13 June 2018

More hypocrisy from Government & Greens

The hypocrisy of the Government has been thrown into sharp relief today with Land Information Minister Eugenie Sage unable to justify her party’s about face on sensitive land sales to foreigners for water bottling, National’s Land Information spokesperson David Bennett says.

“Just prior to last year’s election Ms Sage promised that in Government the Greens would put an immediate moratorium on new water bottling plants place to stop applications like Cresswell NZ Ltd’s bid to take up to 580 million litres of water annually from Otakiri Springs near Whakatane.

“Now just months later and firmly ensconced on the Treasury Benches Ms Sage has completed a major about-face and approved the sale of sensitive land to the same company to expand its water bottling plant at the same location.

“The Minister’s own supporters have condemned the broken promise and hypocrisy shown by Ms Sage and rightly so. These supporters can’t understand how a party so opposed to overseas water bottlers can then go ahead and approve such an expanded operation.

“To make things worse, Ms Sage confirmed today that not only has she broken her promise, she’s not even done the work to change to the rules to accommodate the Greens’ flawed election pledge of a moratorium.

“It’s all well and good for Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson to say ‘we don’t like this decision’ but her party’s done absolutely nothing about it.

“This shows a Green Party and a Government big on false claims and blaming foreigners when it suits their political purposes but failing to have the courage of their convictions when they are in a position to make the decisions.

“This reflects the age old trap of small parties in Government that become more interested in the baubles of office than keeping their promises to New Zealanders.”

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