Norman Russel William: Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Norman Russel William: Appropriation (2008/09 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:649;Page:17799] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I start by thanking the taxpayers of New Zealand. None of what is proposed in this Budget—or in any of these Budgets—would be possible without the taxpayers of New Zealand actually paying their taxes. I think it is forgotten that we are spending money that they give over—admittedly forcibly—but nevertheless they are contributing in order to make this country a better place. It is important to remember that taxes are the price we pay for a civilised society. There is nothing ideologically wrong with taxes. Sometimes when I listen to members particularly National and ACT members talk about taxes it sounds as though they think there is something evil about taxes. There is nothing wrong with taxes in principle. I think it is more a question of how we use taxes. Obviously we can use taxes better or worse we can be more efficient or less efficient and we can waste them or we can use them well. But it is important to remember that the idea of taxes and the idea of a civilised society are really at the core of what is in this Budget and of trying to achieve what is in this Budget. 
One of the problems with this Budget from the Green Party point of view is that sometimes when listening to Labour and National members and looking at the Budget I feel it is like watching someone run into the future while facing backwards—rushing rapidly into a maelstrom while looking backwards the whole time at what has already passed. Building a roading programme on the basis of oil being $60 a barrel—or whatever the latest low figure that Transit is using is—is rushing rapidly into the future while facing backwards and imagining the future will be like the past. The future will not be like the past. We live on a finite planet and on our finite planet we are running into real issues of resource depletion and limits to the ability of the planet to absorb our pollution and wastes. That if nothing else is really the defining reality of our age. As we go into the 21st century the defining question is how we as a species that is completely addicted to exponential growth of resources and pollution change our behaviour so that we live within the ability of the planet to continue to support us. 
In the Green Party’s view this Budget fails to tackle that fundamental problem and that fundamental challenge facing reality. Many manifestations of that challenge are already starting to occur. It is extraordinary but true that we are now living in the era when resource depletion is already starting to be seen. It is obvious in the price of oil—the era of cheap oil is over; we will never go back to cheap oil. The price of oil will go up and down but the long-term trend is only up. In our view this Budget still fails to come to terms with that reality. When we look at the price of food we see that it is heavily influenced by the price of oil and is also heavily influenced by the amount of agricultural land and what other competing uses that land is used for—obviously biofuel production is one of the problems. But also we have a global problem whereby we have an exponential growth in population but not an exponential growth in arable land. In fact the amount of arable land is declining so it is not surprising that the price of food should go up. 
Water is probably the defining environmental issue of our country. We have only a limited amount of clean fresh water. There is not an infinite amount of it yet we have an agricultural sector—in particular but other sectors as well—with exponential growth in its demands for that water. The result is enormous competition for that water and declining quality of water. Water is a finite resource; there is not an infinite amount of fresh water in New Zealand. Yet the way our economic system is behaving it pretends that there is and we are running into resource depletions. We have the same problem with fisheries. New Zealand’s quota management system is often lauded. Obviously there are worse systems but we know that the quota management system has resulted in the collapse of fish stocks. It has not worked as a sustainable way of managing fish. Of course the final and global issue we face in all of this is the global problem of climate change. The planet has a finite ability to absorb our greenhouse emissions without fundamentally altering the climate. 
Those are the key challenges we think this Budget fails to address. It makes progress in some areas yet things are getting worse in others. There are a couple of issues I want to pick up on. One is public transport. 
Peter Brown 
: Say something positive. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: There are some positive initiatives about public transport coming out of this Budget. However the truth is that the average figures coming out of the strategy projections released yesterday show there is a 5:1 spend on roads versus alternatives to roads being projected into the future which seems to me not really to be coming to terms with the fact that the era of cheap oil is over. We have been pushing for some time to change the balance in spending between roads and alternatives to roads such as public transport walking and cycling. That seems to me to be the key thing. 
The next thing we need to do in terms of future-proofing our society and economy and one of the things there has been some progress on in the Budget relates to insulating houses. We think we probably have about 300000 uninsulated or very poorly insulated houses in New Zealand which has tremendous impacts on health as well as energy use. One of the key things we want to see is much greater investment in retrofitting and insulating houses. We think that would make quite a big difference to people’s quality of life and cost of living and have environmental benefits in terms of increasing energy efficiency. Tied into this in terms of the rising cost of living is that if we invest in alternatives to road use and private motorcars that is one way to reduce people’s cost of living and make it much more affordable as the price of oil continues to go up. It saddens me that both sides of the House propose investing in roading infrastructure which seems to be locking in a dependence on a commodity whose price can only go up. So those people who are on the edges of our big cities and towns are going to be dependent on cars with ever-rising oil prices to get themselves to work and back. That is a fundamental mistake. 
One of the things that is not in the Budget but would be good to have in is a levy on water particularly on commercial water use. The Greens think we have to transform our tax system so that it moves away from taxing wages and towards taxing resources and pollution. We want to use a tax system that actually improves things rather than one that taxes the things we want more of like work and productivity. 
I would also like to mention health because there have been some very odd comments about health. The comments that keep coming about the nanny State and health are ridiculous. Is National proposing that we start smoking in our offices again? National would say it is because of the nanny State that right now in this House we are not allowed to light up a cigarette. That is clearly the nanny State. We are not allowed to have a cigarette in our offices or a cigarette in a restaurant because of the evil nanny State! It seems to me that those are all really positive measures. I cannot believe that when National gets into Government it is proposing to reintroduce cigarette smoking into restaurants and bars. Is National proposing to put cigarette smoking back in restaurants and bars because it is the nanny State that stops us from smoking there? I think that is ridiculous. They were excellent health measures. 
If in the long term we want to reduce the price of our health system we have to invest in primary and preventative health. Public health is the best investment we can make in the long term in terms of reducing the cost of health. Why would we oppose measures that reduce the long-term costs on our health system such as measures to try to reduce smoking which National calls nanny State but which I think are really good public health measures? I will be very interested to see National’s response to that. 
In this Budget the Greens have about $100 million over 5 years for a number of packages and I would like to talk a little bit about those packages. First we have about $50 million over 5 years to retrofit insulation into State housing. That is another 21000 uninsulated State houses that we will be able to retrofit with insulation. We are extremely proud of that. It is only a tiny drop in the bucket of what we need to do but it is a real gain and it is one the Greens fought hard for. We got about $10 million over 4 years for the Community Organisations Grants Scheme which can give financial support to not-for-profit voluntary and community-based organisations. This is a devolved funding scheme to community groups and non-governmental organisations and we think it is tremendously important that we support the community sector. 
We also have about $4 million to look at a citizens’ jury to consider the funding of elections. The Greens have always taken the view that the best body to look at the funding of elections and all the rules around them are actually not the people in this House. It should be away from political parties and away from all the vested interests that are making donations to goodness knows who. A citizens’ jury which has been used in Canada would be a much better way to go. We also got about $8 million over 4 years to support five major research projects on climate change and conservation land and we think they are really important. We got the National Community Biodiversity Fund which is $4 million over 2 years to fund restoration projects to protect indigenous biodiversity on public land. The national antibiotic resistance surveillance scheme is the last of our projects that I would like to mention. There is a heap of others but this scheme is a classic preventive health measure. If we can stop antibiotic resistance developing we can reduce the long-term costs to the health system. 
The Greens will be abstaining on this Budget as we do but we take credit for those particular measures and we encourage members on both sides of the House to look at the long term to look into the future and at the impact of a finite planet on their Budgets.