The Green Party's Ricardo Menéndez March

On Monday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced a new National Party Kiwisaver policy, where they’re looking to further increase the default Kiwisaver contribution rate. Luxon said, if re-elected, National would continue to gradually increase the default contribution rates by 0.5% per year until 2032, when both employees and employers would pay 6% each.

The Government also announced that New Zealand would become the latest country to halt new prescriptions for puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria. In response to this, Ricardo Menendez March told RNZ that the government was “buying into imported culture wars”. 

And last week saw the end of the COP30 climate summit. One of the major outcomes of the summit was that more than 80 countries, including the United Kingdom and Pacific Island Nations, signed a roadmap to phase out fossil fuels, but New Zealand chose not to.

For our Weekly Catchup with The Green Party, Wednesday Wire Host Max spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez March about The Green Party’s reaction to the COP30 summit, as well as their thoughts on the Government’s decision to halt new prescriptions of puberty blockers for young people with gender dysphoria.

But first, we started with National’s new Kiwisaver policy.

Recently, the Labour Party have unveiled their capital gains tax (CGT) policy.

The policy only targets properties, with the exception of family homes, and farms. The tax policy, according to Labour, will supply all New Zealanders with three free doctor visits yearly.

For our weekly catch up with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menéndez March, News and Editorial Director Joel spoke to him about Labour’s CGT policy, and what the Green’s think of it.

They also discussed the funding cuts for the Māori news organisation’s Te Karere and The Hui, as well as how the Green Party will be campaigning 1 year out from the next general election.

But first, they discussed Labour’s CGT policy.

While speaking at the Eightieth session of the United Nations General Assembly over the weekend, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that New Zealand would not be recognising a Palestinian state at this point in time.

Peters’ rationale was that Hamas’s leadership in Gaza would make recognising Palestine an unwise move for New Zealand to make at this point, additionally stating that it could trigger a reaction from Israel that would lead to more aggressive policies in both Gaza and the West Bank, subsequently threatening the two state solution.

However, with more than 40% of the New Zealand public expressing support for Palestinian recognition and for stronger action to be taken against Israel for their actions in Gaza, which the The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory has officially referred to as a genocide, this decision by Peters’ has been the subject of widespread controversy amongst activists, experts and a large portion of the general public.

Additionally, despite claiming to take a more balanced and calculated approach to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Winston Peters’ decision at the UN General Assembly has placed New Zealand within a small handful of western nations who have refused to recognise Palestine, with the United Kingdom, France, Canada and our close Ally Australia all announcing their recognition of Palestine shortly before.

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party’s Ricardo Menendez-March, Oto spoke to him about Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ decision not to recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly.

They also spoke about the government’s decision last week to resume oil and gas exploration across Aotearoa.

The Greens recently made renewed calls to the government to recognise Palestinian statehood and place sanctions on Israel.

These calls were made both in light of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly which opened last week, as well as the recent 20,000-strong Pro-Palestinian protest in Tāmaki-Makaurau being the largest Pro-Palestinian protest in the history of Aotearoa.

Additionally, the Greens recently called for the voting period on the Māori wards referendum to be extended after candidate profiles were omitted on voting packs in a number of districts, despite being listed in voting papers.

Voters on the Māori roll in affected districts have begun receiving letters with the missing profiles, but concerns have been raised about the impacts to voter access to information caused by the error.

And, last week, the latest ETS auction in New Zealand, which was held on September 10, 2025, failed to attract any bids and resulted in no clearing price, making it the third consecutive failed auction in 2025 and the eighth consecutive failed auction overall

For our weekly catchup with the Green Party, Wednesday Wire Host Oto spoke with MP Ricardo Menendez-March to discuss all these issues