Ward Mike: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Ward Mike: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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MIKE WARD (Green) 
: 
 In listening to parts of the Prime Minister’s speech yesterday and chatting to members around the House it is possible to believe that in fact we share a good many views in common. We all like to live in a community where we are all able to participate contribute live healthy lives and look after the environment. There is a fair bit we agree on so I will concentrate my 5 minutes on those areas where we might find a measure of agreement.  
The Green Party’s attitude to growth on a finite planet is our point of difference. It is just not possible to simply go on producing more without undermining the planet’s capacity to sustain life. It is either our own lives the lives of the other species communities and generations with which we share this planet or our own capacity for enjoyment. It is the Green Party’s contention that rather than judging our success by how much our economy is growing or by how much we earn we look instead for new criteria based on the measure of human happiness and the state of the environment.  
It is not that we Greens think that there is no scope for growth or trade but we see little point in doing or trading any more of anything unless it adds to the sum total of human happiness and the capacity of the planet to sustain life. If it simply means more cars on our already overcrowded roads if 3.9 percent growth increases the energy use and adds to the 80 million kilograms of waste going into New Zealand landfills every week it makes little sense. If in spite of that 3.9 percent growth the epidemics of obesity diabetes clinical depression cancers and cardiovascular disease go on burgeoning can we not begin to see that decades of growing our economy working more hours per man woman and child than ever before and producing more and getting bigger just might be a flawed model?  
Perhaps it is time we focused on doing more of the things that genuinely enhance the quality of life in this extraordinarily beautiful and abundant country and more of the things that sustain that extraordinary beauty and abundance and make an effort to share what we have in order to make the time to enjoy the experiences of living here. Improving the quality of our existence rather than the quantity of our position needs to become our focus.  
 The Government and the Prime Minister in particular are to be commended for their focus on the arts. The additional funding has made more good artistic activity happen and ensured the survival of a number of our creative icons. I want to make a plea not for more money but for a diversion of money earmarked for existing non-art activity into the kinds of artistic effort that would improve the quality and the uniquely New Zealand flavour of those other non-artistic activities. The arts ought to be more than special events and special places for special occasions. They have the capacity to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary to enrich life to make workplaces more enjoyable and our hospitals and healing places more hospitable and more healing.  
It may be difficult to measure the healing qualities of the recent Nelson Hospital extension landscape and mural features but I have little doubt that the reduction in stress levels for patients and staff in those places is sufficient to justify the relatively minimal cost of the additions. That kind of initiative is worth repeating in public and private places spaces and occasions up and down New Zealand. Our prisons our workplaces our schools and our neighbourhoods are all appropriate venues for the work of numerous talented and frequently underemployed and undervalued New Zealand artists. The Government could well offer a lead to the private sector by making a senior figure in each of our Government departments responsible for following up on arts projects in their ministries. Could such activities meet my criteria for enriching the environment and the quality of our lives? I think so.  
On the transport front initiatives to create safe cycling and walking routes to our schools also have the capacity to make our urban environment safer reverse the obesity trends in our youngsters increase the likelihood that they will avoid diabetes and cardiovascular disease and enhance their capacity both to learn and to enjoy life.  
My final plea is to the Government to take a leadership role in encouraging New Zealanders to buy New Zealand – made ahead of imports and to stop signing up for agreements that oblige us to take the products of sweatshops and lax environmental standards. In a food-producing nation it is an absurdity that most of the products on our supermarket shelves are imported. Buying local is one sure way of looking after the environment getting more New Zealanders into good work and ensuring that those who are unable to work—for whatever reason—have sufficient income to care for themselves and their families. Mindlessly producing and consuming ever more is a recipe for a tragically inadequate diet and a recipe for an even more tragic future. When we are capable of so much more why do we readily settle for so little?