MEDIA RELEASE, 4 September 2024

Aotearoa Healthcare Workers for Palestine, OraTaiao Aotearoa NZ Climate and Health Council, and Te Kāhui Manukura o Kai Ora (NZ Māori Dietitians Association) together call for Pharmac to stop buying New Zealand’s medicines from Israeli-based company Teva and choose other suppliers.

Their submissions to Pharmac highlight how Teva, an Israeli global pharmaceutical company, is involved and profiting from Israel’s system of apartheid in the Palestinian Occupied Territories (OPT; encompasses Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem).

MEDIA RELEASE, 3 April 2024

OraTaiao calls on all of Aotearoa to get active and take a stand for health this Friday, by joining the School Strike for Climate Strike to be held in at least 20 locations around the country.

MEDIA RELEASE, 26 February 2024 

OraTaiao is appalled by Government plans to introduce legislation abolishing Te Aka Whai Ora ahead of an urgent Waitangi Tribunal hearing on the matter on Thursday. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 22 September 2023

A Health election scorecard, released today by OraTaiao: The New Zealand Climate and Health Council, shows significant room for improvement from all parties. Representing more than 1,000 health professionals and health organisations in Aotearoa, OraTaiao is part of a worldwide movement urgently focusing on the health challenges of climate change and the health opportunities of climate action.

MEDIA RELEASE, 19 September 2023

Protection from adverse effects of climate change has been affirmed as a right for all children under international law by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

Launched yesterday in Geneva, the Committee’s General Comment No. 26 (2023) on Children’s Rights and the Environment With a Special Focus on Climate Change places new legal obligations on States, like New Zealand, which have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

“As a contributor to the UN Committee which issued this statement, OraTaiao welcomes its wide-ranging verdict and we urge the New Zealand Government to now honour its obligations to act for our children”, says OraTaiao Co-convenor Summer Wright. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 3 July 2023

OraTaiao, the New Zealand Climate and Health Council, is joining the call for Waka Kotahi to liberate the lane following the release of a report showing the viability of reallocating one lane of traffic on the harbour bridge for walking and cycling.

MEDIA RELEASE, 17 May 2023

Ahead of UN climate change negotiations in Dubai at the end of the year, a report from the Global Climate and Health Alliance has delivered a damning assessment of New Zealand’s commitment to a healthy, climate safe future. 

MEDIA RELEASE, 8 May 2023

Three of NZ’s key climate & health advocacy groups – 350 Aotearoa, OraTaiao: NZ Climate and Health Council, and Generation Zero – have come out strongly against a full or partial sale of Auckland Council’s airport shares.

MEDIA RELEASE, 27 February 2023

OraTaiao calls on all of Aotearoa to take a stand for human health at this Friday’s Climate Strikes to be held in ten cities and towns around our country. 

“As health workers, we know that our changing climate is both the biggest threat to human health and well-being,” says Dr Dermot Coffey, OraTaiao co-convenor, “and the biggest chance to build a fairer, healthier Tiriti-founded future together.”

“The tragic losses from cyclones across Te Ika a Māui call for compassion, clean-ups, resilience-building – and most of all, fast cuts to our climate-destabilising emissions.”

“This is why we have issued medical certificates for everyone of every age and everywhere in Aotearoa, to join this Friday’s Global Climate Strike”, says Dr Coffey.