The Green Party will deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative to what it calls the government's "trickle-down economics and austerity politics."
Green co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick made the announcement as they delivered their State of the Planet speeches in Auckland.
Swarbrick said the party was sick of the government pandering to privatisation.
"Trickle-down politicians and their donors have spent at least 40 years coming after our public services, our media and our democracy, but it's clear now more than ever that their real target has been our hope."
She said the right-wing had "painted targets", after decades of "privatising and underfunding" public services and "creating the conditions of poverty and extreme vulnerability and isolation and mental ill health".
"After creating this exhaustion and anger and despair, the right wing knows those feelings have to go somewhere."
She said the chosen targets were "indigenous peoples," "rainbow communities" and "migrants."
"Let me be crystal clear: if you're struggling to get by, your beef isn't with someone else struggling to get by. Your beef is with the system that forces almost everyone you know into a life of struggle, and, more precisely, your beef is with those who profit from it."
Swarbrick said New Zealand was considered one of the wealthiest countries in the world on a per person basis, and asked, "so why can't regular people afford to go to the dentist?"
"It's not because of the gays, or the migrants, or tangata whenua. It's because that wealth isn't fairly shared."
Swarbrick said the Green Budget would not be a "defence of the status quo," but would show it was possible to ensure everyone was housed, has access to healthcare and education, and everyone got the "genuine opportunity for a good life."
Chlöe Swarbrick delivers the 'State of the Planet' speech. Photo: RNZ/Marika Khabazi
Davidson spoke next, recalling she had been diagnosed with breast cancer just days before the party's State of the Planet speeches last year.
She spoke about the time she spent with her mokopuna (grandchildren) as one of the most "profound experiences of healing," and the concern she feels for their future.
"They deserve to inherit a thriving planet, not a destroyed one."
Davidson said manaakitanga - or caring for each other - will be the core value that underpins the Green Budget.
"Care and justice for all people is what binds us together and helps us build a future where all of us thrive.
"This is what our politics should reflect. A politics of care."
She said "collective care is not part of this government's plan".
"They are showing us each day they stand for the few and not for the many. They are completely out of touch with the community."
She said that's seen in the decisions to "gut" school lunches, housing, benefits and the health system.
"The dominating economic system means that wealth and power are not shared equally. These inequities further divide communities when instead we need to come together."
She referenced Moana Jackson saying Te Tiriti o Waitangi was about the "rightness that comes from people accepting their obligations to each other".
"This is a profound vision on which to build a country."
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