Category: green party

Categories
climate change green party youngleader

Jack Brazil

Samuel Mann with Jack Brazil Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Jack Brazil is the Green Party candidate for Dunedin. We talk with him about focusing on a “people-powered movement to build a better world”.

It’s about building a movement, sometimes with civil disobience, but always restorative and non-violent.

We have to exercise dissent – to show that there is a better way.

Jack first studied french and psychology before turning to law where a focus on justice meant for him a focus on social and environmental justice driven by a sense of care and compassion, but also a sense of impending crisis of ecological and social collapse.

We are arguing for better – we can show that “better” with a festival approach. To celebrate and take people with us.

“The tide is changing…” he says, “…the activism is back in politics”.

We can’t be too scared to be transformational, too scared to be radical.

Categories
democracy government green party law Middle East peace politics

Civility to fight injustice

Golriz Ghahraman is an international human rights lawyer who is also a former refugee from Iran.   She has worked to restore communities after war and human rights atrocities, particularly in empowering women engaged in peace and justice initiatives.   She is standing for NZ parliament on the Green Party list.

Shane Gallagher and Samuel Mann with Golriz Ghahraman [ 57:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Update:  this was recorded on 28th July 2017, broadcast 3rd August 2017.

Golriz:

“I prosecuted for the UN, but I also defended”.

Defence comments at 10mins, 20mins & 25:05

Talking points

Standing up to might – don’t take no for an answer.

Bringing down the bad guys.

Each (horrific) situation begins with dehumanising a group

Changing back to language of inclusion.

Sustainable: Environmental and social justice measures are intrinsically linked so we need to sustain humans at the same time that we sustain the environment.

Superpower: Making an argument and being persuasive.

Activist: Yes, activism is the rent that we pay for being on this planet.

Motivation: Justice, I’m the type of person who gets deeply annoyed by injustice, getting involved and fighting for the justice system.

Challenges: Getting into parliament is a pretty massive challenge for me.

Miracle: On a global scale for me it would be about democracy, about giving that dignity to all global citizens. The only way we can be sustainable is through self determination.

Advice: Please vote, not everyone can.

Categories
green party politics

Activist at heart

Kevin Hague

The pre-eminence of the economy and its treatment as if it were the point of society is so powerful, consumerism has been such a powerful force, that people believe their primary relationship is with the economy and not with their fellow members of society.

Kevin Hague Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Green Party MP Kevin Hague has followed his heart through several intertwining careers, in health, in commerce, and in activism. We ask what motivates him and how he sees the world.

Talking points

If I see something that needs doing…I don’t get how you can live with yourself and allow an injustice to continue.

(in the anti-apartheid protests) we created circumstances where people had to make a stand

That experience tells me that it is possible. It tells me that we can go from 20 people on a picket and within six months have 200,000.

It turned our national identity on its head.

It was of justice and deep ethics…

It is possible to awaken some deep sense in New Zealanders that motivates them to move from passivity to action

Climate change maybe the thing. It doesn’t have the same national identity aspects, but there are still the same deep ethical duties that could be awakened.

What is our duty to our kids and their kids? What is our duty to those future generations? What is our duty to the Pacific – our neighbours?

I suspect that when we crack the formula of making the connection for New Zealanders between climate change and their lives and their sense of duty to those future generations – they’re going to be very angry.

Boiling down the sense of duty…what’s the relationship between me as an individual and the collective – being part of a society.

Any one of us in New Zealand could probably construct a life that is a bit insulated from the effect of climate change, but the world cannot insulate itself from climate change. The consequences of the climate change that we have already locked in are going to be catastrophic.

If we can find the key that can unlock that relationship between each of us as individuals and our responsibility to each other and to future generations, that is what will get the 200,000 on Queen Street again.

One of the slogans of the occupy movement that I really loved was “citizen, not consumer”.

A sense of engagement and ownership of government is an essential component of making change.

