Turei Metiria: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Sitting date: 29 January 2013. Volume:687;Page:7513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Tena koutou katoa e te Whare. I am very proud to speak on behalf of the Green Party to the Prime Minister’s statement. A quote from Bill English comes to mind: “Is that it?”. Was that it? Six weeks over summer to think about new policy and the Government comes up with precisely nothing yet again. There is nothing in today’s speech from the Prime Minister that offers any tangible solutions to the big issues that are facing our country and everyday New Zealanders. Worse the direction set out by this Government does not reflect the intrinsic character of New Zealand or the underlying values of New Zealanders. Its hands-off economic conservatism benefits its very wealthy backers and runs counter to our country’s proud history of economic egalitarianism and fairness. Its cold-hearted social policies run roughshod over our decades-old contract of supporting people when they need help and our loving commitment to be our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers. Its short-sighted view of our beautiful environment—our rivers and beaches forests and national parks—as nothing more than irritating impediments to its exploitative economic agenda is like stabbing a knife into the heart of our national identity. It is not who we are and it is not who we want to be. 
New Zealanders have a strong and proud national identity. At our best we are a unique mix of environmental guardians social reformers and economic innovators. New Zealanders also have a proud tradition of leading and forging an independent path. We were not the second country to give women the vote; we were the first. Hillary was not the second to climb Mount Everest; he was the first. We said no to nuclear even though it damaged our relationship with the then greatest superpower on earth because it was the right thing to do. We are gritty fighters who regularly punch above our weight. We are constantly striving for a better future that is economically socially and environmentally richer. But John Key and his Government do not reflect who we are. Instead of making us richer in the things that matter they make us poorer because on every important measure this Government is failing and in its failure it undermines our heritage our identity and our potential. 
So let us look at that failure further and what better place to start than our economy? New Zealanders are finally waking up to what Americans learnt 4 years ago: if you want to destroy an economy you hand it to an investment banker to run it for you. All of John Key’s Wall Street insider knowledge has been used to dazzling disaster on the New Zealand economy. The Merrill Lynch playbook of destroying good everyday jobs fuelling an unaffordable housing crisis and damaging our long-term viability just so the rich can get a little bit richer more quickly has been expertly implemented in this country. This fallacy that a National Government is a good manager of the economy has been proven to be wrong yet again. 
The facts speak for themselves. When the National Government took office the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent; now it is 7.3 percent. There has been a net reduction of over 40000 jobs in the manufacturing sector alone. When National took office the Government debt was $40 billion; now it is $82 billion. When National took office the national savings rate was a very modest 2.1 percent; now it is 0.7 percent. While John Key continues to blame the global financial crisis or Labour for his Government’s poor economic performance most of the other OECD countries have just been getting on and managing it. IMF data shows that the New Zealand economy had performed worse than the majority of countries in the OECD since 2009. The data shows New Zealand scored 18th out of 34 OECD countries for GDP growth 22nd for unemployment 30th for the current account deficit 28th for national savings growth and 23rd for Government debt—failure failure failure. By all measures of traditional economic success—growth employment the current account deficit national savings and Government debt—New Zealand has performed poorly when compared with the OECD. This is a very bleak picture. Economic measure after economic measure tells a story of missed opportunities that left unresolved will leave generations of our kids permanently worse off. 
That is not who we are. New Zealanders are proud economic innovators. We have transformed our economy many times over to respond to the world around us and to seize opportunities for the future. The best opportunities for the New Zealand economy lie in transitioning to a truly green economy yet there was not a single mention of these opportunities in the Prime Minister’s statement today. The Pure Advantage group’s report released last year tells us we have natural global advantages in geothermal energy but the Government wants to hock off our best launch pad into that lucrative energy market by selling Mighty River Power. We need to stop the Government’s ideologically blinkered asset sales so that all New Zealanders can benefit from the huge geothermal opportunities that Mighty River Power has before it. But today’s speech once more attempts to make the unwinnable case for asset sales. The Prime Minister is still trying to convince New Zealanders that asset sales are a good idea for this country. We know that selling our power companies does not add up and that is why over 360000 New Zealanders have signed the petition calling for a referendum to stop the asset sales. The report the Green Party commissioned last year from Business and Economic Research proved categorically that asset sales would cost the Government more than they bring in. Even Treasury’s projections now confirm that the sales process alone would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. The cost of selling our assets would go on forever. The sales would leave a $100 million a year hole in the Government’s books long after the revenue has been spent. 
The Government’s failures of course do not stop there. The Government is undermining a key part of who we are as a country when it undermines and devalues our beautiful country. We all remember being able to swim in rivers when we were growing up but now we cannot because so many of them are full of effluent. The Government seems to have a pathological opposition to any measure that seeks to protect our beautiful country and make our claims to being 100 percent pure a reality. Bringing in Nick Smith for a spot of “greenwash” window dressing simply will not change that. The so far under-told story of this Government is its failure as an environmental guardian. Its approach to the environment runs counter to our history and to who we are as New Zealanders. The Government’s environmental policies do not share the values of everyday Kiwis who want to love and protect our amazing country. 
