Roll-Over Funding For Last Year’s Green Initiatives

The Green Party today welcomed continuing Government budget support for Green initiatives announced in last year’s Budget.

“The Government has approved roll-over funding for all the Green schemes from last year, except the organics working group,” she said.

“The commitment to continued funding for last year’s initiatives shows that the Green proposals were well thought through and realistic. The special thing about the smaller of the initiatives was that they reached into areas which have traditionally missed out on Government funding, like complementary health and environmental accounting.”

The smaller Green initiatives which will receive ongoing funding are:

- National environment accounts - $300,000

Developing national accounts which would measure progress in a more sensible way, by including positive activities such as voluntary work and unpaid childcare, and deducting negatives such as pollution, crime and biosecurity clean-ups.

- Environment and social reporting - $350,000

Laying the groundwork for a comprehensive approach to reporting a “triple bottom line”, including social and environmental costs as well as profit in accounts.

- Pesticide reduction programme - $235,000

Reducing the use of highly toxic agricultural pesticides, many of which could be replaced by less toxic alternatives. Residues of these pesticides threaten the health and ecological stability of New Zealand.

- Complementary Health Committee - $ 150,000

Setting up a committee to facilitate further research into and use of low-tech, cost-effective complementary healthcare which may improve the overall health of New Zealanders and reduce our dependence on prescription drugs, including antibiotics.

Four of the bigger roll-overs - biosecurity, legal aid, EECA and nicotine replacement therapy are covered in separate press releases.

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>