We have the relationship wrong between the economy, environment and society. We have a situation where the environment is constructed as the raw materials or the waste disposal for the economy. And people are the consumers or the labour input into the firm. And that treats the economy as the end-point, it says the economy is some kind of immutable force of nature that the environment and society need to serve. That’s 100% wrong. We made the economy, it’s not something that can’t be changed – we made it to do a particular set of things, largely to make a small proportion of society richer at the expense of everyone else and the natural world. Well, we can make it do different things. We need to start with our environmental and social goals and then recognise the economy as being the set of tools that we use to achieve those.

We need to be asking the question – what is government for anyway? It is about achieving our environmental and our social goals. A sustainable relationship with the environment, a just society where everybody’s needs are met – those are fundamental to what government is for. And our economy is very clearly not meeting those.

Reaching a consensus on some goals, then working with citizens to understand their agency – their power as a collective – to change that relationship between the economy and those goals. This is high on my list of what we need to try and do as a society.

What we have now is essentially unfettered profit maximisation. If I am a business, I am setting out to maximise my profit, the way I do that is minimising my cost, and that means spending the least I possibly can on labour, and the least that I possibly can on raw materials and waste disposal.

Profit maximisation in a largely unregulated setting leads to environmental degradation, and massive inequality and exploitation of working people.

Deregulation kills people.

People’s health status is a function of their environments

I have a personal theme of inter-generational equity and empowering people

We need to recognise that the lion’s share of the benefit that comes from public education is public good

(Role of student loans in diminished student political movements) Student movements have been a crucial part of the conscience of society…it clearly suits neo-liberal establishment to silence critics.

The pre-eminence of the economy and its treatment as if it were the point of society is so powerful, consumerism has been such a powerful force, that people believe their primary relationship is with the economy and not with their fellow members of society.

Consumerism has atomised and disempowered people, and that’s no accident.

Is there something that I can add? The thing that tipped the balance was climate change. The urgency around climate change was such that if I felt that I could add something, then the duty that I had was to take that risk and give it go.

(Activist) Interesting question. I don’t think of myself as an activist. I see myself and the Green Party in Parliament as the parliamentary wing of a bigger movement for progressive environmental and societal change. That’s the job I have now. I don’t go out and organise demonstrations, I do develop strategy, I do participate in partnership with community based organisations that very definitely are activists. I’m absolutely proud of my record of activism, of the convictions that I have for all of those protest related activities – badges of honour.

(Motivation) I’m motivated by the same things that have motivated me all along – social justice. I don’t see how anyone can be satisfied with their own life knowing that so many people do not have the same opportunities, knowing that so many people live in injustice and poverty. I don’t see how anyone can be happy with their life knowing that we have this unsustainable relationship with the environment that condemns future generations – our kids and our grandkids to a poorer life than we have now.

(Challenges) Enter government, implement green policy for years to come.

(Miracle) A reversal of fortunes. The primary task is to engage a bigger consensus of citizens.

(Advice) Vote Green. Please engage in the process of taking back democracy. Demand the citizenship rights that you are owed.

Categories
green party politics

Community at the heart of change

Shane Gallagher

Regular co-host Shane Gallagher is standing for election in Dunedin South. Accordingly, to comply with the Electoral Act, he is unable to appear on the show as host until after the regulated period. In this show he appears as a guest. 

Shane Gallagher is a Green Party candidate for Dunedin South and a trade unionist. He works at the University of Otago and formerly owned AliMcD Agency. He was born in England to Irish parents, grew up in Dublin and went to university in Dublin and Edinburgh where he studied Linguistics and English.

Talking points

The idea that you have to sacrifice the environment for the economy is crazy thinking

Science informs our understanding of complex systems but it doesn’t fully explain it.

That technology can fix everything is the Prometheus myth – that technology is going to come along and solve all the problems that we have. But it’s not, it can’t – the problems we have are systemic, they’re massive, they’re to do with our behaviour, they’re to do with our relationships and to do with the quality of our exchanges in this world.

The system we have developed is driving us in a direction that is destructive, and it’s destroying the planet. Technology is not going to fix that problem because the problems aren’t really are of technology. We have solutions already, we can move extremely quickly to total renewable energy, we could go green very quickly, the technology is there or in its infancy but if threw the weight of our amazing intellects, innovation and incredible problem solving at them we could probably solve the last problems we have fairly easily. But the problem isn’t the technology but the systems that we have created: the corporatisation of the world, the drive to constantly grow – we can’t grow infinitely.

