Genter Julie Anne: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10484. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The National Government claims that it is doing a great job for New Zealand’s economy. Very superficially if we look at some of the numbers it may seem like it stacks up. It is true that GDP growth is above zero—it is actually above 2.5 percent. It is one of the higher rates in the world but what it does not tell us is how we are doing as a country and the other statistics that have been coming out in recent weeks tell quite a different story. So in fact when we look at income per capita once we assess GDP growth alongside immigration and population growth the truth is that income per capita is stagnating.We have had about as much population growth as we have had GDP growth if it were even the case that GDP was really a measure of true progress in this country which of course it is not. A lot of GDP growth has been driven by the Christchurch earthquake. We are not better off because one of our major cities was nearly completely wiped out in a horrific earthquake and a lot of money had to go into rebuilding it which has taken a lot longer than it should have because it has been poorly managed by the National Government.Another really important factor that we need to look at—and I would love the Minister in the chair Bill English to comment on this. The Minister of Finance used to go around and give talks in the first few years that the National Party was in Government and he would show a graph that showed a gap between the growth in the non-tradable sector of the economy versus growth in the tradable sector of the economy. Bill English said: “We’re going to fix this. We’re going to turn it round. Under the Labour Government growth in the tradable sector of the economy—the really productive sector; the part that sells goods and services to the world—has been lagging and growth among the part of the economy that is really just selling things to each other like buying and selling houses has been growing.” But the Minister of Finance has stopped showing this graph and I will tell you why. I have got a copy of the graph right here. He stopped because at the latest release in GDP figures we saw that in fact the gap between non-tradables and tradables is at its widest point ever. This is after 7.5 years of the National Government and it must be quite disappointing for the Minister of Finance.I do not blame him. I am sure that he has every intention and had every intention of fixing this problem but he has been unable to do so. Why is that? It is because National’s ideology and the policies that it implements simply will not deliver the improvements to the economy that need to be made to have a truly productive economy. The ideology of the National Government says that we need to cut taxes for the rich we need to privatise and sell off State assets and we need to reduce environmental protection but none of those things will actually create a more productive and prosperous economy nor will they look after the things that are really important to New Zealanders like protecting the natural environment and having fairness and opportunity.So the sad truth is that when we look at the evidence the National Government is failing to deliver the competitive and productive economy that it has promised and that is because those members’ ideology and instinct is to protect the status quo and to look after the people like themselves—the people who are already rich and want to get a lot richer and the people who might want to use tax havens to avoid paying tax in their home country. The National Government’s instinct is to protect those industries. Its instinct is to not go after the multinational companies that are avoiding anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion worth of tax each year. Its instinct is instead to crack down on student loan defaulters and beneficiary fraud. Although that is all well and good—we should do those things—the reality is that the value of doing that is much smaller. Those people are vulnerable people and they are taking a lot less money from us than the rich and powerful are.So what we need are policies that are actually going to deliver a productive and smart economy. The National Government has instead delivered subsidies for irrigation which contrary to what the member Alastair Scott said is not good for the environment at all. It encourages more intensive dairying which is terrible for our rivers which are already highly polluted. It has refused to set standards for water quality that would actually improve water quality. We have got a standard for wadeable rivers rather than for swimmable rivers.We have got subsidies for oil and gas exploration. This is actually absolute madness in 2016. When I was in Paris for the climate talks in December I went to a conference at the OECD about green growth. The keynote speaker there who was from Oxford University said in his speech that in order to meet the agreement that we signed up to in Paris all new infrastructure from 2017 basically would have to be carbon-neutral—that is zero carbon.In order to achieve the goal of phasing out fossil fuels by the mid-century which is absolutely logical and necessary if we want civilisation to continue to prosper as it has for the last millennia we have to be phasing out fossil fuels now and that is the role and the responsibility of the Government. It is the role and responsibility of the Government to protect our natural environment and to look after the most vulnerable people but unfortunately National is simply failing to do that. It says that it is pursuing its policies because it wants to achieve better economic performance and then someday down the track we will be able to afford to look after our environment and our people. It has got it round backwards. The way we build a productive sustainable economy is by looking after the most vulnerable in our society—by not allowing the rich to get richer through cutting taxes and refusing to reform tax rules around foreign trusts for example. The way that we will achieve this is by looking after the most vulnerable in society and by protecting our natural environment which frankly I think is precious to all New Zealanders.We hear a lot of “greenwash” from this Government at the same time that it is pursuing oil and gas exploration which is supposedly going to make us rich even though oil prices have collapsed. Simon Bridges who is the Minister of Energy and Resources and Minister of Transport goes around trying to get into a lot of photo ops with charging infrastructure for electric cars but that has not been paid for by this Government. It has got virtually no new policy to support the uptake of electric vehicles. The vast majority of its transport budget is being spent on motorways that are not even going to resolve congestion let alone reduce dangerous carbon pollution.It is continuing the asset sales with Kiwibank now and is trying to squeeze out as much money as it can—suck it out of the Government—so that it can spend it on its priorities which are very short term. Ultimately that is going to cost New Zealanders in the long run. That is what we saw with the asset sales with regard to the energy companies. That has now cost us almost as much as the cash that we raised from them which was then not even spent on productive infrastructure as the Minister had promised.So this National Government is letting down the people who voted for it and who trusted it to deliver an economy that was going to look after New Zealanders and it is time that it took responsibility for its poor decisions. We have got lots of constructive ideas here Minister about how we can actually build a productive successful economy by looking after our people and our environment. That is the smart thing to do. That is what the Green Party is committed to delivering in Government. Although that Government will continue to scaremonger about Green Party policies rather than engage in a constructive and informative debate and give actual reasons why it will not support such policies—Hon Maggie Barry: Because they’re rubbish.JULIE ANNE GENTER: —they will simply call it rubbish. A perfect example—Minister Barry says it is rubbish. Why is it rubbish Minister Barry? Why are our policies rubbish? For example the Kiwibank policy that we announced—we have a problem in New Zealand that the four big Australian banks are sucking out $4 billion in profits from our economy every year and what would make sense is to use our Government-owned bank to deliver wider social and economic benefits for all New Zealanders. We could do that. We know that when Kiwibank was first introduced it actually did drive down mortgage rates and lending rates but the reality is that for the four big Australian banks their most profitable area is here in New Zealand and that is a market failure. They are not delivering benefits to New Zealanders; they are sucking out profits from New Zealand. So it does make sense to use our State-owned bank not to earn a profit that is going to go to the Government—