Donald Rod: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Donald Rod: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:623;Page:18250] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The battle lines are drawn and the election campaign is clearly under way. Without doubt Winston Peters stole the show in yesterday’s opening salvo. Let us face it: he is a modern-day court jester. But would we want him to be our king let alone our king-maker? As always his stand-up routine contains grains of truth but he was so carried away with his performance that he forgot to deliver his serious lines—the no-confidence motion he was meant to move against Labour. On the other hand he blasted National to the point of promising to supplant it at the election. So we are still none the wiser as to which side he is on. That remains a secret known only to Winston Peters. 
However there is no doubt where ACT stands or falls. Rodney Hide pledged allegiance to National but it sounded hollow because as Jeanette Fitzsimons pointed out in her state of the planet speech ACT is an endangered species—but not one we are willing to save. It is not surprising that the ACT MPs gave Don Brash’s speech a standing ovation. After all they did once claim him as their 10th MP and his policies are so backward and punitive that even some members of his own caucus do not support them. That is why National has about as much chance I say to Mr Key of becoming the next Government as ACT has of being re-elected. 
Don Brash’s performance this week confirmed that he does not have what it takes to be Prime Minister of New Zealand. Sacking Nick Smith as his deputy was inept getting rid of Georgina te Heuheu was intolerant and demoting Katherine Rich was just plain nasty—as are his welfare policies. Under Dr Brash’s autocratic leadership National’s depleted front bench now consists of a leader a deputy leader a deposed leader a sacked deputy leader a man who declined to be deputy leader and a man who wants to be National’s next leader—yes that is Mr Key. There is not a woman in sight and no unity either. We know a party is in meltdown when its MPs drop their public facade. By calling Don Brash’s decisions “stupid” Brian Connell is clearly looking forward to National’s next leadership spill. Those members may not even wait until after the election. Certainly National cannot afford for Dr Brash to make any more keynote speeches if each one costs the party a spokesperson. Those members must be painfully aware that a leader who causes so much division in his own party has no chance of uniting the public behind him.  
 Helen Clark was right to say that if New Zealanders vote for National they run the risk of lurching back to the division unfairness and sheer nastiness of the 1990s. But she is wrong to claim that the only alternative is the status quo. New Zealanders deserve better than that. In any case having only two choices is first-past-the-post thinking. The reality with MMP is that no one party is likely to win a majority of votes. There are good reasons for that. Voters have had enough of single-party Governments running amok. Labour’s past record is no better than National’s in that regard which is why discerning voters will re-elect the Greens and in greater numbers to keep Labour honest. The Prime Minister’s speech was not honest. I know that that is a harsh judgment call but the fact is that she did not tell the truth about the state of the economy let alone the state of the environment. Yes her speech pushed lots of the right buttons—prosperity great quality of life lifting overall well-being and sustainable future but the best of all was that Labour is now the champion of the ownership society brilliantly outflanking National which used to stand for the property-owning democracy. 
But Labour wants to be popular rather than to tell the truth. I believe we can do both. Jeanette Fitzsimons’ state of the planet speech confirms that. She put the hard issues of climate change oil depletion environmental destruction and the unsustainability of the current economic model firmly on the agenda and despite our sober message we have had a significant lift in the two opinion polls since. 
The Prime Minister’s speech provided no answers to the sober questions asked by Colin James in his recent column: “We love debt to bits but the party can’t go on forever”. While Dr Cullen is sitting on overflowing coffers and the Government’s fiscal position is the best it has been in decades New Zealand as a whole and individuals within it are becoming increasingly indebted. Household debt has tripled to around 130 percent of income in the past 15 years making us one of the most indebted nations in the developed world. It is bad enough that we have been spending our borrowings on a consumption binge; what is worse is that we are financing it by borrowing against inflated house prices. If that bubble does not burst soon it certainly will deflate—which of course is the last thing Dr Cullen wants because the apparent buoyant economy contributes to our sense of well-being hence there being no reality check in the Prime Minister’s speech. She did talk a lot about encouraging savings and that is a good thing. But working and beneficiary families do not need to be told to develop a savings habit. What they need are wage and benefit rises. Despite the minimum wage going up to $9.50 an hour it is still not enough to live on. Family support helps if one has children but why should taxpayers be subsidising employers who do not pay their workers enough to bring up their families in decency? 
