Shaw James: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4068. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Budget 2015 contains a number of “weak tea might work a little” proposals that the Green Party has been promoting for years. We were pleased to see that the Greens’ call for additional funding for things like telecommunications infrastructure and biosecurityare finally being heeded. [Interruption] Be careful what you wish for Brett. Yet this Budget also demonstrates a remarkable lack of vision on behalf of the Government. Rather than making a concerted effort towards transitioning to a smart Green economy the Government is offering New Zealanders a couple of feel-good policies mixed in with a myriad of ones that are failing. The end result of this will be the creation of a lost generation stuck with an ailing economy and wedded to mid-20th century ideas. We reject this future. The Green Party is committed to building a smart Green economy that works for all New Zealanders.The Budget is not without its merits. From the point of view of economic development there are a number of policy initiatives that do align with our call to move towards a smart Green economy. A green economy involves more extensive and intensive use of digital technology and communications. This enables a more distributed emergent business-model than the highly centralised dominant models of doing business that we are familiar with today. It enables distributed digital manufacturing greater access to better education in our most remote towns and provincial centres and weightless exports as a much greater proportion of the overall economy. In turn that means a much more resilient economy than the highly fragile risk-loaded economy that we have today. It means greater distribution of wealth to the regions and to our small towns and provincial centres. To that end the Greens support fully the Government’s move to extend the telecommunications development levy so as to provide extra funding for the Rural Broadband Initiative. Access to fast reliable broadband is an essential and central piece of our economic infrastructure and it is good to see the Government taking action on this.Similarly we are happy that the Budget provides a $24.9 million boost in funding for biosecurity in order to make up for the cuts that National made at the beginning of its tenure. The future of our tourism industry relies on the protection of our unique flora and fauna. Biosecurity staff play an essential role in this and it is good to see the importance of their work finally being recognised by this Government. However these are isolated successes. There does not seem to be any overarching strategy to transition New Zealand to a green economy. In fact some of the initiatives that are supposed to protect the environment are doing the exact opposite. In Chris Bishop’s maiden speech when he summed up the National Government’s approach to policy making he invoked the perennial free-market hero Milton Friedman.Hon Member: Ha ha!JAMES SHAW: And although you might laugh Friedman said: “One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.” This is a laudable notion. So let us look at some of what National says its programmes are intended to do and then let us take a look at what they actually do.Although the supposed purpose of the New Zealand emissions trading scheme is to reduce emissions it is actually doing the precise opposite. The Budget has revealed that in the 2014-15 year the Government handed out almost $114 million worth of free carbon credits to industries that cause climate change but received only $83 million through the emissions trading scheme.Hon Member: Corporate welfare.JAMES SHAW: Taxpayers picked up the $31 million difference—and that is corporate welfare. The consequence is that our emissions have grown by 13 percent since the National Government was first elected in 2008. If we are going to judge the emissions trading scheme by its results as Mr Bishop suggests we do then it is clear that the policy is an abject failure. The emissions trading scheme illustrates a broader problem with the Government’s strategy—or lack thereof. Instead of taking decisive steps towards the creation of a smart Green economy the Government focuses on empty gestures and policies that sound positive but that have no impact. The effect is the creation of a lost generation of New Zealanders who will be left with an economy that is woefully inefficient and that has a heavy carbon footprint. Is that the legacy that we want to leave the next generation? This is unacceptable.We need a smart Green economy that works for all New Zealanders and it is clear that this Government is not delivering that. The Green Party is proposing meaningful initiatives to facilitate this transition. Decisive action is needed in order to mitigate climate change and leave future generations with high levels of natural capital. Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on an emissions trading scheme that subsidises polluters we need to introduce a proper price on carbon emissions. Pricing carbon properly would act as a simple but effective incentive to move away from polluting technologies and industries towards cleaner production and forms of energy. In turn personal and company tax rates could be reduced. Under our proposal polluters would actually bear the cost of their actions whilst green businesses and ordinary New Zealand households would benefit and that seems fair reasonable and equitable to us.In order to support businesses with the transition from a carbon-intensive economy to one that is green we should also set up a green investment fund. The aim of this Government-owned for-profit bank would be to provide funds to support green private investment in the areas of renewable energy and clean technology. Fossil fuel subsidies would be stopped raising the overall tax take from oil companies from 46 percent to the global average of around 70 percent which would give us more than enough to cover the $120 million for the first 3 years of the funds’ operation. In time the bank will see billions of dollars going in to things such as renewable energy plants the development and production of biofuels and clean technology products. Investing in a smart Green economy is essential not only for the environment but also for the future of our economy.Alongside these funds for investment we also need to see greater commitment to research and development and the innovation that results. The Greens would allocate an additional $1 billion over 3 years to research and development while also collaborating directly with the private sector by providing tax credits and grants in relation to research and development. These would provide us with the technology and ideas to drive the transition to a smart Green economy. These are innovative but sensible policy solutions that are being proposed only by the Green Party. This Government has adopted a “weak tea might work a little” version of policies that we have been promoting for years and years. So clearly the Greens have won the policy argument. National has done it because it has had to not because it has wanted to. If voters want the real thing if they want policies that achieve results rather than just good intentions then they should make sure to vote for us at the next election. The Greens are offering long-term solutions to a sustainable future economy for all New Zealanders and for that and for all those reasons we oppose this Budget.