Donald Rod: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
Donald Rod: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:6409] 
ROD DONALD (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Labour Government could have led the world with this legislation. It could have demonstrated by its actions that it means what it says when it claims on the international stage to be a world leader in sustainable development. It could have put its money where its mouth is and shown that it is possible to create jobs and make the economy more self-reliant at the same time as strengthening our social fabric and protecting—indeed enhancing—our environment. What a landmark day this could have been. Sadly it is not. It is not because the Government has failed to live up to its own rhetoric. It is happy to talk about sustainability it is happy to plan for sustainability and it is happy to start the process of implementing sustainability around the edges but it refuses to implement sustainable development at the core at the sharp end of its drive for economic growth. 
Early in this Government’s first term we were optimistic that Labour would steer New Zealand in the right direction. Prime Minister Helen Clark stood on platforms around the country advocating sustainable development and triple bottom line reporting. But when the Industry New Zealand legislation came to the House we were downright shocked to find there was no commitment to sustainable development in that bill or in the Ministry of Economic Development bill. 
What a contrast and a contradiction between what Helen Clark said at the Redesigning Resources Conference and at the Local Government New Zealand conference and what Mr Anderton has brought into this Parliament—especially given that Mr Anderton had been part of the Alliance that we made a significant contribution to. Mr Anderton said: “Don’t worry”. He promised to issue a ministerial direction to Industry New Zealand to ensure that it would work within a sustainability framework. He did not deliver. Once bitten twice shy! But always the optimist the Greens took the Government at its word when it launched  
Towards a Triple Bottom Line 
 in March this year. In her foreword Minister Marian Hobbs said: “Sustainable development is the cornerstone of the Government’s economic social and environmental policies. Triple bottom line reporting is part of a whole-of-Government programme to find better ways of measuring and reporting on progress towards sustainability at several levels ranging from national to local to organisational.” 
Those are very fine words and I congratulate the Minister and her ministry on being one of the first ministries or departments to produce a report on the Ministry for the Environment’s environmental economic and social performance. However I am afraid her lead has not been followed with any enthusiasm. Most Government departments Crown entities and State-owned enterprises have not followed its fine example; neither have they embraced the Sustainable Development for New Zealand: Programme of Action launched by the Minister in January this year. 
The programme of action is stirring stuff. The principles for policy and decision making are superb and I urge all members in the House to read them. I would like to quote from the last paragraph of those principles: “Sustainable development must be at the core of all Government policy.” There it is! According to Minister Marian Hobbs the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has informed all chief executives about those principles and that decision-making framework. So what are the Ministry of Economic Development and Industry New Zealand doing to implement them? I have to say not a lot. Here is what they said in reply to a question for written answer that I put to them. In relation to the triple bottom line reporting they said: “No specific arrangements to monitor Crown entities on this basis are being put in place at present. This is because the whole-of-Government approach referred to was intended for the testing of triple bottom line reporting not to implement or apply it across Government. There is no obligation at present to apply triple bottom line reporting as a monitoring device in respect of Crown entities or other Government bodies.” Would that shatter members’ optimism? It certainly shattered ours which is why we were not surprised when there was a complete absence of reference to sustainable development and triple bottom line reporting in this bill. 
We are here to help. We offered the Government our support to ensure that this bill gave effect to the Government’s stated commitment to sustainable development. I concede that we achieved one change at the select committee. We got the words “sustainable economic growth” changed to “sustainable economic development”. I guess we should be grateful but instead I think the Government should be extraordinarily embarrassed. 
When this bill reached the Committee stage yesterday we tried very hard to give the Government the opportunity to give effect to its own polices and we failed I am afraid. The Government refused to adopt any of our amendments. We said to the Government that it should put some sustainability principles into the bill. After all it put sustainability principles into the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Act. The Government has required local government to take a sustainable development approach. So having done it around the edges the easy bits why not go to the core? Why not introduce sustainable development and sustainability principles into this bill? The Government refused and in so doing it is in effect opposing a requirement that all persons exercising responsibilities powers or functions under this soon-to-be Act must take account of the health and safety of people and communities and their social economic and cultural well-being. The Government is opposing incorporating into this bill the need to maintain and enhance the quality of the environment. It is opposing adding to this bill the need to take account of the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations and also the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. 
I invite the Government to reflect on what it is doing today by not incorporating sustainability principles into this bill. The Government is saying to the people of New Zealand that it is happy to talk about sustainability but is not happy to practise it. It is all about the talk and not about the walk and that should be of concern to communities up and down New Zealand especially when the Government blocked the Greens’ amendments to incorporate local communities the community economic sector and relevant environmental and tangata whenua groups in the process of involvement and consultation under this bill. 
The domestic manufacturing sector needs to be very very afraid that we have failed to convince the Government to match the commitment in this bill to exports with an equal commitment to import substitution. The Government rejected our amendment that would require the new trade and enterprise body to contribute to increased import substitution or in other words to buy New Zealand - made to buy local and to develop the Industrial Supplies Office through a range of processes. 
That was rejected as was our request to make sure that anybody who received funding from this organisation met the very same good-employer criteria that the Crown entity itself will have to apply. Indeed we even wanted the Government to implement its own policies to strengthen that by offering an amendment that the good-employer criteria should have recognition of equal pay for work of equal value. The Labour members voted against that as I might say did members on the other side of the House. 
Finally we thought that there might be one last chance. We thought we might be able to get what Marian Hobbs wants to achieve in this bill by seeking that the annual report include a statement of sustainability performance covering economic environmental social and cultural outcomes. Did we get that? No I am afraid we did not. It has been a failure but it has not been a failure on the part of the Greens. We tried very hard. We tried to ensure that organisations that receive funding from the ministry will live within our natural income rather than deplete our natural capital; that they would move to cleaner production methods both within industry and in the agricultural sector; that there would be a shift from more toxic to less toxic production methods; that they would address waste management issues in a meaningful way; and that they would engage actively in energy conservation and efficiency. But we have not got those outcomes we were looking for and that leaves us very very worried. It leaves us concerned that this new body will continue to fund organisations like Central Plains Irrigation which does not meet any triple bottom line requirements that we can think of.