Hague Kevin: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Second Reading 
Hague Kevin: Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1937] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 When I spoke in the first reading debate on the Taxation (Business Tax Measures) Bill I offered the Green Party’s support for it. I thank the Finance and Expenditure Committee for its work which has been expeditious and I indicate now that the Green Party will continue to support the bill. 
I note that the select committee did have to make a number of technical amendments to the bill. In the first reading debate I registered my and the Green Party’s objection to the bill’s introduction under urgency. I expressed our commitment to healthy politics where urgency is used strictly only when it is required. One cannot help but wonder whether the technical errors in this bill could have been avoided if some more time had been taken in the first place. 
I agree with my colleague Craig Foss that the Government’s package to deal with the economic crisis needs to be taken as a whole. When one does that it becomes absolutely clear that the package totally lacks coherence as I have mentioned in a previous speech on this bill and in speeches on other bills. The Government’s response to the economic crisis is incoherent but it also fails to understand that the best approach to addressing the economic crisis is to do so concurrently with other crises we are experiencing both in the environment particularly in terms of climate change and in the area of energy. 
The example I previously used of the Government’s lack of coherence and policy is the withdrawal of the research and development tax credit. On the one hand the Government is saying “Here’s a hand-up with this tax relief.” and on the other hand it is pulling out the rug from under small businesses with the withdrawal of this reward for innovation in research and development. 
Yesterday the Government with its package to support workers in large businesses and for a 9-day working fortnight provided another example of the lack of coherence in its economic package. Some 20000 to 25000 people are expected to benefit from the measure. But what about the very much larger number of people working in small businesses? Will the devastation of unemployment be any easier to cope with because a person used to work in a smaller workforce? Of course not. There is no difference in the needs of the workers in smaller and larger businesses and therefore no sound and rational basis for the Government’s distinction. 
What is more the Government’s failure to extend a helping hand to workers in these small to medium sized businesses is a kick in the teeth not only for those working people but also for the businesses that employ them. It is one step forward with this bill but another step back with the failure to support the employment relationships within small businesses that are stressed by the economic situation. 
What else has the Government been doing to support small businesses? The Minister of Finance in his first reading speech on the bill said the Government would be looking at the recommendations of the Small Business Advisory Group which I supported at the time. I mentioned a couple of that group’s more recent recommendations. It recommended that “publications be produced that give practical and implementable advice and support for small to medium sized enterprises to improve their environmental performance and to derive business benefit from the recognised or certified environmental sustainability of their products and services.” 
This is something the Government could easily have moved on. It could have funded the Sustainable Business Network for example to produce exactly such resources. One month on there is nothing. The Small Business Advisory Group recommended that “all foodstuffs sold in New Zealand be required to be labelled with the country of origin of the defining component or the most significant component of the foodstuff.” One month on there is nothing. Small and medium sized businesses must surely have noted that despite all the rhetoric about urgency and pragmatism nothing besides this modest tax relief has been done to lend them a hand while the rug is being firmly and rapidly pulled out from under the feet of many. 
I spoke in the first reading perhaps a little obscurely about bees. I likened the Government’s dogged and robotic fixation on continuing to try to run the economy on the same unsustainable basis that caused this economic crisis in the first place to bees trying to find their way home and being trapped by a building lying in their path. The inability to consider other possibilities leads to disastrous consequences both for the bees and for our nation under this Government. 
There are some positive signs and I take issue with the comments of my colleague Clayton Cosgrove. The national cycleway is a great first step and I commend the Government for it. It will bring in sustainable tourism dollars will assist in reducing greenhouse gas emissions by encouraging people in some major urban centres to ride bikes instead of using motor vehicles and will produce health gains but it will also create jobs. Yesterday the New Zealand Contractors Federation called the cycleway “a vital boost for small and medium sized contractors.” Those members who have cycled the Otago Central Rail Trail or the Little River Rail Trail for example or similar cycle routes overseas such as the Sustrans network in Britain will know that this kind of cycling facility provides the lifeblood of many small businesses and indeed whole rural communities. 
I remember on one of the occasions when I rode the Otago Central Rail Trail another group of riders staying in the Lauder Hotel with us—a business that probably would have closed by now if it had not been for the trail—consisted of the Minister of Finance Mr English and a large family group. He will certainly have seen the profound impact the cycleway has had on the local economy. I hope he may begin to agree that it is possible to deal with more than one crisis at a time. 
That is an example of how it is possible to address the twin crises in environment and economy by taking action to transform the economy to one that has a sustainable basis—what the Green Party and many world leaders have dubbed the Green New Deal. Early Green jobs visionary Van Jones has just been appointed a special adviser for green jobs enterprise and innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. When the Green Party has asked in this Chamber about the Government’s intention to create green-collar jobs the Prime Minister has indicated that he neither knew nor cared. I guess that is another way John Key is not like Barack Obama. I am starting to keep a list. There is another list on ways John Key is not like Nelson Mandela. 
The new American President absolutely seems to get it. We are facing multiple crises right now. It simply is not possible to say we are going to choose just one. If it is possible to create jobs and help to move the economy towards long-term sustainability at the same time then why on earth would we not do that? If it is possible to create jobs and help protect or better still restore the environment then why on earth would we not do so? If it is possible to create jobs and ensure the entitlement of New Zealanders to the fundamentals of life such as affordable healthy food warm and safe housing and effective and efficient public transport then why on earth would we not do so? 
Let us see the jobs in insulating homes retrofitting homes and offices for energy efficiency installing solar water heating on every State house riparian planting native reforestation cleaning up toxic sites enhanced public transport services communities growing food locally and distributed electricity generation. Out of the teeth of these multiple crises it is possible to snatch the opportunity to shift New Zealand on to a new path that will ensure a future worth having for our children and grandchildren. 
We urge the Government not to blow it and we offer our support and assistance. The nature of the Green New Deal incorporates an inclusive society moving towards this positive common purpose. I will close by quoting Van Jones in this book  
The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems 
. 
“And now we stand at our own crossroads looking out upon two futures: one with rising temperatures rising oceans and rising violence on a hot and strip-mined planet and another with expanding organic harvests growing solar arrays and deepening global partnerships on a green and thriving Earth. Given those choices we know in our hearts what our parents’ generation—and our grandparents’ generation—would have done for us. Come then let us go forward together with our united strength—and win that better future for the generations to come.” Thank you.