Sage Eugenie: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 26 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4017. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Well National has called Budget 2015 a plan that is working. It might be working for some New Zealanders like Fonterra and the big dairy farmers who stand to benefit from $100 million in subsidies for irrigation and more water pollution. It might be benefiting and be a plan that is working for all the offshore speculators who are free to buy up residential properties in Auckland. It might be working for the big corporates that have bought off shares in our energy companies. But Budget 2015 and National’s economic policies are not working for our climate and they are not working for our environment. National is building an economy that works only for New Zealanders who already have a lot.National has failed to reach a surplus this year but even worse is the environmental deficit that it is creating for present and future generations. The environment did not get very much attention at all in the Minister of Finance’s Budget speech and nor did the greatest challenge of our time: climate change. Our national icon the kiwi was briefly mentioned but even that had a strong element of public relations spin and Budget day smoke and mirrors. The much-vaunted $11.2 million that the Minister is directing to the grandly titled “Save our Iconic Kiwi” initiative is being funded from the Department of Conservation’s natural heritage programme. It is not new money and that programme has actually been cut by $7 million from $166 million budgeted this year to $159 million in 2015-16. More funds should certainly be dedicated to saving the kiwi but that should not be at the expense of the 2800 other species that are threatened with extinction. But that is what National is doing because it is cutting conservation funding not significantly increasing it.The Department of Conservation desperately needs more operational funding and it has not got it. In the post-election briefing to the Minister the department said: “effective pest control is the single biggest determinant of ecosystem health and biodiversity loss or gain. Less than 25 percent of conservation land receives interventions on key threats with around 8 percent receiving possum rat and stoat control.”—other than in the Battle for our Birds year. So we have the kiwi population declining. We need a significant investment in conservation and in more pest control but that is not what the Government has provided. That is of course in total contrast to its spendthrift approach and its $46 million in subsidies to the oil industry! And what are we seeing with the Department of Conservation? It is actually having to reduce the area under sustained possum control from a million hectares in the current year to 785000 hectares in the coming financial year. That is right—reduce the area subject to sustained possum control. That is despite the fact that the department’s own advice to the Minister said that that is the key issue that needs more funding. And most of this kiwi money only comes in 2017 and 2018 so it is not an immediate programme.What have we heard today? We have heard that the population of Māui’s dolphins is declining. It has fallen from 55 adults to an estimated 43 to 47 adult individuals. Māui’s dolphins could be extinct by 2029. The marine mammal sanctuary needs to be extended. There needs to be proper protection from fishing-related mortalities there but we are not seeing measures in the Budget to assist species like Māui’s dolphin.Then we go on to the climate which was barely mentioned in the Budget. I have been to two of the Government’s consultation meetings on New Zealand’s target for emission reduction. Everyone who spoke at those meetings did so with aroha with passion and with information. They were talking about our future for themselves and those who come after us. They want real action and real targets. There was a strong sense of disappointment that the Government has not fostered a strong national conversation about climate change and about what individuals whānau and families can actually do to reduce our emissions. It is not just at the consultation meetings where people have been calling for action. The Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust produced a report this month that showed that 87 percent of New Zealanders are concerned about climate change and want action. So the Budget is very disappointing in its failure to engage on the climate.The Government has certainly taken a small step towards a capital gains tax to try to discourage property speculation but it has done absolutely nothing to put a real price on carbon. It has gutted the emissions trading scheme and the Budget has nothing in it to stop Fonterra continuing to put in place new coal-fired boilers in its new plants like at Darfield and in its expanded plants like at Studholme. All we are getting in the consultation document is the Government making excuses on what the cost of real action will be and making excuses as to why our emissions at 17 tonnes are more than double the global average. It is really disappointing that we have not seen in this Budget measures to help us make the transition to a low-carbon economy. Instead we get the Government talking about the cost. As someone at the Christchurch meeting said: “The Government talks about cost but what cost do you put on the collapse of civilisation with a 4 degree rise in global temperatures? Please Mr Groser don’t talk to me about cost; talk to me about my children.” This Government is not investing in future generations. It is not investing in protecting our planet and our climate.There has been a complete failure of imagination in the Budget and in the Government’s whole approach to climate change. Instead of moving out of industries like dairy it is focusing on encouraging and promoting industries like dairy and oil which just increase our emissions rather than reduce them. The Government is missing the chance to create new jobs in industries that can help us make that transition. It is missing the chance to invest in renewables it has not got a plan for positioning us so that we are in a good position for the fast uptake of new technology like electric vehicles and there is no real plan of transition. By spending up on motorways and by weakening the Resource Management Act to encourage urban sprawl it is missing the chance to have compact livable cities where it is easy to take a bike to take a bus to get on the train and to have new residential developments clustered around public transport routes. It is missing the opportunity to improve the health of the New Zealand population and to reduce obesity by encouraging more active transport. Yes we have $35 million in this Budget being spent on urban cycleways but that is a pittance compared with the hundreds of millions being spent on new motorways.We can rework our economy for a better cleaner future that is innovative and that provides opportunities for everyone but that is not what National’s plan is about. The Green Party wants prosperity for everyone. We want to make that transition to a zero-carbon economy and we have got a plan to do that. If it had been a Green Budget we would have seen a research and development tax credit.Debate interrupted.