Graham Kennedy: Address in Reply 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Graham Kennedy: Address in Reply 
[Sitting date: 07 February 2012. Volume:677;Page:105. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 In December last year in the Speech from the Throne delivered by the Governor General the Prime Minister did two things: he identified what he called the “driving goal” of his Government and he laid out what he called a “comprehensive agenda” and a substantive legislative programme to accomplish that goal. I thank the Prime Minister for setting out a rational and systematic if rather visionless exploration of the Government’s approach to the 50th Parliament. His comments were repeated today by the Minister of Finance and just most recently by Jo Goodhew. They summarise it in terms of four priorities as they see it: returning to surplus ensuring a competitive economy cutting the Public Service and making it efficient and rebuilding Christchurch. As she said and they said that is part of a broader programme for the redemption—the economic redemption—of this country.  
So let me assess the Prime Minister’s driving goal that underlies his Government’s political agenda and legislative programme and then I shall offer on the same basis an alternative goal agenda and legislative programme of a Green Government. The Prime Minister explained that the driving goal of this Government is “to build a more competitive and internationally-focused economy with less debt more jobs and higher incomes.” This was to be pursued he said within the challenging context of an ongoing global financial crisis; the euro debt crisis; recovery from a series of devastating earthquakes in Canterbury; and a difficult recovery from a major national recession.  
The Prime Minister then outlined a comprehensive policy agenda: a blow-by-blow account of oft-repeated lines of around 20 items. The environment and climate change did not make the agenda until over halfway through. His comprehensive policy agenda is a rational if rather pedestrian plan by a practical if rather visionless Government. Where for example is this Government’s vision for a brighter future for the people—for a more inclusive and harmonious New Zealand society? Where is this Government’s vision to make New Zealand a responsible global citizen? A strong economy certainly enables financial resources with a view to returning to surplus but it does not on its own buy social and environmental justice and responsibility. These must be envisioned and enacted.  
So what is to be found in the political agenda and the legislative programme of the Government? As I said we can count 20 in the Speech from the Throne. First and presumably most important it seeks to return into operating surplus by 2014-15. Of course that is laudable enough although there is huge scepticism over the prospects of this occurring. Secondly it plans to ensure a lower cap on core Government staff. This is of course an ideological twitch on the part of a National Government. Brilliantly the Prime Minister says that his Government will be focused on achieving results! Now there is a statement and vision and practical determination! There is not a Government in the 155 years of responsible government in this country that has not assured the voting public that it is intent on the Public Service achieving results. It simply begs the question of how we go about doing that.  
Then there is the policy for what is mellifluously known as the mixed-ownership model. What that means is selling off our State assets overseas. It means the socialisation of the losses and the privatisation of the profits as we saw during the financial crisis the Prime Minister cited as one of the problems his Government is encountering. There are other policies on welfare on education on innovation for entrepreneurship and on strengthening infrastructure through building roads of national insignificance. There are changes ahead for housing and health the ACC and tougher law and order policies. There is a stray reference to the so-called constitutional review.  
Then the Government purports to cover foreign policy defence and trade. It will focus on Pacific aid and run for a seat on the UN Security Council. It will maintain a bipartisan foreign policy. It will implement the Defence Capability Plan and continue to pursue high-quality trade agreements. This Government’s chances of securing a seat on the Security Council will be enhanced if it acts as a responsible global citizen through genuine multilateralism rather than crabbing its way back to the mid - 20th century searching for military security through being very good friends with selected powers—panting tongue hanging out.  
The Government trumpets a bipartisan foreign policy thereby displaying its ignorance of the multiparty nature of MMP which has been in force for nearly two decades or it betrays a subliminal preference for first past the post. Because the foreign policy of this Government cannot be described as globally responsible it is not bipartisanly shared by the Green Party.  
We need an alternative vision of how this country can develop—how it can act in the wider world. Let me describe today a Green vision for a sustainable richer New Zealand—a New Zealand that is a responsible global citizen that recognises the need to be integrated globally not just in economic terms but in environmental and social terms as well. The Green vision for a strong economy is one that is fully entwined with environmental sustainability and social responsibility. It is a vision that lives within our means and lives up to our clear clean green image. The Green economic vision has an expanded and more comprehensive measure of what success is. A Green Government would draw on measures such as the genuine progress indicator which would benefit those who must inherit this economy from us. In political terms in New Zealand the distinction is this: National believes that economic growth has a horizon and that that horizon can be progressively pushed back through human ingenuity provided a decent respect is paid to the environment. Labour has bought into that belief though not without some anxiety. The Green belief is that economic growth has a limit and that that limit is natural immutable and non-negotiable requiring humanity to live harmoniously within its parameters and at a certain material point to develop along cultural and spiritual lines rather than through simply further economic growth. There is a natural end point to economic growth.  
David Bennett 
: When?  
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM 
: The member says “When?”. When there is a Green Government; you are invited to vote accordingly. There are qualitatively different world views here. There is no deeper distinction between National and Labour thought and Green thought than this: the Green social vision is compassionate. Economic growth is not progressed if it occurs at the expense of social equality. The Green vision recognises that research and development are integral to progress. Where the Prime Minister repeats again that his Government intends to build more roads and get ultra-fast broadband the Green vision sees research as invaluable to realising an innovative and sustainable future that does not further our reliance on finite and harmful fossil fuels. I call on this Government to review its own Speech from the Throne and introduce into its driving goal its agenda and its legislative programme at least part of the Green vision. The people may have voted this Government in—just—but the people also want the Green vision that I have described.