Fitzsimons Jeanette: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Appropriation (2005/06 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
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JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This is the sixth Budget since Labour became the Government and as the last Budget of Labour’s second term it is perhaps a good time to assess its overall economic management over the last 6 years. In conventional terms using the conventional measurements of economic management Labour has been very successful. Economic growth in the last 6 years has been much higher than in the previous 9 years. The unemployment rate is down and although business always grizzles no matter who is in Government business has on the whole been pretty happy. The latest Budget gives advances in access to housing in family support and in workplace savings. But along with the growth in GDP a lot of other things have grown too and there is somehow a reluctance to talk so much about them. 
Economic growth has been driven to a considerable extent by immigration: building housing and providing the infrastructure for extra people. So house prices have grown. House prices have grown to the point that for more and more ordinary New Zealanders owning a house is completely unaffordable. Some middle-income New Zealanders can see no way of getting on the housing escalator at all. Along with GDP growth traffic congestion has grown. In Auckland it has grown out of sight. There is a limit to how much space in a city can be taken up with roads and vehicles. Along with traffic congestion the time that it takes to get from one side of Auckland to the other has grown as well. 
 We have had a lot of growth in the last 6 years. We have had a lot of growth in the dairy industry and with that we have had a lot of growth in nitrate runoff from our farms into our waterways. We have had a lot of growth in water pollution to the point where the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research now tells us that 95 percent of our lowland rivers and streams are not fit to swim in let alone to drink. 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but I for one think it is the height of rudeness for there to be these types of sit-around conversations and for people to have their backs to the Speaker while Jeanette Fitzsimons is trying to make a contribution. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I thank the member for raising that; he is quite right. The member has now moved away. 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS 
: Along with the growth in GDP we have had huge growth in the use of energy both transport fuel and electricity and along with that we have had a huge and rapid growth in greenhouse emissions. They have grown faster than GDP has. For every unit of GDP growth we have had even more units of growth in greenhouse emissions to the point where quite a healthy half a billion dollars of projected Kyoto Protocol credit has turned into a projected half a billion dollars of Kyoto deficit. 
The other deficit that has doubled in this time is the trade deficit. We have paid for the growth in our exports by an excess of imports and of course by the undercutting of local industries as we import more and more from countries with cheap labour. Student debt during those 6 years has more than doubled—from about $3 billion when Labour came to power to $7 billion today. That is an albatross round the necks of many of our young people who will not ever manage to get a home together or to have a family unless that burden is relieved. 
Those things are seen conventionally as simply the costs of a successful economy. They are regarded as a shame but the important thing is thought to be that the economy grew. Therefore it is argued we just have to put up with the consequences of having more traffic more greenhouse gases more pollution more of a trade deficit and more student debt. In fact the operation has been a complete success; it is just unfortunate that the patient died! So much for looking back. 
When I look forward I hope there will be a third-term Labour-led Government but at the moment we are seeing no big new ideas for that third term. We can predict that stable economic management will continue as long as the real world does not change. But actually the real world will change. It is changing now and there is no vision for how we could address the big challenges that are coming. In fact there is no recognition that there are big challenges coming. 
I refer members to the Christchurch  
Press 
 of 30 June this year which had a whole list of reports that together added up to a significant warning. Half the Nelson fishing boats the  
Press 
 reported on that date had stayed in port because fuel costs made it uneconomic to go fishing. Cropping farmers in Canterbury were considering scaling down their production because of the costs of diesel which had risen in a little over a year from 55c per litre to 93c per litre. Federated Farmers said that fuel for farming is one of the biggest costs of business now—for machinery for irrigation pumps and for transporting fertiliser. Freight costs have risen by 40 percent and freight charges by 10 percent. The  
Press 
 further reported that community-care workers were seriously considering whether they could continue to do home visits because of the cost of fuel and the lack of a budget to pay for those transport costs. What will happen to people marooned in their homes by their health needs if it is not possible for the district nurse to visit their homes any longer? 
The airlines are all charging a fuel surcharge on their fares. Why is that? While the price of crude oil has doubled in 2 years New Zealanders have been protected from that by the high exchange rate of our dollar but that rate is now starting to fall. We could well be hit with the double whammy of crude oil prices continuing to rise and the falling exchange rate of the New Zealand dollar exacerbating those price rises. Last year the December Economic and Fiscal Update predicted that the crude oil price would fall to $43 per barrel by March of this year—that is fall to $43 per barrel by March 2005. Today it is $62 a barrel. The Budget Economic and Fiscal Update in May predicted that the price of crude oil would fall to $47 a barrel. Currently is it $62 a barrel. 
This Budget totally ignores the oil prices that underpin our economy. It makes no concession at all to that change in the fundamentals pretending that it is some kind of temporary blip caused by geographic factors by unrest or by other short-term interruptions to supply. But those so-called short-term and temporary interruptions have been going on for several years now and alongside them we have predictions that we are actually at the end of the age of cheap oil. We are entering the age of very expensive oil which comes before the age when we can get very little oil at all. This Budget threw another $100 million at roads on top of the extra 5c a litre tax on petrol and a record number of litres being used. Then post-Budget Dr Cullen threw another half a billion dollars—which he has suddenly discovered—at roads as well. The Government says it is not just for roads but is for land transport which includes public transport. But actually until the Government changes the financial assistance rate none of that money will be spent on public transport. It cannot be spent on public transport because local and regional authorities cannot raise their rates high enough to pay their share without which they get nothing from the National Land Transport Fund. 
More than two-thirds of our car imports are used vehicles now and three-quarters of them are more than 7 years old. Our motor vehicle fleet is becoming older every year it is becoming dirtier every year and it is becoming less fuel efficient. Twenty-two percent of the new cars that come into New Zealand are sport utility vehicles. Every year we use more and more fuel to travel 100 kilometres than we did in the past. Fuel efficiency is going backwards. We have not had a word of warning from the Government about how we will afford to run all those inefficient vehicles how we will maintain the huge numbers of new motorways that are being built all over the country or what in fact will run on them. Where is the planning for more fuel-efficient cars? There is none. Where is the planning to run our farms on less fuel? There is none. Where is the planning to shift freight to the rail network to fix up the rail lines so they can cope with it and to build more public transport in cities? There is very little. 
National of course would make things even worse. There would be more big roads less public transport no interest at all in fuel efficiency—the market would suddenly transform our old fleet when prices go over $100 a barrel. National in fact would make congestion in Auckland much worse because it would abolish school zoning and encourage parents to cart their kids all around town at rush hour driving one tonne of metal tens of kilometres in order to get one child to school.