Weekly Catchup w/ The Green Party's Ricardo Menendez March: 23 July, 2025

Recent statistics on inflation published earlier this week showed that consumer prices had risen by 2.7% in the last 12 months to June.

Stats NZ identified the main contributor to inflation as local authority rates and payments, which were up 12.2%.

Earlier this week, the Green party recently called on the government to lower the minimum voting age to 16, which was in response to a move by the UK government last week, where they announced their plans to lower the voting age to 16 in time for their next general election.

And the most recent figures from the Ministry of Social Development were published which showed that benefit sanctions have increased by 27% compared to last year, with the number of people receiving the benefit also increasing by 6.6%.

For our weekly catchup with the Green party, Oto spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez-March to get the party’s take on all of these issues.