Helen Clark also talked about the importance of asset ownership to enable people to fully participate in society. Everything she said about people owning their own homes was true but she refused to acknowledge that a major reason that homeownership levels are dropping is the $7 billion student debt burden on our young people. Setting up a tertiary education savings scheme is a sick joke when full-time students should receive the so-called universal benefit that the Government is promising so that they do not need to borrow to buy their groceries. 
The Prime Minister’s speech studiously avoided New Zealand’s massive current account deficit and the record $4 billion trade deficit that is contributing to it. Instead she preached free trade. The truth is that free trade is taking our economy and society backwards. The more we open up our borders to imports the worse our trade deficit gets. Meanwhile despite excellent world prices for commodities the value of New Zealand’s exports is actually less than it was 3 years ago. Free trade like genetic engineering simply has not delivered on its promises yet the Government remains shackled to the globalisation agenda. Three years ago Jim Anderton and Jim Sutton predicted that New Zealand’s exports to Singapore would grow as a result of that free-trade agreement. They were proved wrong. Yesterday Helen Clark predicted that the new free-trade agreement with Thailand will improve our access to that growing market. I believe that our $260 million trade deficit with Thailand will actually increase as a result of throwing open our borders to cheap imports. I also predict that there will be job losses in the manufacturing sector because Kiwis cannot and should not have to compete with skilled Thai workers who are being paid less than their cost of living. 
But the real dark cloud on the horizon is the free-trade agreement that the Government is currently negotiating with China. Unions and manufacturers are now speaking with one voice when they say that up to 300000 jobs could be affected if that deal proceeds. How will those workers feel about their quality of life well-being and participation in the ownership society when their jobs are sacrificed? 
I urge Government members to pause for a cup of tea on free trade. They should take the time to read the thoughtful critique by Nobel Prize - winning economist Paul Samuelson who said that he is having second thoughts about free trade and concedes that it is not the unqualified blessing it is cracked up to be let alone a win-win solution. While the Government is pausing it should put its Overseas Investment Bill on the backburner and do a proper cost-benefit analysis of its plans to make foreign ownership of our country and our economy even easier. Foreign investment costs New Zealand $8.2 billion in dividends and interest for the year to September. Why make it worse? 
What the Government should be taking swift action on is the real immediate challenges raised in the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s latest report  
Growing for Good: Intensive farming sustainability and New Zealand’s environment 
 which tackles head-on the unsustainability of intensive farming practices in New Zealand. Why did the Prime Minister’s bold agenda not include the Government’s strategy for addressing the serious issues raised in that report? The report states the obvious: that we are highly dependent on our natural capital—our water soils and biodiversity—for sustaining a very high proportion of our wealth-generating capabilities whether it be the production of food fibre wine or film or delivering great visitor experiences to overseas tourists. It acknowledges that changes are already under way to address the environmental impacts of farming but concludes that there is little evidence that existing efforts will be sufficiently or widespread to maintain and enhance New Zealand’s natural capital. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has issued a challenge that we cannot afford to ignore. Farming systems need to be developed that deliver environmental sustainability and economic wealth not short-term economic wealth at the expense of environmental sustainability. The Government must ensure that its policies regulations and other drivers are redesigned to achieve the right rather than the wrong outcomes. 
The Greens are ready to work with Labour on all those challenges in order to steer it in the right direction to apply the brake when it looks like it is slipping backwards and to take bold steps to protect our environment and become a fairer society.