Norman Russel: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 15 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4392. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. This week we have seen the economic incoherence at the core of this National Government. If you recall the asset sale programme was justified on the basis of reducing debt. The Government told us that it had to sell these energy assets which were returning 18 percent total shareholder return according to Treasury to raise about $6 billion to avoid accumulating $6 billion worth of debt. 
However what we have found out over the last few days is that the Government intends to actually take on more debt possibly in the order of $5 billion or $6 billion according to the briefing to the incoming Minister of Transport in order to build new uneconomic motorways. These are the motorways that were decided on by National before it went into Government as Bill English told us in May. These motorways were chosen for political reasons not economic reasons. These are motorways that have very low rates of return or in some of the cases negative rates of return. In some of the cases the motorways cost a billion dollars to build and the return is only $600 million which is the Warkworth to Wellsford motorway. The Government wants to borrow $5 billion to $6 billion in order to build these motorways which have low or negative rates of return. 
It told us that we had to privatise the energy companies which have very high rates of return—about 18 percent total shareholder return according to Treasury—in order to reduce debt. Now it has told us that it needs to borrow about the same amount again to invest in motorways. This Government does not have a coherent economic agenda. Watching this Government in action is watching people who have no idea how to pull together a sensible economic policy. It is not surprising that since it took office New Zealand has slipped from having the eighth-lowest unemployment in the OECD to the 14th lowest unemployment in the OECD. There are 65000 more people unemployed than when it took over because it seems that the economics of “Planet National” are extremely damaging to the economics of New Zealand. 
We have a Government that does not understand some basic fundamental economic realities. By throwing billions of dollars of borrowed money at new motorway projects that do not have an economic case the Government is increasing our oil dependency and hence our oil bill so making our current account deficit worse. It is increasing the greenhouse gas emissions because we will have induced traffic on those motorways. Of course we are causing higher oil imports which will affect the external balance of the New Zealand economy which is our No. 1 problem. 
The Government has not taken a rational economic approach which would be to get these motorway projects and put them through Treasury’s guidelines for capital spending—and that has never happened under this Government. If you were taking a rational approach to building new motorways you would put them through Treasury’s guidelines. The Government has never done that. The reason it has never done that as Bill English told this House in May this year when I asked him about it is that these motorways were chosen during the 2008 and 2011 election campaigns. So they were chosen for political reasons rather than for economic reasons. This is a political and ideological strategy by the Government to borrow billions of dollars so that it can spend them on motorways that do not have a business case—motorways that have never been put through Treasury’s guidelines for capital expenditure. 
If we had a smart Green economic approach we would be investing in transport options that actually reduce congestion. They take freight off the highway system and put it on railways. Let us remember that about a third of all our exports already travel by rail. Rail is critically important to the New Zealand economy. If the Government had a rational smart Green economic agenda that would be the priority. We would actually invest in public transport walking and cycling compact urban form in our major urban centres to reduce congestion so that those people who need to use the roads to get around—the plumbers whom Michael Cullen was always so very fond of telling us about—would have roads that were less congested so that people who needed to use the roads could actually use them. That is the cheapest way to reduce congestion. That is the smart Green economic opportunity that this Government is turning its back on.