OraTaiao Convenor Summer Wright and Executive Board Member George Laking

9 June 2026

Tuesday 17 February 2026

Climate and Health experts say they have major concerns about plans to merge several ministries that are crucial to the country’s climate change response, given the Government’s track record of weakening or removing climate-critical policies and its chaotic upheaval of institutions like local government

Yesterday, as many communities around the country were busy responding to the recent extreme weather events, the Government released the draft bill to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment. 

Dr Summer Wright, OraTaiao convenor, says the Government pushing forward with plans to merge the Ministry for the Environment with the Ministries of Transport, Housing and Urban Development, after spending their years in power weakening or removing policies designed to respond to climate change, is a serious cause for concern.

“Environment, transport, housing and urban development are critical in our national response to climate change, both mitigation and adaptation. The Government has shown in its actions over the last two years that it either does not understand, or is choosing to deny, the seriousness of climate change”. 

With the ACT leader demanding smaller government over the weekend while celebrating more fossil fuel and agricultural emissions, it is clear a merger of this nature under this Government is a danger to our communities.”

“Climate change and the health, well-being and stability of our communities are clearly linked. Anyone witnessing the flooding and storm damage, including the loss of lives, can see this.”

Monday 20 October 2025

This week’s major public sector strike is essential to demand the strengthening of the country’s public health services, damaged by the Government’s funding cuts and harmful policy changes, and to stand against creeping privatisation, says climate and health advocacy group OraTaiao.

“OraTaiao stands with those striking this week and recognises that this strike is essential in the face of harmful policy decisions, chronic underfunding and a clear, creeping privatisation agenda from this Government,” says OraTaiao Convenor Dr Summer Wright.

“We have a proudly public healthcare system and we must stand together to keep it that way,” says Wright.

“A strong public healthcare sector represents the best of us. It demonstrates how democratic societies can organise themselves to provide for their people and communities. It should be a source of pride and strength for our country. Our healthcare system should not be subjected to chronic underfunding and cruel policy choices that leave health workers exhausted, critical health services weak, and patients and communities more vulnerable to ill-health.”

MEDIA RELEASE: Climate and health advocates condemn Select Committee’s recommendation that the anti-democratic Regulatory Standards Bill be passed

Friday 10 October 2025

The Aotearoa New Zealand Climate and Health Council, OraTaiao, condemns the Finance and Expenditure Committee’s recommendation that the Government’s anti-democratic Regulatory Standards Bill be passed. The recommendation was made public today with the release of the Committee’s report on the Bill. 

“The Regulatory Standards Bill threatens to undermine our collective well-being, our people’s health, our work to respond to climate change and will worsen inequities by eroding the democratic and social fabric of Aotearoa New Zealand,” says OraTaiao Convenor Dr Summer Wright.

“The process of the Bill’s development and subsequent consultation have been cynical and disgraceful.” 

“And now the Coalition members of the Finance and Expenditure Committee have essentially ignored the vast majority of the public, including more than 150,000 submitters, who oppose this anti-democratic bill and sought to make themselves heard by the Government.”

27 August 2025

OraTaiao supports the intent of this long-term insights briefing (‘the briefing’). However, we believe it can be meaningfully improved and wish to make the following recommendations:

1. Addition of Te Tiriti as a foundation of resilience building.
2. Greater emphasis on the intersection between health and hazards throughout. 
3. Improved articulation of equity and greater emphasis on the necessity of equity in resilience building. 
4. Improved articulation of ‘Climate change and environmental stress’ in Section 2: Forces that shape risk and resilience.
5. Additions to Section 2: Forces that shape risk and resilience.
6. Accuracy on the current status of the Resource Management Act and its relationship to hazards planning.

27 August 2025

OraTaiao is very concerned with the direction this Bill is taking the local government. Local government plays critical roles in human health, and in climate change adaptation, mitigation, and resilience building. This Bill fails to recognise these roles and, with little analysis, restricts local governments’ ability to deliver on communities’ climate and health needs.

We oppose the drastic narrowing of local government functions as it will put human health, climate resilience, and community wellbeing at serious risk. The Bill undermines councils’ ability to act preventatively, instead seeming to relegate them to crisis response once harms have already occurred. It is fiscally short-sighted and will compound inequities in health and wellbeing.

We are deeply concerned about the ad hoc nature of this and other legislative changes. The Government’s piecemeal approach is creating contradictory requirements and responsibilities for local government, with little or no consideration of human health, climate change, or the immense social and economic costs of climate impacts.

We also note the ongoing and deplorable removal of Te Tiriti provisions from public policy by the current Coalition Government. In this Bill, the removal of the requirement for councils to consider tikanga Māori knowledge when appointing council-controlled organisation directors erodes cultural competence and undermines equity. This will weaken the ability of communities to build enduring resilience and health, and reverses progress towards honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in local decision-making.

This submission covers:

1. The role of local government in health and climate change, and the need for decisions that recognise these intersections.
2. The failure of the proposed “core functions” and their long-term costs.
3. The value of the four wellbeings, and the wasted resources caused by repeated policy reversals.
4. The importance of Te Tiriti in legislation including for local government.

MEDIA RELEASE, 18 August 2025

Submissions closed today on the Government’s Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill and OraTaiao, the Aotearoa NZ Health and Climate Council, is warning the Bill proposes to profoundly damage an already weakened health system.

OraTaiao, representing more than 1000 health professionals, workers and researchers, says the Bill proposes to restrict the work of our health system to the provision of services to those who are already sick rather than continue vital work that aims to keep the public healthy and well.

“The Bill proposes to rip the guts out of our health system, which is already suffering under the Government’s harmful cuts,” says OraTaiao convener Dr Summer Wright. 

OraTaiao is opposed to the possible changes to health workforce regulation outlined in the Ministry of Health's Discussion document. Our submission focuses on the ignorance of the role of cultural safety and Te Tiriti o Waitangi in clinical safety, co-option of health language to justify inappropriate overstep into health professional regulation, and clear contradictions in stated goals versus what the actual outcomes would be. We suggest that this review be revoked and reattempted in good faith. Read our submission here.

OraTaiao Executive Board member, Steve Grimson, has written an opinion piece in response to the red flags in the Ministry of Health's consultation on 'Putting Patients First: Modernising health workforce regulation'. Removing cultural requirements from health workforce regulation compromises the quality of care and takes us backward from progress made toward health equity. Steve shares his thoughts on the proposed changes.

MEDIA RELEASE, 9 April 2025

OraTaiao calls on all of Aotearoa to take a stand for climate health at this Friday’s Climate Strike on Parliament Grounds.

“As health practitioners, we know that the health of our environment is fundamental to human wellbeing” says Dr. Steve Grimson, executive member of OraTaiao. “That’s why we’ve issued medical certificates for people of all ages, across Aotearoa, to join this Friday’s call to action”.