Greens all talk, no action

Green Party supporters will be bitterly disappointed at the announcement today of more reviews and no action National’s Environment spokesperson Scott Simpson says.

“The Greens have been forced to swallow a number of dead rats already, and now Labour and NZ First have sent them off to their annual conference with nothing new to announce but reviews and working groups.

“Yesterday the Greens announced that one of the Government’s 140 working groups would consider looking at water bottling – but no real action was taken. Today they’ve said the Ministry for the Environment will have a think about waste disposal.

“We had a plan to expand the waste levy to apply to more landfills so there’s nothing new there. A potential massive increase to the actual levy rate is just another tax which will hurt New Zealand households.

“The National Government announced a scheme last year to deal with end of life tyres, including funding options for their collection and disposal. We also consulted on a National Environment Standard for the outdoor storage of tyres. That was ten months ago and we’ve heard nothing from this Government since.

“I challenge Ms Sage to get on and complete the work that we started, instead of announcing more reviews and talkfests.

“What this weekend has shown is that in spite of all the damage that being part of this Government has done to the Greens credibility and principals, they have no sway, no influence and nothing to show for it.

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