Source: Green Party
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches.
“This year, with the help of sixteen million dollars in political donations from some of the wealthiest people in Aotearoa, National, Act, and New Zealand First have the privilege of putting together the government’s budget,” says Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson.
“And I say to them, what are you going to do with it? You have the choice to end poverty or to give tax breaks to landlords. You have the choice to invest in solar power, or open up new coal mines.
“The choices people make when they have power show us what they are motivated by. These choices define the world they want to create.
“If the Government chooses not to prioritise restoring the health of the natural world in its first Budget, that shows what they are motivated by, and it shows what kind of world they are prepared to leave to our tamariki.
“It is our tamariki and mokopuna that motivate the Greens. Not just the ones born tomorrow, but those after that, for seven generations down the line,” says Marama Davidson.
“Bad things are not inevitable. But good things aren’t inevitable either,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.
“Politics belongs to those who turn up. This Government is doing their damndest to turn regular people off with their avalanche of awfulness, concentrating power and wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
“They can only win at this cynical game if we let them.
“The more regular people turn up and resist, the more we organise, the more pressure that we put on, the more everyone realises their power, the more the cracks start to show in this Coalition.
“And we see the truth: we can make this a one term Government.”
“We can create a new economy, founded on the values at the centre of communities across this country, to support people and the planet and put manaakitanga ahead of relentless greed,” says Chlöe Swarbrick.
