Norman Russel: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 23 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4755. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak to the 13 bills that the Regulatory Reform Bill has been broken into. I want to talk about just a couple of aspects. I do not want to talk about all of the different 13 amendment bills that are contained here. I just want to focus on a couple of them. 
Before we start I say that it was interesting to hear Jonathan Young’s speech. I thought that Jonathan Young made an interesting speech about the philosophical framework for regulatory reform that the Government has adopted. I thought it was a useful exposition actually of where the Government comes from. In many respects I think that many people would agree with what Jonathan Young said in the sense that he was saying well how do we try to reduce the negative impacts of regulation on the operation of business? I think it is certainly true that there are regulations that exist that do have negative implications for business and I think we would all agree that there is a case for amending or reforming those to make sure they do not have that effect. 
I guess in a way the Government does not have a lot on its economic agenda beyond that kind of microeconomic reform. So in some ways that approach typifies the Government’s approach which is microeconomic reform and the Government’s approach overall is to do these kinds of microeconomic reforms in the hope that by keeping hands off more generally there will be some kind of great economic miracle. 
 To some degree there is no question that there is a role for that kind of economic approach. The problem I think is more broadly that if you look at macroeconomic policy the Government’s approach to macroeconomic policy more generally is quite problematic. Aside from picking a few winners like the mining industry it is not assisting some of our most important export sectors. So although this legislation before us I think makes some contribution it has to be seen in the broader picture of the Government’s economic strategy which is very much lacking and is of course reflected in the poor economic performance of New Zealand under this Government. Of course accepting that there have been external factors that have influenced the economic performance of New Zealand as well undoubtedly the fact that the Government lacks an economic strategy more generally I think has been problematic. 
In terms of the regulatory reform legislation I want to talk first about the amendments to the concessions process for the Department of Conservation estate in the Conservation Amendment Bill. That is the one bill that we will be voting against. We will be voting in favour of all the other amendment bills but that is the one that we are voting against. A concession is the right to access or use parts of the Department of Conservation estate for commercial purposes. It is very important that there is a concessions process so that parts of the Department of Conservation estate can be used for commercial purposes but the Green Party believes it is fundamental that the ecological or biodiversity bottom lines come first. So the fundamental starting point has to be that we protect the ecological or environmental values of the Department of Conservation estate first. Concessions or the ability to use the Department of Conservation estate for commercial purposes are secondary to that. That is fundamental to our approach to the Department of Conservation estate. 
Essentially what this bill does is make it harder for the Department of Conservation to protect those fundamental environmental or ecological values when it is considering applications to use the Department of Conservation estate for commercial purposes. For that reason we are voting against that amendment bill. When you think about it—and I think this is where it applies to the kind of philosophical approach to regulation that Jonathan Young was outlining—if we do not have regulations that fundamentally protect the Department of Conservation estate if we do not have those regulations in place then we will undermine the macro picture of what is one of the great opportunities or benefits that New Zealand has economically which is our natural environment. 
Look at the tourism industry which is totally built on clean green New Zealand and look at our primary produce exports which are entirely built on a clean green and safe New Zealand. Those things are built on the environmental integrity or the perception of environmental integrity particularly associated with protecting the conservation estate. So if our regulatory framework does not fundamentally protect the conservation estate then we will undermine our economy as well as undermine the biodiversity values that we think are important. 
I mean when you think about who the great builders of the New Zealand economy have been actually it has been the greenies who generation after generation have protected the New Zealand environment. If you were to name one person who has made a huge contribution to the New Zealand economy you could pick Kevin Smith one of the campaigners who protected the West Coast of the South Island against the opposition of many of the Governments of New Zealand that wanted to allow the destruction of the West Coast environment. People like Kevin played a fundamental role in actually building the foundations of our economy because by protecting the natural environment they basically protected the foundations of both the tourism industry and the primary production sector. 
So when we come to look at these kinds of regulatory reforms if as is the case in this bill the regulatory reforms make it harder for the Department of Conservation to protect the conservation estate essentially not only do they make it harder to protect the biodiversity values that are important to New Zealanders and to the New Zealand identity but they also make it harder to protect the foundation of the New Zealand economy. So for that reason we do not support those changes—because they tilt the balance against protecting the natural environment 
Looking at the philosophical approach to regulatory reform if you do not have strong regulations that protect the natural environment then you do not protect the foundations of our economy. And I think that that kind of short-term thinking is epitomised by the National Party in relation to this. National members think oh well a bit of environmental degradation for a bit of economic growth. That is fine. So we should have regulations that facilitate that. The Green Party takes a much more long-term approach which says we need regulations that protect the natural environment for the long term and not only does that protect the biodiversity and ecological values that are important to us but in the long term it also protects our economy because our economy is built on our environment. So we need a strong regulatory framework to protect that environment. 
The second part of this regulatory reform legislation that I want to talk about is the amendments to the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Act. These are very good and important changes and the Green Party is very pleased that these changes are here in the Friendly Societies and Credit Unions Amendment Bill. There is a multitude of changes but basically what they do is facilitate the ability of the credit unions to compete more effectively. 
Credit unions are I believe an important part of the financial system in New Zealand. They provide a small but significant competition to some of the larger institutions. Because of the way that privatisation was run in the 1980s and 1990s we ended up with a banking sector that is extremely problematic and dominated by the Australian-owned banks. 
Having the Australian-owned banks dominating the finance sector has been a real problem for New Zealand. It has been a problem in terms of competition—it is only with the emergence of Kiwibank that we have had serious competition in the banking sector; the Australian-owned banks were acting in a monopolistic manner in reducing competition—and it has also been a problem in terms of tax. The Australian-owned banks have been illegally and unlawfully avoiding tax. They unlawfully avoided $2 billion worth of tax and the Government had to spend $50 million in court cases to get it back off them. So having the credit unions freed up so that they can compete better with the banks is important. 
It is of course important that we have proper prudential regulations in place to make sure that the credit unions do operate in a way that is safe for their investors but it is also important that they be freed up so they can at least be on a level playing field with the big banks so that they can compete with them and so that we do get some degree of competition in the banking and financial services sector particularly for lower income New Zealanders so that they do not get ripped off by the big Australian banks which of course has been the history since the extremely poor privatisations that happened in New Zealand. 
So those are two pieces of legislation—there is the bit around changing the rules around concessions and the commercial use of the Department of Conservation estate which we do not support because they tilt the balance against the environment and there are the amendments around the credit unions which give them more of a chance to compete and are I think very very good changes. So we will be supporting all the legislation except those changes around conservation. Thank you. 
Debate interrupted.