Norman Russel William: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
Norman Russel William: Budget Statement — Budget Debate 
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Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 The Green Party remains disappointed with the lack of vision in this Budget. It is a lack of vision for moving Aotearoa New Zealand towards sustainability with fairness. The Prime Minister likes to compare himself to US President Barack Obama but this is not an Obama Budget; this is an “Oh bummer” Budget. As so many other countries take seriously the need to grapple with our economic and environmental crises at the same time this Budget will go down in history as not even standard and mostly just poor. This is in fact the “standard is poor” Budget. The Government got this Budget signed off by Standard and Poor’s before it presented it to Parliament and the people of New Zealand. What have we come to when the Government of the day goes grovelling for approval to a failed international rating agency like Standard and Poor’s before it comes to the people of New Zealand? Let us remember that Standard and Poor’s is the agency that helped to cause the current global financial meltdown by giving triple A ratings to dodgy subprime mortgages. It gave Enron a triple A rating a few weeks before that corrupt corporation collapsed. It is shameful to watch the Minister of Finance grovel before the failed “standard is poor” rating agency. 
The standard of this Budget is poor also because there is no real strategy to get us out of debt—debt that means the Minister has to kowtow to an international rating agency. This Budget locks in our dependence on imported oil which added nearly $8 billion to our overseas debt last year. This Budget does not do enough to invest in the innovation and research that would see us climbing out of debt. This Budget does nothing to protect New Zealand companies from foreign ownership that results in billions of dollars in dividends flowing to overseas owners every year; in fact this Budget will make it worse by weakening the Overseas Investment Act. This Budget does nothing to change the tax incentives around investment properties. Those incentives encourage New Zealanders to borrow money from overseas to buy property for capital gains. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I apologise to the honourable member for interrupting his speech. Although I do not mind interjections that relate to a speech where provocative statements might be made I object to the rudeness to this House of members standing up and conducting loud conversations all around the Chamber. If members want to have conversations that do not relate to the speech that is being made they should go out into the lobbies to do so. It is most discourteous to the member who is speaking. I apologise to Dr Norman for interrupting his speech and for the noise being so loud when he was speaking. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. The Minister of Finance talked more about creating new prisons than he did about protecting our precious natural assets or lifting our children out of poverty. His focus is on reforming environmental law to make it easier for developers to further exploit our already overallocated natural resources. 
A Government’s first Budget is a time to show the nation what its vision looks like in action. As New Zealand faces a recession this Budget was an opportunity for the National Government to show the people of Aotearoa what values it stands for when times are tough. Do Government members stand up for those who are hit the hardest insisting that we all tighten our belts a little to help our neighbours? Or will some continue to see the good times roll while others go hungry? Does the Government uphold every Kiwi kid’s right to a fair go? Does it uphold every Kiwi’s right to decent health care a warm home a good school a clean river and a safe climate? Or does it leave our most vulnerable citizens to slip through the ever-widening holes in what was once a cradle-to-grave safety net? 
The benchmark for a Budget delivered in hard times is the first Budget of Michael Joseph Savage who came into office when times were tougher for New Zealanders than they are now. Savage was elected in the middle of the Great Depression when there was very high unemployment and great pressure on the Government’s accounts. At its first meeting his Cabinet agreed to pay a Christmas bonus to the unemployed and a week later it approved 7 days’ annual holiday for relief workers. The first Budget of the Savage Government raised allowances for the unemployed and increased the wages of young workers. It began the construction of State housing regulated mortgages for farmers and much more. In the middle of the Great Depression Savage’s Government put the people first. It was a Government that said that all New Zealanders are worthy of dignity and respect and it put its money where its heart was. 
