Media Release: Phil Goff's tree planting plagiarism falls short

It took just over a month of campaigning for Waitemata & Gulf Ward Candidate Rob Thomas's tree planting strategy to attract a few envious stares, with mayoral candidate Phil Goff plagiarising the policy for his own campaign.

In June this year, in an exclusive with the Ponsonby News, Mr Thomas outlined his policy to plant 1 million trees in Auckland. The policy has been further covered in Mr Thomas's campaign YouTube videos and bears striking similarities to the one proposed by Mr Goff in recent days.

"The green-eyed monster certainly seems to have come out in some of our mayoral candidates, however Mr Goff's plan simply falls short," says Mr Thomas.

"Going green is vital for our city, but there are plenty of ways to do so that won't put the council's accounts in the red."

While the goals are the same, Mr Goff's approach falls short on execution, with the council paying for every single one of these additional million trees. Mr Thomas's plan instead calls for community groups and local boards to take the lead on these projects in partnership with leading carbon offset companies.

"We're past the days when council can steamroll our communities. Improving our green spaces is too important to leave solely to the council" says Mr Thomas.

"It's my goal for council to work with local boards and community groups to plant more trees. These groups are crying out for avenues to invest in our open spaces – they don't need money, they just need support and direction from the council."

Mr Thomas has recently been in conversation with a Carbon Offset partner Greenfleet who receives funds from large New Zealand corporate who want to offset their emissions by planting trees. They have funds but a limited number of approved sites in Auckland for planting.

Mr Thomas is keen to develop a region-wide effort in collaboration with Auckland Local Boards and nurseries to identify suitable locations and specimens that the public and community groups can purchase and plant. Mr Thomas is also keen to work with partners such as Greenfleet to implement larger tree planting programs at no cost to Council.

"If each Local Board (21) works with volunteers in their area to plant 5,000 trees each year this will deliver an additional 1 million trees within the decade. This is the sort of bottom-up initiative that will make Auckland the world's most liveable city."

Notes for editors:

Rob Thomas is a candidate for the Waitemata & Gulf Ward. Mr Thomas's policy announcement appeared in the June edition of the Ponsonby News (page 38).

The latesturban forest analysis shows the difference between Auckland's Inner City (Waitemata Local Board Area) and the Auckland Isthmus:

Notes: Auckland isthmus defined by the six local board boundaries (Waitemata, Whau, Albert-Eden, Puketapapa, Orakei, Maungakiekie-Tamaki Local Boards). Publicly owned land includes road and reserve parcels which have overstated the totals due to double counting.

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