We have an elite that don’t want to say “hey, the party’s over, we’re living in the age of consequences”.

Solutions are myriad, and innovative and they’re all about community.

The innovations that we need – for instance insulating homes, solar panels on roofs, switching to 100% renewable energy, switching to a closed loop system for all our products – all these things generate economic activity and create jobs, they save us money, they improve communities as we build community gardens, create local resilience with local food gardens and market where people make genuine connections and communities come together to do positive things together

We need to shift away from a consumerist model of people being isolated in their homes…communities fragmenting, to rebuild community, to rebuild caring and empathy – empathy and compassion are really at the heart of what this is about.

When we look after the earth we look after each other and we look after ourselves. We do all three things simultaneously – it’s about love.

It’s about transforming the economic model. Some companies are starting to understand that if they want to exist in the long term, they have to start thinking about the long term. They’re not amoral agents in society, there to extract profit and nothing else. They have to do good in the world. It’s not enough not to do harm, they have to do good. You can make a profit out of that,

People are starting to understand that they are part of this world. That if they want a good life for themselves and their families their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren then they have to be a part of the solution, not part of the problem. Business is getting on board.

The old extractive industries making as much money as they can with no care for society or the environment or their workers – they’re there simply to make profit – they’re being superceded by a new generation of business people who actually understand that they’re part of society, they’re part of the world and they need to make an active contribution.

Activist: Yes. I knew I needed to change the world in some way.

Challenges: Bring the message of sustainability out there – firming up what it means for people, and how its different from what is happening now.

Advice: Get out and communicate with people.

Shane Gallagher [ 55:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Categories
government green party politics poverty

Activist-politician

Jan Logie

Can we afford policies to address child poverty? First, Yes. Second, Can we afford not to?

Jan Logie [ 54:11 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Jan Logie is a Green MP. Before becoming an MP Jan worked widely in New Zealand social and human rights organisations. She is Greens spokesperson for Income Support, Immigration, Women, Pacific Island Affairs, Ethnic Affairs, Human Rights, Rainbow Issues, Overseas Development Aid and Associate for Housing. We begin by asking if there is a common thread running through all those areas.

Talking points:

A lot of what is going wrong in our society is around unbalanced power. That’s around people access to things and it’s also around treatment of the planet.

I’ve always been bemused by people making social justice separate from environmental issues – it seems to me that the people messing up our planet are the same people with the wealth and the resources. They are able to do both of those things because they have too much power – an uneven share of power.

Go out and listen to people, rather than tell.

I really want everyone to be able to live up to their potential and live free lives. Domestic and sexual violence are massive barriers to that in New Zealand…epidemic rates…1 in 3 women likely to experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. In terms of sexual violence, the figures for girls are around 1 in 4, and for boys between 1 in 6 and 1 in 10 are likely to be sexually abused in this country… that’s horrific.

For some people the silence around these issues and the blame around these issues, will mean that they won’t get the help that they need…the consequences of that violence will be really compounded.

We need to make this a priority for us to deal with as a country.

We had a bit of a spate of taking it seriously politically, and then it went off the agenda, it’s almost like “oh we tried…there’s nothing more we can can do”. We’re starting to get another wave of a response, of people saying “this is ridiculous”. It doesn’t have to be like this, we need the systems responses, government departments to actually do what they need to do in response. And they’re not. The systems have been breaking down terribly.

It is absolutely a result of decisions made around the Cabinet table. Womens Refuges have had their baseline funding reduced over the last six years.

(On banknotes getting $80M but sexual violence advocates struggling) It’s just skewy values.

The women’s vote can swing an election.

What is primarily (but not exclusively) male violence against women is founded on a sense of entitlement…and that is founded on women having a lesser place in society.

Trickle down has been so thoroughly discredited, yet we hear it all the time….(To see how it doesn’t work)…you only have to look at how productivity has increased so much more than wages.

Child poverty is outrageous. A quarter of our children living in poverty. Numbers are disputed, but it was about 10% in the 1980s, and now it is around a quarter. And the levels of severe deprivation have increased.

