
voluntary technical approach. They're framing regulations
punitive, and both parties have rightfully argued that New
Zealand farmers are already among the most emissions
efficient globally and they shouldn't face additional costs.
That's true. Our farmers are some of the most

(15:35):
climate friendly in the world. And by climate friendly I mean
in regards to other farmers in other countries.
Of course. A lot of intensive farming
activities are by their very nature harmful to the
environment and to our climate. There is no getting away from
there. That is not an attack on
farmers. We all rely on farmers.
That is unfortunately a reality.And in further support of the

(15:57):
agricultural industry, Parliament passed the Climate
Change Response Amendment Act. So this Act removes all
agricultural activities from theemissions trading scheme, it
ends planned surrender obligations for fertilizer
companies, and it cancels on farm methane reporting that was
supposed to start in 2026. Apparently it will devise a

(16:19):
replacement farm level pricing system by 20-30, but there is
absolutely no legal backstop if that timeline slides by, Which
of course it will, because that's what happens.
The Zero Carbon framework and the Climate Change Commission
are technically in place, but critics have pointed out that
this change further delays any meaningful agricultural
emissions pricing and weakens overall climate credibility.

(16:40):
And the emission trading scheme has been partially restructured
anyway, right? There is no binding cap on total
industrial emissions, so there is no ceiling that we can't go
beyond, and we have no clearly articulated pathway to get to
net 0 by 2050. But I think what is particularly
interesting is how the narrativearound climate has changed.
References to net zero are almost non existent in official

(17:03):
statements, right? Ministers now routinely talk
about the importance of climate policies being economically
balanced and not burdening business.
And hey, that's a fair statement, right?
Personally, I am of the opinion that if you as a business profit
from something, you should pay the true cost of any damage you
do, which of course no business does because very few businesses

(17:26):
currently consider their true emissions and their true impact.
It's very hard to do so. So I can understand that.
But by not burdening business and making sure that we tip the
scales in favour of the economy,we are just pushing these
inevitable costs onto future generations.
Breathtakingly myopic stance. I remember before Christopher

(17:48):
Luxen was elected, someone who knew him well said that he was
actually incredibly environmentally minded and he
would do a lot to protect our terrace environment.
And I believed that person, you know, and to be honest, I
believe they probably thought that at the time.
But of course, I guess is the question, is Christopher Luxen

(18:09):
really in charge or is he led byothers in his coalition?
I will leave you to be the judgethere.
There's some other hodgepodge changes as well, right?
So this government's approach tonatural resource management and
biodiversity protection has beenmarked by, well, we've seen
deregulation and a return to super outdated practices.
And waste is a good one to look at actually.

(18:29):
So incineration has been reintroduced as a legitimate
waste strategy, particularly supported yet again by the Two
Stooges Act in New Zealand. First, this is a big shift away
from circular economy principles, right?
Waste energy incineration. A lot of people celebrate.
It's stupid, it's a terrible idea.
It's very expensive, it has highcarbon emissions, it's energy

(18:53):
intensive, and it has toxic outputs most of the time unless
you have incredible filtration and intense heat.
It's also very much single use, right?
So it's very much a take. Make something out of it and
then burn it. You get nothing good out the
other side. You may get a little bit of
energy or a little bit of heat depending on what you use.
It is not a legitimate waste strategy.

(19:14):
It is a terrible, terrible idea.There was 2 sort of other big
waste initiatives too which havestalled now.
The container return scheme was actually stopped, of course when
Labour was still in government, which was very disappointing.
That must work along the same way as the Australian one and
the excellent system in, say Germany, for example, where you
would return your can of your bottle to say, a machine, where

(19:35):
you would be financially incentivized to the tune of a
couple of cents per can of bottle to return your container.
And despite years and years of development being widely
supported around the country, it's paused indefinitely.
Disappointing. The other one was there had been
plans for regulated products, stewardship schemes, so things
like tires and e-waste and refrigerants, they have now all

(19:57):
been stalled or deprioritised. As I'm sure so many of you know.
Of course our freshwater is not in a good place.
Many of our rivers are unswimmable due to high levels
of nitrates and pathogens. The government is in the process
of rewriting the national policystatement for freshwater
management and ministers have said they are going to remove or
reduce the bottom line requirements for ecosystem
health so that regional councilshave more flexibility and least

