Graham Kennedy: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
Graham Kennedy: Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill Imprest Supply (First for 2010/11) Bill — Second Readings 
[Volume:664;Page:11895] 
Dr KENNEDY GRAHAM (Green) 
: 
 “ ‘The time has come’ the Walrus said ‘To talk of many things: Of shoes—and ships—and sealing wax—Of cabbages—and kings—’ ” and also the Appropriation (2009/10 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. This bill seeks parliamentary authorisation of the individual appropriations and changes contained in this massive document before us involving 68 votes or so and running to 921 pages. Not all will have read every one. I have however been through it pretty much myself; and perhaps more to the point of the broader implications of this debate I have followed the Government’s direction of the economy throughout the 2009-10 year to date and the management of its public finances with careful interest and with some sympathy. It is sympathy not because of any political empathy with its philosophical outlook but because of a sobered recognition of the enormity of the problems facing our country. On further analysis that sympathy merges into an endless pity because it is easily apparent that this Government is mired in an outmoded brand of economic orthodoxy that will be unable to solve those problems. 
The supplementary estimates themselves make for sobered reading. The net position of the Crown’s income and expenditure is $3.1 billion worse today than anticipated by the Government in its Budget of May 2009. Government expenditure for the year is set to be $3.3 billion higher than originally estimated—up from $74.2 billion to $77.5 billion. Crown revenue and capital receipts are set to be only $0.2 billion higher—up from $64.7 billion to $64.9 billion. So the net deficit will stand at $12.6 billion—up from the original estimate of $9.5 billion. 
I do not hold the Minister of Finance personally liable for these changes. They reflect the vagaries of macroeconomic change affecting a small and open economy in times of global turbulence. Nor do I wish to comment on the relative priorities accorded to departmental expenditure patterns in the supplementary estimates whether defence should have more or less than education whether revenue should or should not come from gaming how much should be advanced to student loans or what amount should be set aside for Kyoto Protocol liabilities even though the Green Party does have views on these things as well. My comment concerns the broader issue of the underlying tenets of belief on which the Government pursues its macroeconomic management. 
We ventured our critique of this in February in response to the Prime Minister’s statement opening Parliament. National believes that the way to lift the country’s economic performance is through continuous growth—the Greens do not. When the Minister of Finance introduced this bill he spoke about sustainable growth. But in a global economy whose ecological overshoot is already 30 percent that is an oxymoron and certainly for the richest countries of which we still count as one. We agree with the Government that the New Zealand economy needs to be a smarter economy through upskilling innovation on information technology and adding value to our export commodities but there the similarities end. 
The Government is prepared to do two things that we believe are fundamentally wrong and will prove ruinous for New Zealand. Firstly it has an outmoded perception of the relationship between the economy and the environment. It believes that it can balance economic opportunity with environmental responsibility—that is misguided. It was the President of the Maldives who cut through this commercial hubris. He said “You cannot cut a deal with Mother Nature” and he should know. His islands are becoming submerged through the climate change that the neoclassical economic model has bequeathed us. Our mindless national contribution to the challenge of climate change is to set aside a modest $546 million in Kyoto indulgences for 2013 and to bicker over whether we are out in front of the Western pack with our emissions trading scheme as if an existential challenge to humankind can be priced in our supplementary estimates. 
One does not need to be a rocket scientist to know intuitively that the human economy is a subset a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. The new emerging model of ecological economics on which the Green Party bases its economic policies is set to replace the neoclassical model pursued by neo-liberal Governments of modern times. Secondly the Government is prepared to sell off our asset wealth to pay our way through recession. It runs amok with bilateral treaties that masquerade as free-trade agreements but which in reality have more impact through their free investment provisions. We now face the prospect of selling off not exactly our strategic assets but our valuable productive land to regional and global corporations. Not only does this surrender our sovereign control of New Zealand’s economic destiny it also drives up the price of land for purchase by Kiwi citizens and increases the pressure on our private sector debt. This in turn impacts on the Crown revenue potential and affects next year’s Budget and through that next year’s supplementary estimates. 
In March during the 2008-09 financial review debate I spoke of the need for a new alternative economic model for this country and indeed for the global economy. This is known as the steady-state economy based on the concept of a dynamic equilibrium. Unlike orthodox economics of the past 70 years this model takes into account the natural resource base in the pre-productive process and waste disposal in the post-productive process. If we do not do this and this Government does not if we retain the orthodox economic model and this Government does we shall find—indeed we are already finding—that growth proves to be uneconomic since it is not sustainable in the medium term. 
As I said in March we have reached the stage where we must incorporate environmental indicators into our macroeconomic management in our national financial accounts. To that end I have produced a member’s bill designed to assist us all in approaching this. My Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill will ensure that in fulfilling its macroeconomic obligations under the Public Finance Act the Government will have regard to the sustainable development of the country. The bill aims to consolidate and amend the law governing the use of public financial resources to ensure that the economic management of New Zealand is undertaken consistently with the interests of the sustainable development of New Zealand over the long term. Specifically the bill will obligate the Minister to report to the House in the context of the Budget presentation a series of sustainable development indicators. These indicators which will remain in terms of physical rather than monetary measurements are already being produced by the Government Statistician. I pay tribute to the quality of the work being produced by Statistics New Zealand in particular the 2009 report measuring New Zealand’s progress using a sustainable development approach. The bill will also have the Minister address the ecological footprint and the human development index as measurements of New Zealand’s progress over the longer term. 
I mention this bill because if adopted it will affect the financial direction of the Government in the next Budget. It therefore stands as a signal to the Government today that there are ways in which the financial direction of this country both in terms of the May 2009 Budget and the June 2010 supplementary estimates could have been improved and stands as a signal that they can be improved in the future. Thank you.