As always, we are grateful for the mahi you do and for your support of OraTaiao. 

Good news:  

• Our public sector (many of you!) stood together in major strike action last week. With a significant majority of the public supporting the strike, it sends a loud message to the Government that we value a well-funded public service, including a strong public healthcare system. Read OraTaiao's press release in support of the strike.

• Our opinion piece on the harmful changes to the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act was published by Stuff and in The Press, authored by Convenor Summer and Executive Board members Hōri and Dermot.

• A new paper published in the NZ Medical Journal: 'Climate change impacts on health in Aotearoa New Zealand: a scoping review' by Executive Board Member Isabella Lenihan-Ikin, Convenor Summer Wright and co-authors.

Executive Board Members Vicktoria Blake and Isabella Lenihan-Ikan at the Adaptation Futures conference in Ōtautahi where Isabella presented the findings of her paper.

Opportunities:

• Members' Survey: Please help guide the direction of OraTaiao during the General Election year 2026 and let us know how you might like to be involved over the year. The survey will take you 5 minutes and will extremely helpful to us. We will feedback the results of the survey at the AGM (27th Nov).

Mauri ora,

Summer & Marnie

Latest updates from OraTaiao

OraTaiao AGM, Online 7pm 27th November 2025

We hope to see many of our members at our Annual General Meeting for 2025. It's so important that this is the third time we've mentioned it in this pānui! 

For us to be confident that we will have a quorum on the day, we'd really appreciate if you would register your intention to attend here.

The 'general meeting' side of things will be kept to a minimum and we will have wonderful guest speaker, Michelle Isles to give us lots of food for thought going into election year.

CE of the Australian Climate and Health Alliance, Michelle has worked at the nexus of climate action, health and wellbeing for 20 years across the Asia-Pacific region. Those who attended the ‘Taiao. Tangata. Hauora’ conference earlier this year may recognise Michelle.

 AGM Guest Speaker Michelle Isles, CE of the Australian Climate and Health Alliance.

To get focused for the General Election Year 2026, we need you!

We're looking to focus OraTaiao mahi for the General Election year. We want to do this so we can be more impactful rather than spreading our mahi too thinly across a large number of issues.

So we want to know what you, our members, think OraTaiao should focus on over the General Election year. 

This survey has 5 quick questions and it should take you 5 to 15 mins to complete, depending on how much you'd like to share.

The survey also asks how you, as an OraTaiao member, might like to be involved in this General Election year mahi.

Take the survey here and we will report back with its results at the AGM.

More submissions: OraTaiao on the record

In September and October, we have continued to record our opposition where communities' health and wellbeing, Te Tiriti and other foundations of our democracy are being eroded through legislative and policy changes.

This month, OraTaiao made an oral submission on the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill.

"OraTaiao has a strong interest in this Bill due to its implications for regional and community based climate change responses and its implications for people’s health...this Bill would have the effect of restricting local government’s ability to do the necessary broad consulting, research and planning to reduce the impact of climate change on communities." 

 OraTaiao Coordinator Marnie Prickett speaking to the Governance and Administration Select Committee.

We also made a written submission on the Summary Offences (Demonstrations Near Residential Premises) Amendment Bill. 

"The right to protest is fundamental to healthy democracies. It is, therefore, essential that any restrictions on this right are proportional, seek to attend to a significant and well-defined problem and do not undermine or ‘chill’ legitimate protest action.

We recognise that harassment of public figures, including MPs, is an issue but we believe that the response to this (be it changes to the law or otherwise) needs to be more carefully considered and constructed than what has been proposed in this Bill."

News in climate and health

Indigenous climate adaptation network launched

The new network, launched at the recent Adaptation Futures conference, aims to build a global movement grounded in Indigenous knowledge, centred on decolonising systems and financial mechanisms, and ensuring Indigenous peoples have direct access to climate finance, the funding that supports actions to address and adapt to climate change.

“The Indigenous Forum came from what we learnt at the previous two adaptation conferences. The recommendations from Indigenous peoples were to step it up a bit at this conference and create an intentional day and space for Indigenous voices,” Lisa Tumahai (Ngāi Tahu), NZ patron for Adaptation Futures 2025 and deputy chair of the NZ Climate Commission explained.

Read Te Ao Māori News' full coverage here.

NZ's Methane targets weakened making international news

The Government continues its irresponsible approach to climate change with the recent announcement to dramatically weaken our national target for reducing methane emissions.

This has made international news. The Guardian reporting, "New Zealand accused of ‘full-blown climate denial’ over cuts to methane reduction targets"

Dr Rod Carr was reported in the Carbon News as saying that this amounts to 'industry capture' of government policy. 

