soaring costs<\/a>, saying those workers were \u201cthrown to the scrapheap.\u201d<\/p>\nThe party has since called for a select committee inquiry into the Wattie\u2019s closure to investigate if the regulatory environment, energy costs, \u201cforeign-owner indifference to New Zealand interests\u201d or anti-competitive behaviour from supermarkets contributed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Prime Minister tells us it\u2019s all about \u2018growth\u2019, as he cheerleads offshore ownership of our country\u2019s key assets,\u201d Swarbrick said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThink about Wattie\u2019s. The pulp and paper mills. They were sold offshore, and when the balance sheet stopped producing easy profit for distant shareholders, the New Zealanders who had dedicated their lives to the companies\u2019 production line were thrown on the scrapheap. <\/p>\n
\u201cA country is not a corporation. A Prime Minister is not a CEO.\u201d<\/p>\n
Co-leader Marama Davidson spoke more broadly, claiming the coalition Government \u201cthink attacking M\u0101ori is a political win for them\u201d, an apparent reference to policies some see as anti-M\u0101ori like the controversial Treaty Principles Bill. This is a charge the Government has staunchly rejected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s as plain as it has ever been for the Green Party that upholding Te Tiriti justice is the pathway to social justice, climate justice, environmental justice and economic justice. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll of it is connected. But this Government hopes you can\u2019t connect the dots. They think attacking M\u0101ori is a political win for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the conflict in Iran, Davidson said it was first and foremost a human catastrophe where civilians are being killed and injured, livelihoods are being destroyed and international law is being broken. <\/p>\n
\u201cA war launched not to protect people but to project power. And ordinary people, in every country, are the ones paying for it. But it also reveals how fragile the systems are that we have built our lives around.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow dependent we have allowed ourselves to become on systems outside of our control. And who is benefiting from this dependence. The military industrial complex, the warmongers and those who want to profit by exploiting people and the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davidson described New Zealand as \u201ca country that has lost its footing\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cA country that once knew what it stood for, that was proud of its independence, its willingness to say no when no was the right answer, and that has, slowly, quietly, been talked out of that position.<\/p>\n
\u201cHere is the uncomfortable truth. This did not start with any one government. Successive governments have slowly walked New Zealand away from the independent and principled foreign policy that once defined us. They sent troops to Afghanistan. They deployed to Iraq. They strengthened military ties with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n
Davidson said that had culminated \u201cin a moment where our Prime Minister cannot even say plainly whether a war is legal or have the courage to condemn the killing of children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon has refused on several occasions to take a direct position on the war, including on reports of a bombing of a primary school in Iran. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are calling for is we need to make sure international law and international humanitarian law is upheld and when we see strikes on civilian infrastructure and on civilians, that is unacceptable,\u201d Luxon said at a recent press conference. <\/p>\n
Asked if he had a view on the school bombing, Luxon said: \u201cwe don\u2019t … as we have said before that is an issue for the Americans to explain\u201d.<\/p>\n
In response to the fuel crisis in New Zealand, the Government expanded the In-Work Tax Credit to give an extra $50 per week to around 140,000 families with children. <\/p>\n
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe don\u2019t need to depend on expensive fossil fuels hauled from the other side of the planet. We…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,1738,200475,8615,307,5903,17746,1667,2678,2355,2518,23746,168436,16609,27612,111,43,139,69,90,4762,2687,14042,182,3769,210,61,6149,376,1533,10000],"class_list":{"0":"post-386955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-campaign","10":"tag-chokes","11":"tag-come","12":"tag-dont","13":"tag-election","14":"tag-electrification","15":"tag-energy","16":"tag-fuel","17":"tag-geothermal","18":"tag-green","19":"tag-greens","20":"tag-hormuz","21":"tag-iran","22":"tag-mass","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-nz","27":"tag-on","28":"tag-party","29":"tag-saying","30":"tag-strait","31":"tag-sun","32":"tag-supplies","33":"tag-through","34":"tag-to","35":"tag-war","36":"tag-water","37":"tag-will","38":"tag-wind"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}