Genter Julie Anne: Debate on Budget Policy StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Debate on Budget Policy Statement[Sitting date: 09 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9531. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise to speak on the Budget Policy Statement. This document has a whole lot of areas that I would like to speak to but I want to start by focusing on the second Budget priority of this Government which is called “Building a more productive and competitive economy”. Who could disagree with this objective? It is like motherhood and apple pie.The Green Party does not take issue with a competitive or productive economy; we would just say National’s policies are not actually going to deliver that and even if they were going to deliver that being competitive and productive is not sufficient to create good lives for New Zealanders. The Green Party would also like to prioritise a fairer and cleaner economy because that is what is going to make us better off in the long run. An economy that protects our precious natural environment and makes all people in New Zealand able to live healthier happier lives is one that we should all be aspiring to.In the eighth year of this National Government we are starting to see just how short-term and unsustainable National’s approach to the economy is. Its approach has seemed to boil down to an oversimplified and incorrect assumption that more is always better—inparticular doing more of what we have already been doing. We should keep doing more of that according to National. Anyone watching at home probably knows that more is not always better. We like that piece of chocolate cake. It is delicious right? So if one piece of chocolate cake is good for us metaphorically more is even better. But each piece of chocolate cake we eat in a row will bring us diminishing pleasure until eventually it makes us sick. So how does this play out in the economy? New Zealand had a successful dairy industry and in the last decade we were making some decent money off it. Well National thought: “Great. We’ve got it. The best way to get richer is to convert more land to intensive dairy make twice as much milk powder and sell it overseas. So we are going to set a target of doubling primary exports and put in place a bunch of policies that favour increasing the volume of primary exports.”I heard finance Minister Bill English say today something to the effect of: “Oh it’s got nothing to do with us. Individual farmers weighed up the costs and benefits themselves and made the decision to jump on the dairy bandwagon.” But they did not make that decision in isolation from Government policy. Let us just look at the facts. National’s Business Growth Agenda target is to double primary sector exports by 2025. It does not specifically mention dairy in the primary industries policy but dairy contributes just over 40 percent of New Zealand’s primary industries export revenue. Therefore it would not be unreasonable to suggest that the policy aim is for the dairy sector to double by 2025.I think it is fair to say that National has been encouraging farmers to go for volume rather than value. For example it has provided a whole lot of subsidies for irrigation schemes which encourage farmers to take on more debt to fund dairy intensification. The Government has allocated $120 million to Crown Irrigation Investments Ltd out of a potential $400 million in funding. Total Government spending on irrigation to 2016 will be $160 million. Another policy that National had: Landcorp the Government’s farmer was engaging in one of the biggest dairy conversions in the southern hemisphere. Of course in the wake of the dairy price fall Landcorp has subsequently wound back this plan by half and its chief executive officer was saying this week: “The days of New Zealand continuing to expand its dairy footprint are largely coming to a close.” So there is some acknowledgment amongst people in the industry that more is not better and it is not anti-farmer to say that there are costs and risks in expansion.In fact it would have been better for the original farmers—the existing farmers especially the ones who are looking after the environment trying to use water well—if the National Government had put a price on the commercial use of water had put in meaningful water quality standards to uphold the quality of our rivers and had put a moratorium on dairy conversions. All of that would have protected existing farmers from having to compete with new farms for water and having to deal with increased pollution pressure on our waterways. And of course the lack of a meaningful price on carbon and the lack of the inclusion of agriculture in the emissions trading scheme meant that there was even more pressure or incentive to switch from forestry to dairy. This was under the National Government’s watch.Debt soared during the dairy boom when the payout in 2013 and 2014 jumped to over $8 a kilogram. People leapt on the bandwagon then to buy dairy farms at inflated prices or paid high prices to convert forest and other pastoral land to dairy. That would not have happened if we had had a different set of policies that were encouraging a more balanced approach to both farming and to economic development. So those conversions are actually a big part of the problem that we are facing today. They happened when we did not have a price on water or a meaningful carbon price and that made forestry less economic than it would have otherwise been.I will give the Government this: the National members have been masters of rhetoric over the past 8 years—Chris Bishop: Thank you.JULIE ANNE GENTER: Ha ha! And that continues in the speeches from the Government members. Its MPs have been very disciplined and consistent in using their slogans to assert the values of strong economic management and to distract from any legitimate criticism or debate of its policy.Chris Bishop: Oh you’ve been very loud in your criticism.JULIE ANNE GENTER: No National does not want to engage in a constructive debate about whether or not its policies are going to achieve the stated objectives so its members always resort to the straw man argument. So when the Green Party has said there are costs and risks in dairy expansion in the next conversion from forestry or pasture to intensive dairy the National Party has said: “The Green Party hates farmers. The Green Party is anti-farming; they want to shoot all dairy cows.”Obviously that is not what we are saying. We are saying that probably doubling the production of dairy is not the best way to protect existing farmers and ensure that they are doing well nor is it the best way to develop our economy if we want to have a long-term sustained prosperity that protects our environment and adds value to those goods that we are selling overseas.But National says: “If you criticise our policies that are encouraging the expansion of dairy then you are against all dairy.” That is not what the Green Party has said and it is certainly not what we are saying now. We see some things similar with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—if anyone raises criticisms or questions about the costs of the TPP agreement to the New Zealand taxpayer and the New Zealand economy in the medium term the National Party asserts: “Well you must be anti-trade. The Green Party hates trade.” That is what we hear from the National Party. That is a straw man argument because National has failed to address the serious questions and concerns about the costs of the TPP agreement as compared with the benefits.And if we say today that National’s failed policies promoting the expansion of dairy has not served farmers has not served our environment and has not served our economy—and we need to learn some lessons from that—its response is “Well if you actually care about farmers then one you won’t support the protection of our waterways you shouldn’t.” but also we should therefore sign up to all of the provisions in the TPP agreement even those ones which we know are going to cost the New Zealand taxpayer and the New Zealand economy in the medium term.Let us have a real debate about policy. The Green Party is not opposed to reducing tariffs but I do not think it is anti-trade to acknowledge the fact that the gains for our economy as a whole from the TPP agreement are marginal at best. And for dairy it is a reduction in costs of only $102 million by the time it is fully implemented on exports of $4.6 billion. So that is only a 2 percent gain. Is that going to make up for the big drop in global dairy prices? Certainly not. The Green Party is pro-trade and we want trade agreements that level the playing field just like we want meaningful environmental standards that level the playing field here in New Zealand so that those responsible farmers can thrive and the other farmers are forced to clean up their act. That is how we get a thriving economy. And we want the same thing on a global scale; we want trade agreements that level the playing field by protecting environments and people not by protecting the ability of multinational corporates to maximise their profits at the expense of taxpayers.The Green Party supports policy that will protect the things that matter most: our pristine natural environment our most vulnerable people. By doing that first—by putting people and the planet first—that is how we can create an—