They aren’t getting enough food, they don’t have warm houses, their houses are damp, they don’t have proper clothing, or shoes without holes.

Houses full of nothingness.

We’re taking out all of the things that help our children and young people grow and learn and thrive – they’ve just been sucked out of their lives by government policies.

Think about how important the first seven years are to someone’s entire life – and what we are doing to them, and as a consequence to all of us. It will require much more expensive interventions later, and it’ll never be an even playing.

To make inter-generational changes: start. Go beyond piecemeal.

Claims that you just need to be out working, shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of people’s lives and what we consider work. There’s also not enough jobs. And what about people with disabilities…are we saying that they’re not deserving to participate in society? And the value of parenting? And because levels of social harm haven’t been fully addressed…and not everyone is going to fit into our ultra-efficient high performing world. Some people fit into that and some people don’t – are we saying that they don’t deserve to be able to live a decent life?

There’s a really strong interaction between income support and work policies, we need to make people help make those links. It is in most of our interests to drive towards a high wage economy, where part of that economy is a decent social security system.

I’m getting a sense that there is a cultural shift away from individualism.

A meritocracy, deserving/undeserving poor concept rests on an individualistic approach. I’m sensing a cultural shift towards recognising our interdependence and the links between us.

The world, sadly, is proving our policies right. (would you like to be wrong on some of them?) Absolutely.

That’s the biggest question facing any movement for social change. How do we get there? The policies are clear, but it’s how do we bring people to the idea that those policies might actually work, that we all have something to gain from these policies.

There’s too big a gap between parliament and our social movements.

I see amazing people doing amazing things, and think this is really exciting, how do we create the tipping point of cultural understanding?

New Zealand has had a really vibrant civic society, that has characterised our society…the weakening of that it a huge lose to our society.

In my heart I’m an activist. But maybe I’m too deeply compromised as a politician…I like to think I’m an activist-politician.

The whole world feels a better place if you are active and trying to create the world you want.

(Miracle question) If everyone suddenly got that we’re all in this together.

Resources:
Bryan Bruce’s survey of political parties on child poverty.

Patricia Widener who discussed the role of activism and social movements.

Categories
government green party politics transport

Changing transport win:win

Julie Anne Genter

I realised that there’s not much you can do to improve things (in urban planning) if you don’t address transport…it affects many of the public spaces between the buildings, it impacts on the energy we have to use to get from place to place, and it also has a big impact on household expenses.

Julie Anne Genter [ 54:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Julie Anne Genter is a Member of Parliament for the Green Party. Amongst other roles, she is spokesperson for Transport.

Talking points

Transport is the easy win:win the thing we can change that would have a positive economic impact, positive impacts for society, and very positive impacts for the environment

How can walking, cycling and public transport possibly be more expensive than every household being utterly dependent on two or more cars?

“No blood for oil”…I was 12,and that made perfect sense to me, we shouldn’t be going to war, and certainly not for oil.

It would be useful to have more critical training. In politics there’s a lot of logical fallacies being used and they’re repeated in the mainstream media. It’s not that hard to pick it apart with training in critical thinking, but if people haven’t had that training there’s no reason people should be able to innately do it.

(On the argumentative theory of reason) Most people are quite bad at abstract reasoning…reason isn’t something that people use individually, it’s something that functions in a collective, it works through argument.. .people are really good at arguing their case, they’ve already got a position and they’re really good at finding arguments to support their position – whether they are logical or not – so reason operates as part of a group, we argue and debate, it is the wisdom of the crowds that sorts out which argument is best and makes the right decision.

Maybe what we need is critical thinking, but on the other hand maybe what we need is to be less afraid of having open debates…maybe that’s what’s missing in our democracy is having more people engaging in debate.

(one of the four values of the Green Party charter) appropriate decision making…decisions will be made at the lowest level at which they affect people…it’s important for all of the different points of view to be represented in political debate and that we have to be willing and open minded about listening to each other in order for us to make good decisions as a society…that doesn’t happen in parliament, the political parties already have their positions decided and most of the debate is just for show.