(20:20):
complexity. And it's actually already caused
confusion, so that bodes well. Meanwhile, Tapati Maori's call
for a moratorium on bottled water consents and for
commercial users to pay for freshwater extraction has been
totally ignored. I talk about this at length in
the bottled water episode, but currently bottled water sellers
pay as little as $500 in annual fees to extract as much

(20:43):
freshwater as they want to sell it back to you.
While the residents and the councils face water charges and
infrastructure deficits. It is absolutely barmy that that
occurs. This one is of great annoyance
to me. I genuinely think it is
absolutely despicable. But this government have also

(21:04):
said that they're going to overturn the live animal export
ban. Now of course, there was a
horrendous incident a few years ago where hundreds of animals
drowned when a live export ship capsized, and live export was
finally banned in 2023. Thankfully live animal exports
are still suspended as of right now, and they will not be

(21:25):
allowed to restart until a gold standard welfare framework is
finalised. But I'd be very surprised if
gold standard means anything except less than utter fucking
misery. The previous ban was supported
almost across the board by veterinarians, animal welfare
organisations, the vast majorityof the public.
I think it's incredibly cruel. And all of this has really had a

(21:47):
huge impact on our internationalcredibility.
And it's not just our reputationas a country, right, It's our
reputation as businesses becausethese domestic shifts have
really begun to erode other countries assessment of us and
our brands. So all of these changes have
been made in the name of the economy and productivity and
business as they fundamentally causing them harm.

(22:09):
Because of the changes to the ETS and the removal of
agricultural emissions pricing, climate targets are now widely
seen as unattainable. I mean, they weren't great
before, but it is very difficultto see how net 0 by 2050 will be
met, particularly with a return to fossil fuel development.
So that means our Paris Agreement credibility is under
pressure and there are, of course, ministers calling for us

(22:31):
to withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
The reputational damage, should we do that, would be
significant. The erosion of biodiversity
protections. The impact that these bills are
having on treaty partnership obligations are being watched
closely abroad too, and they have triggered concern among
scientists, NGOs and overseas indigenous rights groups.
Because we have de prioritised our reporting on the UN

(22:53):
Sustainable Development Goals orthe SD GS, our reputation for
social and environmental good has been seriously weakened.
Now, there is almost always a silver lining, right?
And I have always said that whengovernments swing to the right,
the people swing to the left. Of course, the reverse is always
true, right? But domestically, resistance is
growing. Now I know I exist in an echo

(23:13):
chamber, but the defeat of the Treaty principles bill really
shows what happens when people get wound up about something.
300,000 people, 300,000 people took time to do a submission.
10s of thousands of people attended protests.
Scientists are increasingly joining climate campaigns E.

(23:34):
We have taken claims to the Whitenge Tribunal.
Public submission numbers are surging across all sorts of
other bill consultations. It may not feel like it because
they are changing things on massat speed, but pressure is
building. These policies do not appear to
reflect the majority of Al Tiroa.
And that gives me hope. And finally, I want to end on
something that is sweeping the globe and I'm very disappointed

(23:57):
to see it happening here. Which is nonsense political
narrative and stupidity in the way people are talking.
And Winston Peters is probably the champion of this.
But New Zealand firstly has beenthe leading the charge here,
right? Terms like woke nonsense and
radical left ideology they repeatedly used in speeches and

(24:19):
interviews. I mean, just a couple of months
ago Winston Peters asked what isa woman in a televised debate
that had nothing to do with gender policy.
Which is just an example of how nonsense cultural narratives are
being injected into totally unrelated conversations to
undermine progress. The fact that climate action,

(24:39):
conservation and treaty responsibilities are being
positioned as political overreach or related genders
instead of basic science and matters of justice is farcical.
It's deliberate. It is done to ensure that people
fight and squabble, unfortunately, so that the
people that are benefiting from the systems in place continue to

(25:00):
make money. Whether these people know that
they're pawns and doing this or not I I'm still never sure.
But I cannot get over the moronswho think that calling someone
woke is an insult. This episode has really annoyed
me. I'm so much crosser now than I
was when I started it. But the result of this change?
This weaponizing of language is things like environmental

(25:23):
issues, which we should all actually care about.
This shouldn't be political. Whether we want fresh water or a
healthy climate, right shouldn'tbe political.
But they're now debated through a culture war lens.
If you want the government to dosomething about the fact that we
can't swim in some of our rivers, you're a leftist idiot
or you're a woke snowflake. It is absolutely baffling to me,

(25:44):
and it is so, so disappointing to see that kind of narrative
come here. So what are we left with?
We're halfway through, which means, you know what, we're
closer to the next election and well, I'm going to take those
Silver Linings where I can find them.
The direction of policy in general has shifted massively.
We have moved away from restoration justice, from
climate action, biodiversity protection.

