The Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March

Foreign Minister Winston Peters recently completed the last leg of his trip across the Pacific in Hawai’i, having hosted a number of meetings with US military and political leaders in the American Indo-Pacific territories.

Winston Peters said that this portion of his Pacific trip was aimed at strengthening New Zealand’s partnership with the United States and our shared strategic objectives in the Pacific, additionally saying that “Our Pacific links with the United States are more important than ever”.

The week before, the Greens recently made a renewed call for Visa waivers to be granted to Pacific Nationals looking to travel to Aotearoa after the government announced that visitors from Pacific Islands Forum countries may be eligible for a multi-entry visa, into Aotearoa from July onwards.

And the government recently released their annual child poverty statistics, which showed an increase in the number of Tamariki experiencing material hardship, rates of food insecurity and the number of children in households receiving a main benefit.

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party, Oto spoke to Green Party MP Ricardo Menendez-March about all of these issues.

Just recently, Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, Brooke Van Velden, announced sweeping changes to health and safety regulations for businesses that she described as “low-risk”.

Some of the changes involved: narrowing the focus of the Health and Safety at Work Act to risks only causing death, serious injury or illness, creating a hotline for the public to report “overzealous” road cone placement and reducing "tick-box and safety activities" such as psychosocial harm policies for small businesses. 

Around this same period of time, Greens MPs Tamatha Paul and Benjamin Doyle received intense media and political scrutiny for comments they made at a university panel and on social media respectively, with the backlash towards Doyle forcing them to abstain from parliament this week.

The Greens recently issued a call to the government to scrap their proposed changes to Early Childhood Care, which involve recognising qualifications other than early childhood teaching qualifications, removing up to 74% of ECE licensing criteria and removing requirements for regular updates and family.

In their weekly catchup with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March, Oto spoke to him about the party’s take on all of these issues.

As of yesterday, New Zealand Immigration have implemented stricter health screening requirements for the dependent children of temporary visa holders.

Under the new regulations, migrant children with significant cognitive or developmental disabilities requiring substantial support will no longer be eligible for student or visitor visas.

In that same week, Volunteer firefighters across the motu launched a petition calling for legislation change that would give volunteer firefighters the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts.

And, ACT party leader David Seymour announced that he wants local councillor candidates to be able to run under the party’s banner in the upcoming October elections.

For their weekly catch up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March for the green party’s take on all of these issues.

The ministry for Primary Industries has launched an investigation after a number of meals served to children by the School Lunch Collective were found to have their plastic packaging melted into their food.

This would be the fourth investigation launched into the collective after the government introduced the Alternative Provision Model for Ka Ora Ka Ako, replacing local suppliers.

Around this same period of time, a consultation document was sent to schools across the motu by education minister Erica Stanford asking for feedback on a proposal to defund and disestablish 174 full time roles for Resource Teachers of Literacy and Resource Teachers of Māori.

And the Greens recently issued a call to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon calling on him to rule out any possibility of joining the AUKUS military pact, following the contentious bilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Whitehouse last week.

For their weekly catch up, Oto spoke to the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March for the Green Party’s take on all of these issues.