Donald Rod: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
Donald Rod: Supplementary Estimates — Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21275] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Today— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Don’t talk about oil! 
ROD DONALD 
: I will be talking about oil. I thank Mr Cosgrove for reminding me. I will talk about it later so I ask the member to be patient. 
Today we are talking about the supplementary estimates and we are also debating an Imprest Supply Bill. That imprest supply bill will give the Government the money it needs to run the country if an election is held before the Budget is passed. This year I am confident that the Budget will pass its third reading before the House rises for the general election in the same way that 3 years ago I was confident that the Government would pull the plug before the Budget was passed. In fact just before the supplementary estimates debate started 3 years ago Prime Minister Helen Clark told the whole country that we would have a snap election. That was on 11 June 2002. At that point we knew what was ahead of us. We had an election date and I wish Helen Clark would give us the same courtesy now and set an election date. But I would have to say that she did not need to call a snap election on 11 June 2002 and she certainly does not need to call one now. 
I would like to look back briefly over the last 3 years at the Government’s report card in relation to the debate that took place on 11 June 2002. Labour has passed some good legislation in some crucial areas but it is interesting to see what it has not advanced. On that date in 2002 the Marine Reserves Bill was waiting for its first reading in Parliament. It got that first reading after the election thanks to support from the Green Party but it still languishes at the Local Government and Environment Committee because the Government is more interested in advancing legislation on marine farming than it is in marine reserves. We call on the Government—Mr Cosgrove may be leaving the Chamber; I hope he will stay and hear what I have to say about peak oil. The Marine Reserves Bill is still stuck in the select committee because Labour lacks a serious commitment to increasing the number and area of marine reserves in New Zealand. We have to contrast its dragging the chain on conservation with its pushing ahead on economic growth. 
Another bill that was held up by the snap election was the Minimum Wage Amendment Bill. The Greens supported it. The Minimum Wage Amendment Bill is another example of legislation United Future has opposed in this Parliament but we are very pleased to give our support to Labour on such legislation because we are just as committed to social justice as we are to protecting the environment and making the economy sustainable. It is good that the minimum wage does continue to increase. It is now $9.50 an hour—a lot more than when National was last in power. But it is not enough. It is not good enough. New Zealand workers deserve at least $12 an hour because without that level of income one simply cannot bring up a family in any sense of decency. I know that most New Zealanders would rather get a wage that is enough to live on than have to rely on family support or any other Government handout. So we advocated for that legislation and we made some progress there. We advocated for the transfer of undertakings and that legislation has finally managed to get through in the last 3 years. In fact 17 bills passed in this term of Parliament have passed only because of support from the Green Party. Those bills simply would not be law without it. There would be no Supreme Court no Maori Television Service no Care of Children Act no Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act no Climate Change Response Act and so on without the support of the Green Party. 
The Government has certainly learnt a lot in the last 3 years and those pieces of legislation are examples of what it has learnt. The Labour-Progressive minority Government has done a very good job of managing this House. As an advocate of MMP I would like to give it credit for that. Despite having only 53 seats out of 120 it has successfully mustered a majority for most of its legislation by turning to a number of parties for support. United Future has been the only party to vote for two Budgets—because Labour was intransigent on genetic engineering and therefore did not enjoy our confidence—and seven other bills have passed only because of United Future. As I said the Greens are responsible for the passage of 17 bills and New Zealand First was the only non-Government party to vote for the Foreshore and Seabed Bill. We got a warning in the last term of Parliament when Labour relied on New Zealand First for the passage of two bills both of which have turned to custard in various ways. So members should look out for what will happen to the Foreshore and Seabed Act. 
 Despite what the critics say MMP has not led to the tail wagging the dog. Indeed before Christmas Labour worked with United Future the Greens and New Zealand First in turn to pass legislation under urgency. However it is disappointing but not surprising that Labour’s management of the economy and of voters’ expectations is not as good as its management of Parliament. Let us face it Dr Cullen’s Budget was a public relations disaster. As I said at our recent conference Arnold Nordmeyer is Michael Cullen’s hero but that did not mean he had to deliver such a grey Budget. It was timid on issues such as tax cuts where it should have been bold. Last year’s Budget was bold with Working for Families and we supported that. In the last term the superannuation fund was bold even though we opposed it. But this time as everyone says 67c a week in 2008 for low and middle income earners has done nothing to excite voters and everything to turn them off Labour. What is more Dr Cullen’s failure to address mounting student debt is alienating a whole generation of young people their parents and their grandparents. 
Labour’s KiwiSaver package is a good move but for many people with no discretionary income it only highlights the growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. Homestart was another good idea. It basically restores what National axed in 1992 but it is still only a token gesture in the face of rocketing house prices. So instead of Labour forcing through the Overseas Investment Bill under urgency later this week it should be banning the sale of all land to foreign investors because those sales are artificially inflating the price of entry-level properties. Inflating house prices mean that the Kiwi home instead of being a dream to aspire to has become a nightmare for first home seekers. 
I give Dr Cullen credit for one thing: pinching the title from my 2001 conference speech on his superannuation fund—which I called “Invest now to secure the future”—for his Budget which he calls “Securing our future”. That Budget I am afraid will not go far enough to securing the future for the nation as Dr Cullen proposes because he continues to gamble a big slice of our taxes on the overseas sharemarket instead of using that money for sustainable infrastructure to future-proof our economy to educate and train our young people so that they can be productive citizens and to meet the community’s health housing and social needs. There is not enough money going into protecting the environment either. 
The supplementary estimates if I may discuss them briefly put aside some money to deal with flooding. That is a good thing—there is something like $32 million in the supplementary estimates—but where is the money going for planting forests where they are needed? One of the environmental commitments that this Government should be making is reforestation of marginal land as well as long-term measures to put the brakes on climate change. In going beyond reforesting headwaters the Government would be making some bold moves to tackle climate change. The Government is not doing enough to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in this country and I point it to the Green Party’s energy package which has recently been announced. That package gives the Government a very clear plan of what we need in New Zealand. 
Some of our proposals would have been in those supplementary estimates had the Government been committed to protecting the environment to making our economy more sustainable and to improving the quality of life of New Zealanders. At the top of that list is half a million solar water heaters for homes in New Zealand which is something that we will be campaigning for strongly after the election along with a sustainable energy commission a one-stop advisory shop for households and not using coal to generate electricity because the use of coal only adds to our carbon emissions and will put the Government in an even worse position than it appears to be in in relation to carbon credits. We say to the Government that it should look at the Green Party’s energy policy and its tax policy which makes the first $5000 of income tax-free so that people can afford to pay not only for the increasing cost of power but also for doing the good things like insulating their homes and putting in energy-efficient light bulbs etc.