Ani O'Brien: Who is willing to sacrifice the poor at the Green Altar?

Why we must stand up to anti-human activists.

We need to stand up to the anti-human activists who treat ordinary people as collateral damage in their crusade. Their vision of “climate justice” is really just human misery dressed up as virtue. Every time New Zealanders open a power bill, they’re reminded that the real “crisis” is one of affordability. We are told that sacrificing more, paying more, and living with less will somehow save the planet. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: shaving a fraction of a fraction off global carbon emissions by punishing Kiwis, especially our poorest, is not going to move the needle.

As of early 2025, the average Kiwi household, consuming around 7,100 kWh annually, shells out about $200 per month on electricity (at roughly 33.9 c/kWh) and this is just an average.1 Canstar Blue reports that residential power prices vary between approximately 32 c/kWh and over 45 c/kWh, depending on location, with places like Kerikeri already facing the highest rates.2 That means many households are now paying $250 or more per month, especially in rural or remote areas. We certainly pay more in our house.

Since the 2018 oil and gas exploration ban, energy security has become strained, with reduced domestic supply contributing to volatility and higher prices. Reports and watchdog groups warn that the policy could impose an estimated $7 billion in extra energy costs on households over the next 12 years.3 While the ban’s full price impact may be delayed by existing production lifespans, experts point to gas shortages, investor pullback, rising wholesale prices, and dampened supply confidence, all tied back to the absence of new exploration, as driving today’s price spikes.4

In short: around the country, households are paying significantly more for electricity today than they did just a few years ago, shouldering the cost of political decisions made in Wellington.

The worst thing about this is that all of our suffering is for almost nothing. New Zealand contributes about 0.17% of the world’s emissions. You could shut down every farm, every car, every coal boiler, and it wouldn’t change the climate trajectory. What it would do, and frankly is doing, is cripple our economy and push ordinary people further into hardship.

New Zealand’s emissions are a drop in the ocean compared to the world’s biggest polluters. We are the equivalent of a rounding error on the climate ledger. By contrast, China contributes nearly 30%, the United States about 14%, and India over 7%. Australia, with its heavy reliance on coal, produces more than three times New Zealand’s total. Put bluntly: if New Zealand vanished tomorrow, the world’s emissions trajectory would not change one bit. Yet we are asked to cripple our economy and drive up costs for families in the name of “doing our part.” That is martyrdom for an elitist ideology. It is self-harm. If we were not a country and instead were a person we would be sent to a psychologist to discuss our self-sabotaging behaviour.

And, it isn’t the urban elites who are being impacted by the relentless attack on our standard of living by the Green lobby. They drive around in their electric vehicles, virtuously sneer at ‘fast fashion’, and barely notice a larger power bill being automatically deducted fro their accounts. It’s the working poor, the single mums, the pensioners, the families already skipping meals to cover rent who are paying the price in plummeting quality of life. For them, rising energy prices aren’t an abstraction, they’re the difference between heating a home or wearing three jerseys and a beanie to bed.

When politicians boast about “bold climate targets,” they’re ignoring the fact that these climate accords and carbon dick-measuring contests are a direct attack on the lives of those struggling the most.

The New Zealand Green Party openly stated in May that they would tax New Zealanders an additional $88 billion over the next four years in their “alternative budget” in order to finance their radical agenda. Somehow, despite this, they think they are some kind of champions for the working poor. They want to tax the basics of life and they want us to be grateful for it. Electricity. Fuel. Food. These aren’t luxuries. They are the foundation of dignity, health, and survival. If that is the cost of pretending to save the planet then it is too high a price. Sentencing more people to poverty in order to appear virtuous is evil. It is psychopathic.

Click to view - Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: green activism is about satisfying the self-fulfilment and psychological needs of the activists whereas Kiwis are seeking basic needs.

It is becoming abundantly clear that the green movement globally is a collective for the gaslighting, malignantly narcissistic well-off classes seeking to exert control over the masses. Our own Green Party never misses an opportunity to prove that it values ideology over people. These are politicians who would rather see working-class New Zealanders freezing in their homes than concede that affordable energy matters more than theoretical climate purity. Their politics are a twisted competition in moral posturing, measuring success not by whether kids are warm and fed, but by how much ‘sacrifice’ they can demonstrate in pursuit of a symbolic “climate victory.”

