Locke Keith: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Locke Keith: Appropriation (2007/08 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:641;Page:11063] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Budget is a long-drawn-out process. That is the way it is and of course it makes it an accountable process. But people may have forgotten that the Greens are responsible for some of the good points in the Budget so I thought I would remind my colleagues of some of those. 
Today Nick Smith inadvertently drew some attention to one of the gains in the Budget and that is in the area of energy efficiency. The Greens through the Budget process and through the delegation of the energy efficiency portfolio to Jeanette Fitzsimons are in the process of achieving significant gains in terms of energy efficiency in New Zealand. The National Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy which seems to rile Mr Smith enables interest-free loans to people to put insulation in their homes and to develop cleaner and more efficient forms of heating. For new homes we are developing a new insulation standard a code. It will enable New Zealand homes which traditionally have been pretty poorly insulated to be much better insulated in the future. One of the pluses that caught the imagination of the public was the announcement of the Home Energy Rating Scheme. When houses are bought and sold through real estate agents each home will have an energy rating. If it has a good energy rating then rightly that will put up the price of the home; if it is the other way round then rightly that will lower the price. That is very good. 
In the Budget there is $15.5 million towards the Greens-initiated solar water heating project which is being developed around quality water-heating. Not every supplier will necessarily qualify. For each device there has to be a minimum standard. That will be a success and is proving so already for new homes. Obviously when new homes are built it is good to make sure they have a solar water-heating system installed. That is going ahead well. 
One of the other successes of the Green Party in the Budget was in the area of restoring three of New Zealand’s foremost wetlands—that is those in the Whangamarino in the Waikato; the Ashburton lakes on the upper Rangitata River; and the Waituna Lagoon and the Awarua wetland complex in Southland. New Zealand has so few wetlands that it is very important to preserve them and this Budget funding allows great progress to be made in that direction. 
Another achievement in the Budget that I personally have been associated with as the official development assistance spokesperson for the Green Party is the increase in overseas aid. In our post-election agreement with Labour there was a section on increasing overseas aid and we were very pleased when the Budget announced a much greater increase than had been projected in the previous year’s Budget. Instead of overseas aid going from 0.27 percent of gross national income to just 0.28 percent as had been projected in the long-term projections the amount has gone up to 0.3 percent and is projected to rise to 0.35 percent by 2010. We welcome not only the Government’s moving in that direction but also the way that other parties in this Parliament such as New Zealand First—including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters—United Future and the Maori Party all pushed for increases in overseas aid. There has been a big community movement for that over some years. Several MPs from various parties—New Zealand First United Future and Labour—were privileged to be invited to a ceremony and given little awards for our contribution to the raising of New Zealand’s overseas aid level. 
We now have to look forward at how we get overseas aid to go from 0.35 percent of gross national income in 2010 to 0.7 percent in 2015. In those 5 years the figure would have to jump by a significant amount so we must start developing a timetable now to achieve that. It would be good to have consensus in the House to make sure that whichever Government happens to be in power through to 2015 that timetable is proceeded with because the people of the world particularly those in poorer circumstances who need development assistance are looking for that. 
Also in the Budget—we teased out the details post the Budget—is quite a significant development for public transport particularly for rail and from the Auckland end particularly for the electrification of the Auckland passenger rail system. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of passengers on the Auckland rail system to over 5 million. It has been going up very rapidly despite all sorts of problems particularly on the western line. People are still hopping on the trains. Completing the double tracking of that line and the electrification will dramatically increase the patronage and provide an infrastructural background for public transport generally in Auckland. The Budget allows for an infrastructure loan which the region will pay for through a petrol tax. The details of all that are being worked out. The Greens were a bit worried that some or a significant amount of the petrol tax might go on just building new highways which is not the priority. The priority is public transport right now. It seems that all of the Auckland civic leaders of the different local bodies are for the petrol tax being devoted to particularly the electrification of the rail system. 
Another big achievement in the Budget is the $11.5 million for the Buy Kiwi Made programme. I was privileged to attend an Auckland launch 2 or 3 weeks ago. It was packed; the audience was a good cross-section of the industry. We do not often get all of the lead people together in the same room: the lead unionists those in the manufacturing area business people such as Phil O’Reilly of Business New Zealand people from the Employers Federation and various individual manufacturers who are producing good-quality New Zealand - made products. It was a fantastic launch. I do not think I saw very many National MPs there. [ 
Interruption 
] It is confirmed there were none. Sue Bradford has been delegated responsibility for that area and is doing great work. 
The question looming large over everything including the Budget is climate change. The Greens are disappointed that the Budget does not make room for a carbon charge but there are rumours afoot that the Government will come forward with some proposal in that area soon. I request that the Government be quite radical in its proposal because the public mood has shifted. The public is open to serious taxes on scarce resources particularly those that contribute to global warming such as fossil fuels. The time has come for a carbon charge. For many years people thought the Greens were a bit funny talking about all these taxes on resources but I think people now realise that resources such as oil are running out and also that some of those resources are causing great harm and taxation is required to reduce their use. That applies to the carbon charge on any of the greenhouse gas emitters from the energy sector from the transport sector or from the farming sector—for methane. There has to be a contribution from all those sectors to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. 
Another problem in the Budget is the huge increase for the Department of Corrections. The amount went up by about 20 percent in the previous 2006-07 year and in this Budget it has gone up by another 15 percent. We have to look at those figures and ask whether this law and order competition between in particular Labour National and New Zealand First to see who can imprison people for the longest time give the heaviest sentences and all the rest of it is really helping our society. I think we should have another look at it. The Maori Party in particular and the Green Party are saying there are other ways rather than increasing the budget in that way.