In our current times an equivalent Budget to that of Savage’s means rolling back the 1991 benefit cuts introduced by National and never overturned during 9 long years of a Labour Government. That is what a truly responsible Government would do. A caring Government certainly would not axe the pay and employment gender equity commitments to women working in the Public Service. In current times a Michael Joseph Savage Budget would extend the Working for Families tax credit to beneficiaries. Labour introduced Working for Families with the express purpose of discriminating against those who were out of work something that many Kiwi families are just discovering as they lose their jobs and their Working for Families tax credits at the same time. Labour’s scheme left the poorest families in our society the worst off and a truly caring Government would overturn that discriminatory policy and give a break to those who are falling out of work in this recession. 
Will this Government show its heart and live up to the Savage standard? The times are different from Savage’s era in at least one very important respect: our awareness of the ecological crisis we face. We have to deal with both the economic and the ecological crises at the same time. This year we in the Green Party put our heads together and devised our own green stimulus package. We figured out how many jobs we could create by growing parts of the economy that need to grow—jobs doing desperately needed work. The Minister of Finance has failed to say how many jobs his Budget will create. Our package of initiatives is a first step towards what we and others call a green new deal. It aims to save the economy and the environment at the same time. Lots of countries around the world are busy adopting green new deal plans. 
Our billion-dollar stimulus package includes “shovel-ready” projects that create jobs and stimulate the economy in a way that responds to pressing environmental problems including climate change. The proposed package covers energy efficiency transport efficiency protecting waterways building more homes and community sector initiatives. The stimulus spending over the next 3 years amounts to just over $1 billion per year—approximately the same amount the National-led Government has spent to combat the recession so far and less than most other countries have spent. Our Green MPs have been on a listening tour taking our ideas around the country and adding to them the ideas of hundreds of New Zealanders because we think building a sustainable and fair economy is a topic on which every Kiwi deserves to have a say. New Zealanders have plenty of ideas. They know that the country has finite space and resources and we cannot have infinite growth in resource use. 
So how does this Government’s first Budget measure up? Is it a Budget to protect those who are hardest hit or a Budget to protect the balance sheets of the wealthy? Is it a Budget for those who have the reins of power now or is it a Budget for the future and for those born today and tomorrow who will one day sit in this House and wonder how we could have left them with such an almighty mess? It is time to build an economy as if we were still going to be here in 2015 or maybe even 2050. Can this Government budget for the future? 
There is at least one point of light for which the Government deserves credit and congratulations. In last year’s Budget the Green Party negotiated enough money to insulate all State homes. A little later we negotiated a billion-dollar fund to help get private homes insulated via the emissions trading scheme. Although the Government has put that scheme on hold it has worked with my colleague Jeanette Fitzsimons on a fund to make private homes warm healthy and safer for the climate. In what may be some kind of parliamentary record the Green Party has successfully negotiated with two separate Governments in less than 1 year to provide a massive funding increase to improve Kiwi homes. The Greens have campaigned for this over many years and it is good to see that we have multiparty support and money committed to making it happen. Warm dry and healthy homes make sense economically socially and environmentally. I thank the National-led Government for embracing this sensible solution. 
The Greens estimate that the $323 million of new money for insulation in this Budget can create 2700 new jobs and preserve the jobs that already exist within the EnergyWise home insulation scheme. This is great for our economy during a time of economic crisis and it will continue to pay us back for generations. It will also help us to tackle the environmental crisis. This is what a green new deal looks like in action. The Greens expect to continue working closely with the Government to ensure that the insulation programme runs smoothly and effectively. It is important to remember that almost 900000 Kiwi families live in damp cold and unhealthy homes and it will take time to make that right. Critics may argue that there is enough money in the Budget for only the first 4 years of the scheme but that is how the Budget process works. Members will see that out-years beyond year 4 are specifically referred to in the Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill. The Greens have an expectation that this programme will continue regardless of who is sitting on the Treasury benches and we will push to ensure that further years are funded. We will not rest until every one of those 900000 Kiwi homes is warm and healthy; it is not good enough for kids in this country to get sick from their own homes. I am proud that the Greens have been able to do something about that. 