They preach compassion, but their policies betray contempt. If you drive a ute for work, you’re demonised. Never mind that your taxes probably pay for the government allowances for the perpetual students glueing their hands to the road. If you have a life too busy and burdened to make recycling a core part of your personality, you are guilty of disrespecting the environment. If you try your best (when you can afford it) to eat a balanced omnivorous diet as humans have done going back further than our pre-human ancestors, you are killing the planet one glass of milk and plate of cottage pie at a time. Worst of all, if you decide to do the most intrinsically human, most instinctively animalistic, thing possible and have children, you are contributing to the “overpopulation of the planet”.

The Green movement is anti-human, full stop. Nowhere is this clearer than in their obsession with “overpopulation.” For decades they’ve peddled the lie that there are too many people on the planet.

They talk about humanity as if we are a plague. That language has seeped into the way the Greens and their fellow travellers frame every debate; people are positioned as a problem to be managed, not as lives to be nurtured or treasured. Every new child is framed as another “carbon emitter.” Any family that wants a third kid is treated like they’re selfishly burdening the planet. You’ll hear them wringing their hands about “human impact” as if the mere fact of us existing is inherently destructive.

But here’s the irony: it is precisely people, their ingenuity, their creativity, their drive, that solve problems. It was people who invented clean water systems, medications, refrigeration, modern farming, and yes, technologies that lower emissions. The only reason the Greens can sip oat milk lattes while tweeting about the “end of the world” on iPhones is because generations before them refused to treat humanity as a curse and instead invested in progress.

By framing people as a plague, the Greens justify policies that actively make life harder for families: punishing energy taxes, strangling housing supply with red tape, and even promoting the idea that smaller families (or no families at all) are morally superior. It’s an ideology that corrodes hope and undermines the very basis of civilisation: the belief that tomorrow can be better if we work for it.

A shrinking population means fewer workers, fewer taxpayers, fewer carers, fewer ideas. It means lower living standards and harsher burdens on the young. But the Greens don’t care. In their worldview, a future with fewer children is a win because they see people not as the solution, but as the problem. That’s not environmentalism, that’s nihilism.

Let’s not forget who lit the fuse for New Zealand’s current energy dumpster fire. Jacinda Ardern and Labour’s decision to ban new offshore oil and gas exploration permits was one of the most short-sighted, self-destructive policy calls in modern political history. It was a virtue signal, pure and simple. It could quite literally be one of the most stark examples of a self-inflected economic wound in human history. Ardern wanted to bask in applause on the international stage and she was willing to risk the long-term consequences at home.

The irony is now we are importing more coal than ever just to keep the lights on. We’ve kneecapped our own ability to provide reliable, affordable energy, while still demanding that ordinary New Zealanders sacrifice. The ban didn’t save the planet, it sold out our future energy security.

Natural gas is far cleaner than coal. It produces significantly less CO₂ and air pollution. A rational government would prioritise domestic gas production to keep prices down and emissions lower. The current government is doing just that by reversing the ban. But, thanks to Ardern, we will be playing catch up for a long time and Kiwis will be paying for it in each of their power bills.

Think about that. New Zealand had the opportunity to use its own resources to generate lower-emission, reliable power. Instead, we’re shipping coal halfway across the world to burn in Huntly, all so Labour and the Greens could pat themselves on the back for “climate leadership.” Again, in my view, this is beyond stupidity. It is malignant. It is evil.

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If the Greens and other climate activists truly cared about climate and people, they would focus on innovation, resilience, and global leadership in technology. Not martyring our poorest households for an emissions reduction that barely registers on a global scale.

Our government’s first duty must be to New Zealanders. Cheap, reliable energy underpins everything: jobs, schools, hospitals, warm homes. Without it, living standards collapse. And once you’ve driven working-class people into despair in the name of climate piety, don’t expect them to stick around cheering for your “just transition.”

