Iran War: Greens call for 'National Electrification Plan' and more distance from US
Sunday, 19 April 2026
The Green Party has called for a “National Electrification Plan” to respond to the Iran War, but offered no detail outside of an existing proposal.
The party said this plan would “electrify homes, transport and industry, ending New Zealand’s dependence on unpredictable global fossil fuel markets, cutting household power bills, and building real energy security at home”.
It provided no detail on this outside of a call for the Government to immediately back the Ratepayers’ Assistance Scheme, a proposal from Local Government New Zealand (LGNZ) that calls for the Government to allow ultra-cost loans for homeowners to clean home improvements such as solar panel installs.
The Government is currently considering this proposal, which has been developed in collaboration with lobby group Rewiring Aotearoa.
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Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said this would be a simple measure the Government could take quickly.
“That means cheap, easy loans for solar panels and batteries. It's simple, fast, and it cuts the upfront cost barrier for thousands. We know this will save the average household $1000 a year on their power bill,” Swarbrick said.
'If we want a resilient economy, we've got to power it with homegrown sun, wind, water and geothermal energy. That doesn't need to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.'
“The solution is so simple. We must electrify everything we can.”
Swarbrick talked up the success of left wing economic populism elsewhere ‒ name-checking Green Party UK leader Zack Polanski and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.
“The UK Greens, with a relentless focus on addressing people’s real-world needs, are now more popular than the governing UK Labour party. Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani’s New York is now delivering free Early Childhood Education, announcing its first city-run affordable supermarket and is about to roll out free public transport,” Swarbrick said.
Co-leader Marama Davidson used her speech to highlight increasing extreme weather events ‒ including Cyclone Vainu, which meant the event was postponed from last weekend.
“Climate fuelled severe weather events are hurting the people and communities who have the least, over and over again just like we saw last weekend, the weekend before that, and this weekend,” she said.
“And this government's response has been to weaken methane targets, allow further habitat destruction, reopen the door to offshore oil and gas interests, and abolish the Ministry for the Environment.”
Davidson: Not naive to be independent of US
Davidson also used her speech to attack governments past and present for military intervention in the Middle East.
“Successive governments have slowly walked New Zealand away from the independent and principled foreign policy that once defined us. They sent troops to Afghanistan. They deployed to Iraq. They strengthened military ties with the United States,” Davidson said.
“And now we find ourselves in a moment where our prime minister cannot even say plainly whether a war is legal, or have the courage to condemn the killing of children.”
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has refused to assess whether the US strikes on Iran were illegal.
Davidson said the Greens had long called for distance from the US.
“A small country at the bottom of the world is not made safer by tying ourselves to the military ambitions of a superpower. That is not naivety. That is 50 years of clear-eyed, consistent thinking.”
The Green Party’s support has dropped in recent polls.
The latest Anacta/Talbot Mills poll had the Greens on 7% ‒ down from 11.6% at the 2023 election.