ACT is celebrating the Government's decision to wind down New Zealand Green Investment Finance.

"NZGIF has poured nearly $400 million down the drain with next to nothing to show for it. It's the kind of greenwashed corporate welfare ACT has railed against for years," says ACT Finance spokesperson Todd Stephenson.

In 2018 when Labour and the Greens set up the Green Investment Finance Fund, David Seymour warned:

“This kind of policy inevitably leads to government waste and corruption. The Fund will be picking technologies that can't attract capital in an open market. It will pick them precisely because they fit the Government’s own particular political preferences."

"If these green investment schemes made economic sense, private investors would have jumped in without taxpayers help," says Stephenson. "Instead, we had Wellington picking winners. The failure of this approach was epitomised by the collapse of the NZGIF-backed SolarZero, which left taxpayers $115 million in the hole and left livelihoods in the lurch for the venture's employees.

"Shutting it down is a win for economic sense. The market can sort out green innovation while politicians focus on removing barriers to growth and innovation. That's what ACT is doing in government."

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