The moral test is not whether we can boast about carbon targets at international summits. The test is whether a kid in South Auckland can grow up in a warm house with food on the table. The test is whether elderly Kiwis in Invercargill can heat their homes without cutting their prescriptions in half. The test is whether working families can see a path forward that isn’t just endless sacrifice for no return.

We should care about our impact on the planet. But not more than we care about people. The planet isn’t going anywhere. It will continue to adapt and exist. What is at stake is ensuring it is liveable for future generations and that doesn’t matter if we consign present and future generations to poverty. Pretending otherwise is not just bad policy; it’s moral bankruptcy.

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The Greens want martyrs. Labour want accolades and pats on the head. National needs to prove it isn’t beholden to the same ideological and egotistical strictures. And so far they are proving this, but need to go further. Reversing the ban on oil and gas exploration was key, but now they need to review every climate policy for its impact on quality of life. Our people should not suffer because of an agreement that most other countries are ignoring.

And here is my big scary assertion: New Zealand should walk away from the Paris Agreement because it is nothing more than a costly exercise in handicapping ourselves with no measurable impact on the climate. The agreement is unenforceable, riddled with loopholes, and openly flouted by the world’s largest emitters (China, India, and the United States) while small nations like ours are expected to bankrupt ourselves for the sake of “leading by example.” It’s masochism.

Paris doesn’t lower global emissions; it simply shifts costs onto ordinary families through higher power bills, fuel taxes, and strangled industries. Why should Kiwis suffer cold homes, higher grocery prices, and lost jobs just to keep up appearances at UN climate summits? Until the agreement demands equal sacrifice from the world’s real polluters, New Zealand has every reason to put its people first and leave.

Leaving the Paris Agreement isn’t about denying climate change, it’s about refusing to deny reality. The reality is that New Zealand is responsible for less than two-tenths of one percent of global emissions. Even if we achieved “net zero” tomorrow, the climate trajectory wouldn’t shift. Our farmers, workers, and families are already paying some of the highest energy prices in the developed world, all while our government imports coal to keep the lights on because Hermione, Harry, and Ron banned new gas exploration.

Climate leadership? Nah, it’s climate theatre. Realism means recognising that you don’t sacrifice your people on the altar of symbolic agreements. It means putting innovation, resilience, and prosperity first, and trusting that free, prosperous nations are best placed to invest in cleaner technology. Protecting children from energy poverty today instead of chasing applause at UN conferences.

Christopher Luxon must take decisive action and stop the anti-human derangement that green activism promotes. Sure, there will be howls of protest from the nihilists in keffiyehs. The Green Party will scream bloody murder. Chloe Swarbrick’s head might just explode, but when she gets up at question time and stumbles through her outraged question in te reo, accusing the Government of being the greedy, planet-killing, capitalist face of evil, Luxon needs to respond to her thus:

This government exists for the people of New Zealand. I will not apologise for putting our people before arbitrary targets and green martyrdom. I will not stand by while Kiwis suffer in increasing levels of energy poverty when our emissions total less than 0.17% of the global number. We could take the Green Party manifesto and shut down agriculture, put taxes on everything, all become devout vegans, and destroy our economy and way of life, and it would not alter the climate trajectory one bit. So no, this Government will not be taking policy nor morality advice from a party that is willing to sacrifice its people at the green altar. We would never be so fundamentally anti-human.

No doubt Gerry would interrupt, but he could keep speaking over him and then withdraw and apologise when instructed. He’d have his clip. His moment of theatre. Chloe knows all about that.

References:

1 https://www.powercompare.co.nz/n/average-power-bill-in-new-zealand-2025?
2 https://www.canstarblue.co.nz/energy/electricity-providers/average-electricity-costs-per-kwh/?
3 https://www.energyresources.org.nz/news/households-businesses-could-face-extra-7bn-in-energy-costs/?
4 https://jpt.spe.org/twa/why-young-professionals-should-care-about-energy-policy-facts-from-new-zealand?

Ani O'Brien comes from a digital marketing background, she has been heavily involved in women's rights advocacy and is a founding council member of the Free Speech Union. This article was originally published on Ani's Substack Site and is published here with kind permission.