We’re not really listening, it’s like one party gets in power and they do whatever they want, then another party gets in power and does something different, but aren’t collectively having a debate and making decisions based on the information that’s available to all the different citizens of New Zealand, and I think we’d make better decisions if we were able to do that.

Spending almost half the entire transport budget on 4% of vehicle trips is a huge opportunity cost – those projects aren’t going to substantially reduce transport costs for households or business, they’re not going to reduce congestion in the medium or even short term…dumping more cars onto congested local roads…and it’s so crazy…spending this much money on new highways when we know highways don’t reduce congestion, they don’t increase economic productivity…what we could buy with 12 billion dollars to invest in the rail network, in public transport, in walking and cycling in towns and cities…we could have a much more balanced transport system.

It’s very strange that the rail network is expected to be funded by the profit from a rail company while we’re dumping billions of dollars on the state highway network.

the government treats them as two separate things…despite there being obvious benefits for the road network from improvements in the rail network.

Very few people benefit from the status quo

Getting more people onto public transport, walking and cycling is great for freeing up the roads for people who need to drive, including the truck drivers.

It’s a huge opportunity, it’s going to be so easy to do things smarter because we’re doing them so stupidly at the moment. What a win:win, we could spend the same amount of money on transport from a government perspective but spend a lot less in terms of vehicles and fuel, get massive health benefits…

When you look at the benefits of reducing vehicle dependency, it can be justified on economic grounds alone on the money your save, but also there’s the health benefits, benefits in terms of reducing air pollution and water pollution, benefits in terms of using land more efficiently, safety benefits…

(do we have the population density?) We had high functioning rail network and public transport before when we had a smaller population, more spread out…being a long skinny (country) lends itself to rail

Our system is built now for the car, and that has spread things out.

We don’t have to keep doing it…if we invest in the alternatives, people will still be able to drive but some people will have the option to walk, cycle or take public transport, and move their goods by rail or coastal shipping, and that will make the roads function better and people will make different location decisions.

We’re not talking about replacing the car, about replacing every car trip people make now with a public transport trip or a bicycle trip, it’s about getting it from 8 or 9 out of 10 to maybe 5 or 6 out of 10 – an incremental process. But that incremental change of getting back in balance requires a total revolution in funding and policy because otherwise we’re going to keep going in the car dependent direction.

People everywhere systematically overestimate the importance of car parking and car access to their businesses

It’s either a vicious or virtuous cycle and we can quite easily break the vicious cycle of car dependence because we’re the ones who started it….transport and planning bureaucrats who made the decision to do everything around cars

Electric vehicles solves the fuel problem but not everything else

(about the response to banners on the beach protesters being dismissed because they drove their car there) their argument is that you can’t argue for things to be different inf you are living in the world as it currently is – I don’t think that is a good argument, it says ‘if you want things to be different then you should somehow make the different’, but that’s what people are trying to do. I don’t blame people from using a car because we’ve created an environment where it is pretty difficult to do anything but use a car. That’s why I’m advocating for government to change its funding and policies to make it easier for more people not to rely on a car.

People are saying they want other choices, but they can’t go and live in a cave somewhere and change the world.

The only place where people call the Greens crazy is the National Party in parliament..they repeat this point over and over again in order not to have to engage in a proper debate with us, it somewhat works but it’s starting to make them look bad – for example over the climate plan…they called us “off the planet crazy” but they haven’t got a real argument.

I’m not anti-car and there’s nothing anti-car about our policies, this is going to be good for people that need to drive… we plan to increase road maintenance, increase the programme of road safety works, have a more ambitious road safety target…

Resources
Green Charter
Green’s Climate protection plan

Categories
green party waste

Denise Roche MP

Denise Roche [ 55:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Denise Roche is an NZ Green MP. She is, among other things, the Green spokesperson on waste issues. The key, she says, is seeing waste as a behaviour problem, not a transport problem. We ask how she became an activist and how she became “enraged by injustice”. While many of our guests shirk from being described as an “activist”, Denise wears this badge proudly. The biggest challenge we face is disengaged citizens (note: pointedly not “voter apathy”). She entered parliament a year ago, wanting to take part in political debates “like they matter” – we ask how’s that going? what she’s learnt, and who on the ‘other side’ is doing a good job.

