Author: Violet

We all need electricity to stay safe and healthy through winter. Whether it’s cooking meals to fill our bellies, making a loved one a cup of tea or turning a heater on to warm our children’s bedrooms at night, these are the things that help us get through winter.  

However, people on low-incomes in Aotearoa can end up paying a premium to keep their electricity connected. 

Last year more than 6,540 households had their power disconnected because they did not (or could not) pay their bills. Companies were then allowed to charge them a disconnection fee and reconnection fee, which can total up to $300, adding to that household’s debt. 

Many customers with poor credit then end up with no alternatives but to use prepay electricity, which at times has cost up to 17% more than pay-monthly plans². Households then have no choice but to sit without power because they can’t afford to top up. Data on these prepay disconnections is not even recorded. 

And right now, despite knowing the outcomes, The Electricity Authority Te Mana Hiko – which writes rules for electricity companies – allows this to continue!

That is why we support Common Grace’s request to the Electricity Authority to protect people struggling with power prices by:

1. Banning disconnection and reconnection fees in case of unpaid bills.
2. Making prepay no more expensive than a retailer’s cheapest plan, and publish prepay disconnection data.
3. Introducing mandatory consumer protections. 

There is still time to sign the petition! It is being handed over at Parliament on Wednesday 24 July.

Fridays for Future Te Upoko o Te Ika supported the People over Profit march earlier this month.

Read Julian’s report on the day, on the EcoKiwi Magazine Pōneke on Substack. It’s got heaps of photos!

The government is proposing a suite of changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA), this time to repeal all regulations on mud farming and other essential freshwater protections.

The Bill risks facilitating the expansion of mud farming with fewer checks and balances – meaning we could see more animals living and giving birth in mud.

Removing these protections also threatens to exacerbate freshwater pollution, exposing more Kiwis to contaminated drinking water and endangering species that depend on freshwater habitats.

If you want to make a submission opposing this Bill, you must do it before 11:59PM on 30 June.

Greenpeace is running an online submission party.

Submission guides:

• Greenpeace
• SAFE
• Forest and Bird

Conservation Minister Tama Potaka recently said that it’s more cost-effective to let some species go extinct.

Read the Newsroom article about it.

But if you believe the job of the minister and DoC is to protect nature, and preserve threatened plant and animal species, why not tell them? After all, they work for you.

Tama.Potaka@parliament.govt.nz or
info@doc.govt.nz Subject: Attn: Penny Nelson

Fast fashion has created underpriced disposable clothing, and is enabling environmental destruction. It is driven by capitalism and corporate profit, driving the world’s biggest problems such as the climate, biodiversity and humanitarian crises.

The fashion industry is responsible for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

🧵We need to regulate the industry and slow down the giant corporate overproduction of fast fashion.

Fast fashion is second to oil in its damage to our environment. Oil is currently involved in every part of the production and delivery process of fast fashion, including the creation of the materials (such as polyester and nylon).

Ghana’s desert and other places around the world have become dumping grounds for the worlds throw-away clothes. Micro plastics are pouring into our oceans everyday from simply washing our clothes made out of plastic.

Fast fashion depends on modern slavery. 1 in every 130 women and girls around the world fall victim to modern slavery, many working in sweatshops creating garments for fast fashion brands.

🧵We need businesses that honour our environment and life on earth, the natural laws that we operate inside of. We need policies from Government that will control and regulate the industry and put the responsibility back on corporations.

It doesn’t have to be this way. By regulating to slow down fast fashion we can use and appreciate what we have. We can support our local clothes designers and makers.

🧵Join the rebellion!

Sign the petition and demand an end to our part in the harms of fast fashion.

March for Nature

If you will be in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, join Greenpeace, Forest & Bird, Communities Against Fast Track, Coromandel Watchdog, WWF-NZ, and Kiwis Against Seabed Mining, in the March for Nature! This is a protest against the fast-track approvals bill.

It starts at 1pm at Aotea Square.

Find out more on the March for Nature website.

People over Profit

If you will be in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, you won’t miss out.

Join ActionStation, Pōneke Anti-Fascist Coalition, Renters United and others, to protest against cuts to public services.

Rally at 1pm at Pukeahu Memorial Park, marching to Te Papa.

Learn more about this event on the People over Profit Facebook

If passed, the Local Government (Electoral Legislation and Māori Wards and Māori Constituencies) Amendment Bill will force local councils to hold a binding referendum on Māori wards.

Make a submission to save Māori wards, by end of day Wednesday 29 May.

The Coalition Government plans to superpower the climate crisis with new coal mining.

Sign the Green Party petition to stop coal mining in New Zealand.

Under the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), businesses have to buy carbon credits that allow them to produce greenhouse gases, which is meant to motivate them to reduce their emissions.

But certain businesses get free carbon credits. They’re businesses deemed to be ‘Emissions Intensive and Trade Exposed’ (that they have significant emissions, but would face a competitive disadvantage if they had to pay for their emissions while similar industries in other countries wouldn’t). Also known as preventing ’emissions leakage’.

In 2021, free carbon credits made up 6.6 million of a total 33 million units in the emissions cap (20% of credits surrendered by polluters that year were given to them by the government for free).

Just four businesses received 75% of these free credits:

• NZ Steel (owned by Bluescope)
• Ballance – a fertiliser company
• Methanex – a fossil fuel company exporting methanol, and
• NZ Aluminium Smelters (owned by Rio Tinto) – making aluminium for export.

These four businesses are responsible for 7.45% of NZ’s gross emissions.

Even if agriculture was to enter the ETS from 2025, it would also receive free credits to cover 95% of its emissions.

That’s why a coalition of environment groups (including Common Grace Aotearoa, Parents for Climate Aotearoa and Oxfam Aotearoa) is supporting a campaign to end carbon credits.

Learn more about the End Free Credits campaign.

Sign the petition on Action Station.