Sage Eugenie: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Appropriation (2012/13 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Sitting date: 21 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4573. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 This is a Budget that does not just entrench our current account deficit but would create an asset deficit and entrench a skills deficit an environmental deficit and potentially also a democracy deficit in Christchurch. Asset sales are a cornerstone of this Budget and that is looking about as derelict and crumbly as some of the buildings in Christchurch. The asset sales programme is in disarray. This John Key - John Banks Government should just admit that asset sales are poorly conceived poorly timed and unlikely to yield the revenue that the Government had claimed and call them all off. 
When asked about how he saw the Government’s sales plans for Solid Energy given the plunging international prices for coal and coke Solid Energy Chief Executive Officer Don Elder was reported in Saturday’s  
Press 
 as saying: “in the current world there aren’t too many normal investors looking to buy coal companies [but] the people who invest in coal companies are saying there are bargains left right and centre.” So why give away shares in Solid Energy at bargain-basement prices when that company could be repositioned with a much more progressive research and development and investment strategy to increase its investment in biomass and biofuels instead of speculating on a climate-destroying lignite conversion plant in Southland? Why give away shares in Solid Energy and our other energy companies when they could be repositioned to get a slice of the trillion-dollar renewable energy market internationally? Solid Energy is looking to cut $120 million off its operating costs because of those falling coke and coal prices. A good place to start would be to stop preparing for asset sales. The company has wasted $130000 on that but we have hundreds of thousands of people signing up to our petition to seek a referendum on asset sales. Asset sales are opposed by the public. We will get that referendum. 
If the Government goes ahead with asset sales in the current recessionary climate it will be selling at the worst possible time assets that have been built up over generations. It will be taking the wrecking ball to the dividend stream that we receive from Meridian Energy Mighty River Power Genesis and Solid Energy. There is huge uncertainty with the Waitangi Tribunal yet to report. The whole issue of Treaty rights over water is nowhere near close to being resolved. So that means that potential bidders for Mighty River Power will downsize their bids to take account of this uncertainty—similarly with Meridian Energy and the Tiwai Point contract being renegotiated. 
 Asset sales would be a disaster—the same disaster that this Government has overseen in terms of failing to create jobs and failing to create hope. There are 65000 more people out of work today than when National came into power. With its Budget and with its whole economic direction this Government is failing to give hope to young people. There has been a failure to stop the flood of New Zealanders across the Tasman. More than 1000 New Zealanders a week are going across the Tasman because they have given up on John Key’s brighter future and they are seeking their future in Australia instead. That is creating a skills deficit and a human deficit. 
We are getting a democracy deficit in Christchurch because of the Draconian powers of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority in planning and facilitating the city’s post-quake rebuild—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Order! I am sorry to interrupt the member. The member cannot interject: “Tell the truth.” I ask the member to withdraw that comment. I ask the member to withdraw that comment. 
David Bennett 
: I withdraw. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: It is a democracy deficit because we have not seen the information about key decisions. We are not getting enough transparency around those decisions. We do not know who is going to be making the decisions the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority or the Christchurch City Council on some of the key civic assets that Christchurch residents will be funding through their rates as well as their taxes. Will it be elected councillors on the Christchurch City Council representing Christchurch citizens or the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority making decisions on things like the future of the Centennial Pool? In June as part of its long-term plan the council passed a unanimous resolution asking staff to report back on the feasibility and cost of repairing the Centennial Pool in central Christchurch so that people in the central city and in Christchurch East would have somewhere to recreate and somewhere to swim. The council’s own engineering reports show that the pool could be repaired for a cost of around $1.8 million to $2.3 million and the council had earmarked money in its own annual plan for operating costs for the pool. Yet the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s blueprint for the central city shows a playground where the pool is. This Thursday the city council will further consider the issue and there will be a major democracy deficit if the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority through its compulsory land purchases overrides the decision of the city council to investigate the repair and restoration of the pool facility. The pool was used prior to the quakes by around 1000 people daily. 
We need to tackle the fundamental problems in our economy with a smart Green economic plan. If we had had a Green Budget that would have been about ensuring that we protect our natural assets that we share our prosperity fairly and that we have a good quality of life. That Green Budget would have involved retaining our State-owned energy companies in public ownership and refocusing them towards exporting their renewable energy expertise. A Green Budget would have extended the Warm Up New Zealand: Heat Smart programme to another 200000 homes over the next 3 years. That would create jobs for another 4000 people directly and another 10000 people if you include the indirect effects. A Green Budget would have moved to a fairer tax system and enhanced our fiscal resilience by introducing a capital gains tax excluding the family home. That would enhance the revenue stream for the Government and it would help shift capital away from the largely unproductive property sector into much more productive uses including the clean-technology sector. A Green Budget would have reprioritised our transport spending away from billion-dollar motorways that we cannot afford and towards sustainable investment in better bus and rail systems taking account of peak oil. A Green Budget would have put a price on the commercial use of water—again to provide a tax on resource use rather than just relying on taxes on income. It would have put a real price on carbon. And it would have supported a living wage by raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. 
A Green Budget would recognise that “Planet Economy” lives on and relies on planet Earth. It is not somewhere else. The exploitation agenda of this current Government means that even its rhetoric has moved away from balancing the environment against the economy to just getting on with it and to hell with the environment—full steam ahead with the use and abuse of natural resources. That is why we have seen at the weekend the Minister for Economic Development Steven Joyce commenting that the Government will be sitting on the shoulder of local government whipping it along. The Government is proposing amendments to the Resource Management Act that would gut the sustainable management purpose of the Act. It would speed applications through. That is why Ministers like Steven Joyce want the Bathurst Resources—an Australian mining company—proposal on the Denniston Plateau to go ahead regardless of the fact that there are virtually no coal measure ecosystems protected on Department of Conservation land other than on the Denniston Plateau. That mine would totally destroy a lot of the biodiversity and the distinctive species there. This Government’s agenda is about resource exploitation and to hell with the environment. A Green Budget would involve a much more sustainable footing for our economy that puts the respect and protection of nature as the centrepiece of sustainable economic use. Thank you.