Beyond this bright spot things get a little grim. The Green Party believes that a strong Public Service is essential for providing a fair deal for all New Zealanders. All Kiwis are entitled to a good education high-quality health care and employment opportunities. The Budget does not provide enough of this. It does not provide opportunity or fairness for everyday New Zealanders. In these dark times it does not offer hope. The National Government has not kept its promise to just cap the Public Service; it has cut into the Public Service and this will inevitably lead to cuts in the services that Kiwis receive. Already we have seen an estimated 1400 jobs lost and an effective wage freeze in the public sector. This is not a cap; it is a sinking lid. The wide-ranging cuts we are seeing across the public sector—in the Ministry of Justice the Ministry of Social Development the Department of Labour the Accident Compensation Corporation the Ministry for the Environment and the Tertiary Education Commission—will keep coming. 
We see no evidence of the Government’s rhetoric of moving office staff to the front line—perhaps it has discovered that the person booking the surgical appointment is not always qualified to operate the scalpel. The Government is straight-out cutting jobs; it is not moving them. Cutting the number of backroom staff sounds good in theory but in practice it means there will be no staff in hospitals to make sure records are kept current—so who will do this work? Do we want it to be pushed on to doctors and nurses? Do we want doctors filling out forms or do we want them treating patients? 
I am worried about how this Budget will affect the most vulnerable. The statistics for Maori in terms of wealth and health give a clear message that the articles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi are yet to be honoured by the Government and this Budget’s failure to fully address that is truly a shame. The measure of a society is how it provides support and opportunity for those in danger of being left behind. That is the measure. This is even truer in a recession and I fail to see how this Budget will help those who need help the most. We have already seen staffing cuts at the Ministry of Social Development and the undermining of non-governmental organisation funding for those who work with the needy and we look destined to return to the failed competitive tendering models of the past. 
The economy is not the only thing in recession. Our environment is also groaning under the weight of human pressure. We are taking resources at a rate beyond what can be replenished pumping out pollution and waste at a rate that the planet cannot absorb and losing the wild and natural places and species that we Kiwis love so dearly. National recognised our deteriorating environment in its blue-green policy but I ask members whether the Government has backed it up with action in this Budget. Sadly just as this Budget fails to address the economic recession it also fails to assist the environment. In fact it worsens a dire situation by cutting funding to our two key environmental agencies the Ministry for the Environment and the Department of Conservation. Conservation funding has been slashed by 6 percent with the Department of Conservation’s budget cut by 9 percent. Fifty-four million dollars that were desperately needed to keep our iconic kiwi from extinction have been stolen from our natural heritage. The Bluegreens of the National Party will be hanging their heads in shame. Vote Environment has also been shaved to the scalp. Despite an additional $4.4 million to implement the Greens’ Waste Minimisation Act and develop policy to protect our lakes and streams the Ministry for the Environment’s operational budget has been cut and despite the fact that our global climate crisis is only getting worse the climate change operational budget is down. 
Nine million dollars have been set aside for the reform of the Resource Management Act. The purpose of this reform as the Minister of Finance told us is to enable business to make more money. This Government cares so little about our natural heritage that even the environment budget has been pilfered to benefit developers. Fisheries compliance including observer programmes has been cut by 6 percent and biosecurity surveillance has been cut by 11 percent. That is outrageous. Those services are essential to protect our ecosystems and export economy from exploitation and contamination. Biosecurity is fundamental to the New Zealand economy. By contrast a green new deal Budget would invest in protecting our waterways whereby a $600 million investment over 3 years would create 4500 jobs restoring our lakes and streams in order to allow swimming and protecting our all-important “clean green” brand. The premium value of that brand to our dairy and tourism industries has been calculated at over $1 billion per year in export earnings. There are good economic and environmental reasons for the Government to invest in protecting our land water and wildlife yet this Budget cuts protection to those areas. It is environmental and economic illiteracy to ignore the environmental recession and to make investment decisions and funding cuts that deepen it. 