Radio New Zealand reported "Distinguished Professor Robert McLachlan of Massey University said together, the methane decision and the delay on emissions budgets amounted to "a significant assault" on the environment, on the integrity of the Climate Change Response Act and on New Zealand's contribution to global climate goals.

"It makes a mockery of the Act's purpose to 'contribute to the global effort under the Paris Agreement to limit the global average temperature increase to 1.5 Celsius above pre-industrial levels'."

He accused the government of "double speak".

"They're trying to say two things at once - that they are following the Climate Change Act and that it's important for farmers and trade, but at the same time, they're just doing one assault on the climate after another," McLachlan said.

While the government continued to say it will still meet New Zealand's Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement - a 50 percent cut by 2030 - McLachlan said it had no credible plan."

Government cuts number of companies required to make climate-reporting disclosures

The number of NZ companies required to make climate-reporting disclosures has been cut from 164 to 76. This comes just months after officials included such disclosures as part of their evidence of 'significant progress' on transparency and meeting climate change obligations in reporting to the UN. 

Labour puts forward policy that would see Capital Gains Tax paying for GP visits

Reporting suggests the health sector is broadly supportive of the policy but concerns about capacity.

"Royal New Zealand College of GPs President Dr Luke Bradford told Checkpoint it supported anything that increases access to healthcare and decreases barriers.

'We're pleased to see the acknowledgement that the best way to keep people well is to have regular contacts with their general practice and general practitioner.'

However, Bradford said the biggest concern was that GPs are not going to have the capacity to deal with the increased demand for people to see their doctors more often.

'Currently we can't meet the demand that's already there. We're struggling to recruit and retain our healthcare teams and there is nothing in this policy that states specifically how we will manage that, how we will bring more doctors and nurses into the workforce to see these patients.'"

Opportunities and events

Wellbeing Economy Alliance are keen to hear your thoughts on how to better care for future generations

Once you have done the OraTaiao members' survey, you might also like to provide the Wellbeing Economy Alliance  Aotearoa with some of your thinking on their Tomorrow Together mahi. 

WEAll are developing their thinking and work on, among other things, the establishment of a Future Generations Act for Aotearoa, something other countries have done.

They have a discussion document and a survey up now for those with ideas to share and who'd like to connect to this mahi.

Free Fares Coalition Hui 4 November 2025

Free Fares Coalition is warmly inviting all interested supporters and volunteers to attend their upcoming hui to debrief on work from 2025, get input and ideas for campaigning 2026 and connect as a nationwide coalition. 

You are welcome to attend by simply jumping on this link to Jitsi (like Zoom but in your browser) at 4pm on Tuesday 4 November. 

For more information, reach out to [email protected]

350 Aotearoa Upcoming Local Government Training

Disillusioned by the election results in your area? Or have a progressive council that you want to point in the right climate action direction? Either way, you should join 350's next training webinar - “So you've got a crappy new council, now what?” 

The webinar will be at 7pm on Wednesday 12 November via Zoom.

As a follow up to our local election campaign, this one-off training will cover:

• How to figure out the priority areas for your newly elected council.

• Tips on how to lobby that new local council for increasing climate action in your community.

• Lessons from previous climate campaigns which have targeted local councils.

• Effective story-telling and narratives that you can use when talking with others in your community about climate action opportunities.

Please RSVP here by Monday 10 November. All welcome, no prior experience needed. 

Resources

New resources on Te Tiriti, Te Taiao, climate and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) under free trade and investment agreements

Ngā Toki Whakarururanga has just created some flash new resources on Te Tiriti, Te Taiao, the climate crisis and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) under free trade and investment agreements, as part of the Kaupapa to build awareness among hāpori Māori about the impact of the international trade arena on te Tiriti and te Ao Māori.

Weaponising Investment Disputes Against Indigenous People And Climate Action brings together five shorter working papers on The Climate Crisis, Te Tiriti and ISDS.

There are also two videos on ISDS (one general on ISDS and climate, and one on Clive Palmer and Mineralogy) that will be uploaded to this page soon.

New landmark EAT-Lancet Commission warns food systems breach planetary limits

Just published this October and building on its influential 2019 report, the new Commission finds that shifting global diets could prevent approximately 15 million premature deaths per year. At the same time, concerted global efforts to transform food systems could bring us back within planetary boundaries and cut annual greenhouse gas emissions from food systems by more than half compared with a business-as-usual scenario.

Read the full report here. It is free to read (open-ish access) if you register/create a login.

Status of food system pressures across all nine planetary boundaries (indicated by the black dotted pattern) and the food system boundaries (red line) (Figure 1 from the report).