Categories
climate change green party

Dr Kennedy Graham MP

Kennedy Graham [ 59:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Dr Kennedy Graham is a Green MP. After a distinguished diplomatic and academic career he is now Green spokesperson for lots of things (I summarise here as global issues).

Dr Graham describes his personal journey of working the diplomatic circles while the “people’s environmental movement” progressed from local to global concerns. The “crunch that is going to come” precipitated a move to a move activist role. The perfect storm of a massive increase in population, increasing individual consumption, and a social system entirely dependent on fossil fuels combine to mean we need to engender a massive change to how we live.

The nature of the challenge is unfortunately not reflected in public statements Dr Graham heard at the Rio 20 conference. He is disappointed by the ‘more of the same’ approach promoted by New Zealand’s Amy Adams. He is critical of the approach he describes at tinkering at the edges of a system that is fundamentally wrong. Indeed NZ’s formal position is one of no paradigm change.

Despite – or perhaps because of – a career in the diplomatic service, Dr Graham is critical of the structural dysfunctionality in the United Nations. Our global overshoot is a global problem, he says, “but we are attempting to solve it with 193 squabbling independent nation states all seeking to maximise their natural advantage against each other”. This “competitive pursuit guarantees ecological overshoot”.

We are, Graham says, in a “twilight zone that is part denial, part Gallic shrug of indifference, part catatonic fear”. We need to change how our species lives and our global machinery. We need to change our individual consumption.

Shane’s number of the week: 96%. That’s a 96% reduction in the use of supermarket plastic bags in Wales with the introduction of a small charge and the plastic bag becoming a social no no.

Shane’s other number of the week: 3215. That’s the number of records for the daily maximum temperature in the US in June.

Categories
green party politics

Steffan Browning MP

Steffan Browning on Sustainable Lens: resilience on radio [ 58:32 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Steffan Browning holds the agriculture portfolio for the Greens in the New Zealand parliament. He tells us of his passion and experience of running an organic greenhouse business. Local food production, he argues, is vital to constructing a more resilient society. He tells us of his experiences on the Primary Production Select Committee -asking hard questions from people who previously wouldn’t have granted him an interview.

Shane’s number of the week: 3.5. That’s a 3.5% reduction on 1990 emissions in an inventory report on net C02 from Ministry of Environment. BUT the methodology has changed – primarily how forests are counted. Net emissions have increased and are continuing to increase.

Sam’s joined-up-thinking: Prompted by the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World 2012: Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity, Sam talks about imagery of sustainability. The Worldwatch report describes a path to sustainability that sees green growth in developing countries matched by degrowth in overdeveloped counties.

Categories
green party politics

Holly Walker MP

Holly Walker [ 52:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Holly Walker is a new Green MP, or perhaps it should be “an MP for the Green Party”.  She is spokesperson for Housing, Electoral Reform, Children, Open Government, Arts Culture & Heritage, Youth & Students. Befitting these wide ranging areas we have a wide ranging discussion:

  • Is it easy being green?
  • Does being in parliament change being an activist?
  • Who does not agree that “inequality is good for no-one”?
  • Who has she enjoyed meeting from across the house?
  • Why does parliament play up its combative image?
  • How are future generations represented in decision making
  • Will we ever get past a growth paradigm when the very idea of constraints are an anathema to many?
  • Will we ever see progress on alternative progress indicators?
  • How can we better engage young people in parliament?
  • What could parties be doing better in social media?
  • Why are we encouraged to digest the “pull yourself up” meme?

Shane’s number of the week: 51. That is 51% – we have had 51% increase in hospital admissions from infectious diseases in the past 20 years which is out of line with developed countries and one which is incidentally costing New Zealand millions of dollars a year. (more from NZ Herald).

Sam’s joined-up-thinking: “Realising value proposition” is the catchphrase of the capstone projects in Information Technology Sam runs at Otago Polytechnic. We talk about successes in the sustainable space of previous years: myGreenFeat; Arai te Uru; Housing Stars; EducatingCambodia.com; SmartAid; PestWeb; Farmwise, and eHeritage. Several new projects include citizen science; peace foundation; farm environmental accreditation, and plant identification. To these projects we can variously add smartphone, processing, participation, gamification and entrepreneurial.  Going be a busy year – will keep you posted.

