Norman Russel William: Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill — First Reading 
Norman Russel William: Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill — First Reading 
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Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the ACT Party’s Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill. The Green Party will not be supporting this bill from the ACT Party. The effects of this bill will be that over time Government spending as a proportion of GDP will decline. It will effectively cause a real reduction in Government services over time. That would be the practical import of the bill. 
This bill comes in and is driven by the ACT Party’s belief which I am sure is very genuinely held that the Government should have a very small role in society and that it should maintain the rules and that is about it. All the other things the Government does are seen from the ACT Party’s point of view to be a constraint on our freedom and a constraint on our ability to do things for ourselves. So the ACT Party takes the view that we should reduce Government spending reduce taxation reduce regulation and so forth. 
Good on the ACT Party for having a set of beliefs that it brings to this place but we do not agree with the beliefs that the ACT Party puts forward. Rather than subscribing to a philosophy of “freedom from” which underpins the ACT Party view—that is a freedom from Government intervention—the Green Party subscribes much more to an idea of “freedom to”. We see the role of Government to be in collective action and when we all work together it actually increases our freedoms rather than reduces them. Take for example public education. Public education is a very expensive impost on the Government and the taxpayer. We all contribute to pay for public education yet public education adds to our freedom. It means that all children regardless of where they come from in our country are given a fair chance to get an education which adds tremendously to their ability to experience life and to make the most of their abilities and their talents. Public education adds to their freedom. The fact that we all pay taxes and that we all contribute sufficiently so that we have a proper public education system so that all children in New Zealand have access to it perhaps from an ACT Party point of view is a constraint on all of us because we all have to pay taxes to have that. But I would argue that collectively it adds to our collective freedom because it means that all of us and all of our children have the opportunity to get a decent education so that they can be fully fulfilled and reach their potential. So we have a different perspective on paying taxes to pay for public health and public education. 
Public health is of course another example. We could view the taxes we pay for public health as an impost and as a constraint on our freedom. You know we all hand over taxes so that there is this public health system. When any one of us here in New Zealand gets sick or is in an accident we know that we have access to a public health system so that we can be looked after and hopefully brought back to good health. I would not view the fact that we pay taxes to support public health as a problem; I see that as a great addition to our freedom. The fact that we can walk around knowing that if something terrible happens to us or we get a terrible disease the public health system will be there for us actually adds to our freedom. It is not a constraint on our freedom that we have to pay taxes for a public health system. Collectively all of us chipping in means that individually we are all effectively insured by the whole. All of us contributing together gives us that freedom. That freedom would not be available otherwise. We could argue that we could have private health care but basically private health care in New Zealand is entirely dependent on the public health system. At the end of the day if something really terrible happens to someone they always end up in the public health system because the private health system cannot do the kinds of treatments that the public health system can. 
Also the private health system is a problem for the poor. If people do not have the money to pay for private health insurance then if there is not a public health system to support them their freedom and their life opportunities are reduced dramatically if they are unfortunate enough to have an accident or to get a disease that means they need expensive treatment. I am sure many people in this House and of course right across New Zealand have experienced that either personally or know of people close to us or in our extended family of people who have had illnesses or accidents and who have had tremendous support from the public health system. That adds to our freedom. The fact that we have access to the public health system gives us all the assurance that we can go about our daily lives without having to live in fear that should anything happen to us we will not get access to the public health system we need. 
I say to ACT Party members that they may see taxes and collective action in Government as a constraint on our freedom but from the Green Party’s point of view those kinds of collective contributions actually give us all the security we need and add to our freedom. If we do not have that basic security that no matter where we come from we can access decent health and decent education then fundamentally our freedom is constrained. That is why we do not think of this as Government intervention that we need “freedom from” which I know is how the ACT Party sees it and as a terrible burden that means the Government is on top of all of us. We see it as the Government enabling us to increase our freedom so that we can do the kinds of things we really want to do. 
This of course—and this is slightly at a tangent—also applies to regulation. There is a similar philosophy within ACT and the ACT view about regulation. It is always trying to restrict regulation. There are times when regulation is very important as it is with leaky houses. We saw that when we removed the regulation protecting consumers it cost us all $20 billion to fix up leaky houses. I would argue that that is another example of where the philosophy that sits behind this bill which is I am sure genuinely held and honestly expressed none the less is a mistaken philosophy. 
Nobody is saying that we want absolute Government spending to be 100 percent of GDP. Nobody is saying that the Government cannot over-regulate and cause harm. Of course it can. But we do think that putting this kind of constraint on the ability of the Government to spend money when it needs to will result over time in a decline in the provision of real Government services as Government spending as a proportion of GDP declines. We will find a cut over time in the quality and quantity of the Government services that we all rely upon and that actually increase our freedom. So for those reasons the Green Party will not be supporting this bill tonight. Thank you.