Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics.

“New Zealanders care about each other and the planet we live on. Our Green Budget will lay out the plan for an economy that respects and protects those things, instead of exhausting and exploiting both,” says Green Party co-leader and spokesperson for Finance Chlöe Swarbrick.

“Poverty, and all the social ills that stem from it, doesn’t come from nowhere. It comes from a tolerance of extreme inequality. It comes from the privatisation of profit and the socialisation of cost.

“In December, we released He Ara Anamata, our Emissions Reduction Plan, which showed how we could reduce emissions five times faster than the Government’s proposed ‘plan’. It showed we can not only reduce the cost of living, but increase quality of life.

“Our Green Budget will build on that to continue to show precisely how a different world is possible, and entirely within our reach,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.

“More and more tamariki continue to fall through the cracks and live below the poverty line, as a result of this Government’s choices; the choices to gut housing for our most vulnerable, to gut school lunches, to gut our health system and put growing pressure on our health workers,” says Marama Davidson.

“We all depend on each other when times are rough. People want to care for each other – manaakitanga is part of human nature. This is the core value that will underpin our Green Budget.

“Our mokopuna deserve better, and we can deliver better by channelling community power and finally putting people and planet ahead of profit,” says Marama Davidson.

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