Again when we look at the environment the facts speak for themselves. New Zealand has plummeted from the top spot overall to 14th in the most recent Yale University Environmental Performance Index. Our Maui’s dolphin is on the brink of extinction. In 2005 it was estimated that the population of Maui’s dolphins was 111. It is now estimated that that has halved to just 55 and yet the Government still has not implemented the interim measures to protect the Maui’s dolphin that the Department of Conservation proposed in March of last year. So what would it say about us as a country if we allow the Maui’s dolphin to become extinct? How will we explain to our grandchildren that this Government was prepared to stand up for the interests of the commercial fishing industry rather than a native dolphin that is relying on us for its very existence? What would the Maui’s dolphin’s extinction say about National’s actual commitment to the environment? 
And let us not forget about climate change. Our agricultural nation relies on a stable climate for our prosperity and yet this Government has pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol and gutted the emissions trading scheme. While our gross emissions continue to increase under this Government and we do a disservice to our local economy what does it say about our commitment to our Pacific brothers and sisters? What does our withdrawal from tackling climate change internationally say to our neighbours—to our cousins—whose islands are going underwater? We are a Pacific nation with a significant Pasifika population here but this Government does not care enough to do the heavy lifting on climate change to tackle the serious issue playing out in our own backyard to our own family. This is just not who we are. 
I would not want to be a child growing up in New Zealand today. The support that my daughter and I received that helped me to get to where I am and where she is today has been stripped away by this Government. This Government’s social policies have been a disaster for families and especially for children. On official measures income inequality in New Zealand is now the highest it has ever been. Low and middle-income earners are feeling the squeeze while the best-off continue to increase their share of the wealth in their control. At the same time more of our kids are now living in poverty—from 22 percent before the 2008 election to 25 percent at the last one. National crows about its rheumatic fever programme—we heard a bit about that today—but it allows more and more children to become sick and suffer from it because it ignores the housing crisis. Everyone deserves a secure roof over their heads but our rates of homeownership have plummeted with less than two-thirds of homes now owned by the families who live in them. The recent Demographia report shows that New Zealand has some of the most unaffordable housing in the world and that was met by complete inaction by this Government. Bill English said he would wait for another 12 months to see what would happen. So much for us all being in this together. For many New Zealanders the ability to lead a good life is cut off at the knees by the lack of opportunity and support at an early age. The Government’s mean-spirited approach to poverty and hardship does not reflect the values that have shaped our more egalitarian past. We can be a more caring country one that protects our most vulnerable citizens and offers an equality of opportunity for all. 
The Government has lost touch with who we are as a country and has no new ideas to get us out of the hole that it has dug. The desperate Cabinet reshuffle embeds that failure. It rings only of a change in personnel certainly not policy. And the Prime Minister’s plan set out in his speech last Friday and again today offers more of the same blame and excuses—a boring plan by a bored man. It is the Government’s worst ideas of 2012 repeated. It is just Groundhog Day again: adverse asset sales that will make the Government books look permanently worse off and lose the clean-energy potential of these companies a shonky Skycity convention centre funded by the proceeds of gambling addiction human misery and money-laundering and dangerous deep-sea oil drilling that puts our beautiful beaches at risk of a Gulf of Mexico - scale oil spill. 
Today’s statement from the Prime Minister is the most telling for what it does not mention—the plans that the Government is not making. There was not a word on the crisis in manufacturing and the 40000 jobs lost. There was not a single word on climate change—not mentioned once in the statement. There was just one sentence on child poverty and a vague reference to looking at other people’s work and recommendations. There was not an utterance on the Auckland central business district rail loop and the Government plans to support it. Where are the plans to tackle youth unemployment the exodus of New Zealanders to Australia restocking the empty earthquake fund or rebuilding our billion dollar “100% Pure New Zealand” brand after the recent threats to it? All the Government is good for is name-calling slander and schoolyard gibes that seek to ridicule real work that the Opposition is undertaking to address the big issues like unemployment and housing affordability. You know a Government is tired when all it can do is attack great ideas that are popular with the public. John Key has been relegated to being the “Prime Minister for Making Excuses” and it is really sad to see. Deep down he knows that the Government has failed and under National the future is blighted and certainly not any brighter. The Government’s long holiday from running the country needs to come to an end. 
 If it will not act then all we need to do is to step up instead for a better future. Unfortunately 2013 is not an election year but New Zealanders cannot wait until the next election to stop the dangerous direction that the Government is taking. This year the Greens will step up the fight for decent jobs the elimination of child poverty and our defence of the environment. We will do this through generating new thinking and fresh ideas and through building a movement of people to stop the worst of the Government’s agenda. At Ratana last week I had the great privilege to announce our plans to help families achieve the Kiwi dream of owning their own homes or being more secure in rental homes. This is an initiative that will have lasting impacts. It will give young families a real shot at owning their own homes. It is great for our environment as we will build more sustainable compact homes and for child health and family well-being and it will create thousands of new jobs. The Green Party will continue to develop smart solutions to our modern problems. We will offer New Zealanders real alternatives to this tired bored and unimaginative Government. 
But as well as new ideas we will also offer New Zealanders the opportunity to take action. The Green Party has launched an initiative to draw together new constituencies of New Zealanders disillusioned with the direction that the Government is taking. We are committed to giving New Zealanders a political voice and the opportunity to be involved in politics outside of elections and without having to join a party. We think this is essential for our democracy. All New Zealanders have a political voice and the right to express it. 
Opposing a tired old Government developing new ideas and giving Kiwis the chance to get active in politics—these are our priorities for the year. It is clear that the Key Government is resorting to the politics of fear and the politics of hate to try to hold on to power but it will not work because that is not who New Zealanders are. The Government may have given up on making this country a great place but the people have not. Tena koutou katoa.