(26:06):
We're moving towards deregulation, fast tracking
approvals of things. We have no idea what they will
achieve, all under the guise of chasing short term economic
growth. And short term is the key there,
right, Even though of course something like the mining and
gas exploration will not lead toany kind of economic growth,
short term, medium term or otherwise.

(26:27):
We are also moving away from trusting in science and experts
and listening to EWI when we make decisions.
And that has never gone well historically.
But that is leading to public opposition and the defeat of the
treaty bill shows that that works.
It will be very interesting to see what happens with the
Regulatory Standards Bill in a few weeks time.

(26:49):
Fingers firmly crossed it that goes the same way.
And of course, what's so disappointing about so many of
these changes is they're not just short term, They're going
to shape a lot of whether our zero is prepared for climate
shocks in the future, whether our nature and biodiversity
continues to collapse and I suppose whether our democracy
remains participatory and honours the treaty or not.

(27:09):
I said I wouldn't be biased, so we can ignore that statement.
But there has been a few good things, right?
So the government has set aside concessional loans to help
private operators build out a a nationwide EV charging network.
So I think in the last year there were about 1500 public
charge points, which seems like a lot to me, Like I've never had

(27:30):
a problem when I've been out andabout to charge my car.
They currently have a target of 10,000 by 2030.
They auctioned off fewer New Zealand units or carbon credits,
right? So the, the government has
auctioned off fewer of them. And because of that, that has
lifted the carbon price and has actually started moving
investment away from really highemitting industrial facilities.

(27:50):
And as I mentioned, there are several large onshore wind and
big scale solar farms that are on the fast track list.
So not every project on that list is absolutely terrible.
And all of this, of course, is down in the name of the economy.
So obviously we must have a roaring one right now.
And if one more person tells me that National is better for the

(28:11):
economy than Labor, I will scream.
Because statistically it has notborne out any of the evidence
going back years and years. It isn't right.
So our GDP is 1.1% smaller than a year ago and it is only about
1 to 2% above pre COVID peak in late 2019.

(28:32):
Yet our population is about 4% larger.
Translation has shrunk. The Treasury expects our
unemployment to peak at about 5.4% later this year and the
government's own forecasts have said net public debt will be
higher in 2027 than it is today.More money has been borrowed in
the last two years than it was during COVID.

(28:52):
And yet people continue to blameJacinda Ardern and her
government for the downfall of New Zealand society.
But I'm not going to go into that in this episode either.
Sustainability and prosperity are not mutually exclusive.
They are the way that this coalition government is going
about it. And ignoring the former is going
to destroy the latter. So pay attention to legislation.

(29:14):
Stay engaged, make sure you understand what is going on and
keep showing up because this business as usual politics is
not going to protect the future,but people and people power is.
This week's Micro Greens episodeis going to be about propaganda
and media literacy because so many of our opinions are based

(29:34):
on stuff that isn't true and so much of that leads to how we
vote. So I'm going to be sharing some
tips on how to read through stuff in the news to get to the
actual truth, to try and spot emotive language, cleverly
worded statistics, or just sort out falsehoods.
Because the more media literate we all are, the better off we
will be. And I promise I will be more

(29:55):
cheerful for that episode. But until then, hey, stay woke.
It really annoys people. And I will see you next week
Kyodo. And there you go, I hope you
learned something and realise that being green isn't about
everything in your pantry matching with those silly glass
jars or living in a commune. If that's your jam, fabulous.
But sustainability at it's part is just using what you need.

(30:18):
If you enjoyed this episode, please don't keep it to yourself
and feel free to drop me a rating and hit the subscribe
button Kyoda and I'll see you next week.