In health an ounce of prevention is ignored by the current Government in favour of a pound of sugar. Money to fight child obesity has been canned while earlier this year junk food was let back into schools. Is it politically expedient to sacrifice kids’ health? When kids develop type 2 diabetes and their teeth are rotting will this be a great win for the politically incorrect out there? Who will foot the bill for the extra dialysis machines the extra medication and the extra doctors and nurses we will need to keep an unhealthy population alive? It will be of course the taxpayer. This is the ultimate in short-sighted thinking. Today’s Budget initiatives to retain doctors and train new ones will be essential given that this Government has launched an attack on illness prevention. Members should make no mistake: these are ideological cuts from an ideological administration. Canning the Obesity Action Coalition’s funding will not lead to economic prosperity. It is not the vision of hope New Zealand needs; it is just petty. 
Nowhere is the distinction between our current economic trajectory and a more sustainable one more obvious than in transport. The amount we collectively spend on transport is at least $10 billion for the term of this Government. Most of that $10 billion is spent on roads and the Government is actually very proud of that. In fact for every dollar spent on sustainable modes of transport—buses trains walking and cycling—National will spend $7 on roads. Why do we place all of our bets on roads when we are vulnerable to the price of oil? Why would this Government place all its bets on roads when the carbon dioxide produced by traffic destroys our climate? Why would we place all our bets on roads as a measure to relieve congestion when all the local and international experience shows that it does not work? I cannot tell members why because we do not yet understand the mind of the problem gambler. When the Minister of Transport announced earlier this year his intention to build seven roads of national significance he did so without any kind of economic analysis as to the benefits or costs of his proposal. It is a case of build first justify later. 
Our recommendation for transport in our Green stimulus package is fiscally neutral. In the short term we would shift $1 billion of State highway spending into more sustainable more productive higher-quality alternatives taking pressure off existing roads. Our measures would create 40 percent more jobs and at the same time would make our transport network more resilient to the inevitable oil price shocks. That is a real jobs package and that is what a green new deal looks like. 
As far as education is concerned this Budget is like a bad student party where the theme is retro. I ask Mr English if he is going to take us back in time to please avoid the 1990s. The majority of those who put this Budget together got the very best the New Zealand education system had to offer but they are happy to leave the current crop of tertiary secondary primary and preschool students with a little empty chip packet. Many of us in this House went to university when the concept of a loan was likely to involve the university library rather than tens of thousands of dollars of debt. This Budget wages an intergenerational war on those who want an education now and in the future. It takes money away from early childhood education. How can that make sense? It is good that in education the Government is concentrating on infrastructure but if this comes at the expense of teachers then it is a false economy. 
On the matter of housing we see that the number of building consents is sinking rapidly and builders are laying off staff. Surely there could be no better way to support the building sector than building new housing stock. One of the central ideas of the green new deal package is investing in thousands more State houses over the next few years to keep people in jobs to keep roofs over people’s heads and to keep the economy moving. Building 6000 State houses would only begin to meet the need out there and it would make more sense than demolishing hundreds of homes so that we can spend $1 billion to plough a motorway through the Mount Albert area. Will people be living out on the streets this winter because of this kind of thinking? Last year Mr Heatley railed against Labour over the disgraceful situation of those who are poor sick and unwell living in rat-infested boarding houses. Mr Heatley pointed out quite rightly that this situation was the result of a housing supply shortage. It seems that this Budget has an ideas shortage. We have an ideas deficit over how to solve the housing crisis and create work for our building sector. The Green Party does not want people to sleep rough we do not want Kiwi families living in squalid boarding houses and we are very happy to help the Government with ideas. 
In conclusion I say that although we are pleased that we are on the way to getting all New Zealand families into warm dry healthy homes overall this Budget worries me. I am worried for the families who will suffer because of a stingy ideologically blinkered Government. I am worried for the children who will grow up without a fair go.