Thursday, 1 July 2021, 10:08 am
“The Government is taking the whole country on the path
to being an ethno-state, not just the select Māori leaders
it’s chosen to consult on its implementation of He
Puapua,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“If
there’s to be a constitutional conversation, everybody
deserves to be part of it. The thing is, this constitutional
conversation is about excluding most New Zealanders from
having full political rights, and the Government has started
as it means to go on.
“Since the National Party
signed us up to the UN Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples thinking it wouldn’t matter, New
Thursday, 1 July 2021, 9:51 am
Going West Festival’s 26th season is dialing it up,
offering four multi-media Saturday evening events featuring
Aotearoa’s finest writers of prose, poetry and music once
a month from August.
Launching on Saturday 14 August,
the richly layered new-format offers something for everyone
with a love of reading and ideas.
“Going West
Festival is 25 years old this year. We want to demonstrate
our commitment to the next quarter century with a fresh
programming approach. There will be live music, oratory,
performance and kōrero taking place, as well as pop up
performances and installations, on multiple stages, with
Thursday, 1 July 2021, 1:18 pm
“The Government needs to scrap its Healthy Homes rules
and go back to the drawing board, including properly
consulting experts and landlords”, says ACT Housing
Spokesperson and Deputy Leader Brooke van
Velden.
“Public Housing Minister Poto Williams has
admitted that the Government’s Healthy Homes rules
aren’t right but that landlords still have to comply with
them.
“I have spoken with a heating and ventilation
expert who has said that the Government has got this
completely wrong. That expert has estimated that the cost
for the oversized heat pumps will be several hundred million
dollars across more than 500,000 rental
Minister for Building and
Construction
In the year ended May 2021, the
actual number of new dwellings consented was
43,466.
The annual value of non-residential building
work consented was $7.9 billion, up 21 percent from the May
2020 year.
The number of new townhouses, flats and
units consented in May 2021 is 1,380.
Government
support for and investment in the construction sector is
once again paying off with the highest annual number of
residential building consents on record, says Minister for
Building and Construction Poto Williams.
“We are
consenting more homes than ever before. In March we reached
an all-time high, and May results show we’re keeping this
Thursday, 1 July 2021, 9:20 am
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has not been shy about
his aim to rapidly reduce the prison population by 30 per
cent and it is perhaps the only target this Government is
actually going to meet. However, Labour’s
‘Hate-Speech’ law changes might put a spanner in the
works, National’s Corrections spokesperson Simeon Brown
says.
“The Government has been moving quickly to
reduce the prison population, which poses the question
whether they are planning to start filling them again with
people who break their new ‘hate speech’ laws which come
with a maximum penalty of 3 years in jail.