Trainspotting:  Anton describes David Clark as so old-fashioned he’s fashionable.  Sam says the words “tear down paradise put up a parking lot”.

Categories
green party politics

Gareth Hughes MP

Gareth Hughes, Green MP on Sustainablelens.org [ 58:09 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Gareth Hughes is the Green Party’s spokesperson on climate change, housing, ICT, libraries and archives, oceans, transport, and youth. After growing up in Gisborne, Gareth studied religious studies, history and politics at Victoria University of Wellington. He worked for Greenpeace in Australia and New Zealand from 2000–2005, and then worked for the Green Party on climate change issues.

Instead of a summary, imagine this is a wordcloud of our discussion: (that would be cool, I should make one)…
roads, driving, mainstream choices, farebox ratio, subsidy of roading transport, telecommuting.
non-violent direct action, social media, activism, poverty, not living in a stratified society,
compromising positions, politics not being a dirty world but integral to making a real change,
richer New Zealand, biological politics, open transparent politics, rational debate, open government, farming, RMA reforms, ETS, community decision making, ecologically concious decision making, aquaculture, rivers, mmp, oil drilling, charter principles, not being the annoying guy, maturing, transformation, connect construct contribute, quality accommodation, capital gains, economic growth, steady state.

Shane’s number of the week: 2 million kilometre square hole in the ozone over the Arctic.

Sam’s joined up thinking: Deep Ecology: The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes. (read more).

Categories
green party politics

Dr Russel Norman MP

Dr Russel Norman [ 50:12 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Dr Russel Norman is the Green Party’s male Co-leader. In this interview we talk about the potential for a green economy. Russel says the green economy is good for business, but maybe not all business – there are sectors of our economy that are deeply unsustainable. We need to find ways to overcome barriers to a cultural transformation.

We ask if he feel like he is pushing uphill? Do other parties in parliament get it? Russel has great insights on why things happen that seem to fly in the face of rational thought. The obsession with motorways comes from a perception that we have to catch up with the rest of the world – even if everyone else has moved onto rail. Structural changes are needed – rail and ports have to make a profit but roads are a loss making service – in effect a massive subsidy for trucking companies.

Note: this interview was recorded earlier in the week before the Government released the New Zealand Energy Strategy and the New Zealand Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy. The Greens describe the strategies as a “missed opportunity“.

Categories
climate change green party politics

Jeanette Fitzsimons

JeanetteFitzsimons [ 56:48 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


Jeanette Fitzsimons in a wide ranging interview talks about lignite mining, her current tour with James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute, why politicians are not moving on climate change issues, her view of what an activist is and life after being an MP.

Shane’s number of the week: 50% – the UK govt. has just  announced that it is to adopt plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% on 1990 levels by 2025 reaching 60% by 2030.

Categories
government green party politics

Metiria Turei MP

Metiria Turei [ 59:17 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download


A Green MP since 2002, Metiria was elected Green Party Co-leader in 2009.

In a wide ranging and fascinating interview we talk to Metiria about her father, green politics, rude politicians, poverty, what a sustainable economy would look like and whether she would like to be the first co-Prime Minister of New Zealand Aotearoa.

Metiria’s focus is policy work that helps build a more fair society, as well as electoral law reform and children’s issues. She’s previously led campaigns to save our National Parks from mining, protect the Mokihinui River, and has fought for greater protection of marine animals and the marine environment. Metiria also advocates for implementation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, restorative justice, and a quality public education system. With a law degree from Auckland, Metiria has previously worked as a lawyer at Simpson Grierson and as an advocate for the unemployed and beneficiaries.

When able to escape the world of politics, Metiria spends time with her family in Dunedin.

 

Shane’s number of the week:  90%

– there is a 90% increase in the risk of psychological illness when you experience food insecurity in New Zealand.

Sam’s joined up thinking:  Earth Day – “mother earth is having her human rights recognised” but we’re a long way off an understanding of what this means (read more>>).