First, I would like to thank Rodney for his invitation to speak to you today.
To some it might seem unusual that a Green MP is speaking at your conference, given that our political philosophies, taken as a whole, are some distance apart.
However, politics is not just about parties sitting in their corners and espousing their philosophies, it’s also about finding the common ground and working cooperatively to get a result. And that is what the Greens and ACT have done over the last year — with significant wins. We have been demonstrating in practice how MMP can work.
Our first big win was to sink Trevor Mallard’s stadium which would have so defaced the Auckland waterfront. Of course, we can only claim part of the credit — there were so many other Aucklanders involved in the campaign. But I think that Rodney and I together — coming from quite differenct political parties — sent out a powerful message that this was a very broad campaign.
One of the interesting things is that because we are seen to be at opposite ends of the political spectrum we can, when we work together, put the squeeze on all the parties in between.
This is what happened around the campaign to repeal the archaic sedition law, which is designed to protect an incumbent government from criticism.
For some time, I had been asking the government when they were going to repeal these laws — but it wasn’t until the Tim Selwyn case and then Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s Law Commission report, which argued for repeal, that we got any real traction on the issue.
After Sir Geoffrey’s report came out the Greens, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party called a press conference and offered to give either National or Labour the numbers to scrap this oppressive law.
And lo and behold, Labour soon came up with a bill. We had the first reading on Tuesday and it was passed on a unanimous voice vote — with National’s support.
This foray into the sedition law underlined to the Greens, ACT, United Future, and the Maori Party that we could be effective by working fraternally. That various combinations of our parties did hold the balance of power between National and Labour — and that we would be foolish to pass up the opportunity of exercising it.
For example, the Greens, ACT and the Maori Party have blocked with National to achieve a Parliamentary majority against the inclusion of complementary medicines in the bill setting up a Trans-Tasman therapeutics agency. This bill really would restrict the choice Kiwis currently have in the field of dietary supplements and herbal products.
Also, four of the MMP parties, as we call them – the Greens, ACT, United Future and the Maori Party – have recently signed a Code of Conduct to try to bring some decorum back to the proceedings of the House.
Now let’s look at which policy areas ACT and the Greens have been able to work together on.
I would suggest they are on civil liberties issues — and some community issues. Rodney and I were horrified that Trevor Mallard would give Auckland local bodies only two weeks to assess and decided on his pet project, a billion dollar stadium on the waterfront. Whatever one’s ideology it wasn’t hard to see that the stadium would be a blot on the seascape.
When you look at our two parties’ philosophies they do overlap in some areas of civil liberties and personal freedoms. There is some commonality between the libertarianism of the right, Green libertarianism, or the libertarian left. Conservative and social democratic governments — such as National and Labour here – have too often allowed the state to trample on individual rights, and they are doing it again today in the context of the “war on terror”.
Now, ACT and the Greens can argue about how consistently libertarian each other is — how much we really stand up for civil liberties. And it is good to keep this debate and dialogue going, to challenge each other.
There are a lot of civil liberties issues coming up that I hope we can work on together. These issues arise partly because governments are taking advantage of the “war on terror’ to give state officials more power, and reduce the role of the judiciary — in a manner they wouldn’t otherwise get away with.
Compounding this problem is the growing sophistication of surveillance technologies as we move into a more digital world. This creates new problems if we are to retain our privacy as citizens. The internet itself will be a battlefield, and we don’t want to end up like China, where the state heavily censors what the Chinese people can see, and what they can communicate.
My impression is that ACT is a bit more forthright on civil liberties issues in this Parliament, compared with the last one, and it appears to be less morally conservative.
New Zealanders are actually among the least morally conservative people in the world. We are not militaristic, and there is probably less male domination and putting down of minorities than in most other cultures.
Of course, the Greens and ACT do have quite different approaches to economic policy. We Greens have much less faith in what Adam Smith, long ago, called the ‘invisible hand’ of the market — composed of a multitude of self-interested actions — resulting in a common good.
We are worried that the largely untrammeled market — now fuelled by intense global competition — has gobbled up so much of the world’s resources, polluted our land, air and waterways, and brought about the eco-crisis that is global warming.
The ‘invisible hand’ is simply not coming up with all the new technologies, or the discovery of new resources, that would be needed to forestall a social, economic and environmental catastrophe.
The Green time is coming as people become aware that serious resource depletion — particularly of that most critical commodity oil — and significant global warming, will happen in their lifetime or that of their children.
The Greens aren’t anti-business. We just want to extend the principles that apply to any viable business, to the economic management of the planet.
One key business principle, if you want to protect your income stream, is not to eat into your capital.
And that’s how we have to treat the planet. The business principles we have to apply are:
Firstly, for production involving renewable resources, the harvesting rate should not exceed regeneration rates — something the world’s fishing industry hasn’t taken enough heed of.
Secondly, that non-renewable resources should be used no faster than the rate of creation of renewable substitutes — something we need to apply to energy inputs, as we move way from using non-renewable fossil fuels.
Thirdly, that waste emissions should not exceed the assimilative capacities of the planetary environment.
Fourthly, that we try to ensure that technological progress is geared to efficiency in the use of resources, rather than just increasing volume of production.
Now how do we ensure that this happens in our country, and our planet? Sometimes this requires disincentives or eco-taxes so that businesses internalize the real cost to the planet of resource use, or the waste streams their production creates.
Other times it can include rewards (including subsidies) to encourage a shift to, say, renewable energy sources, like windmills and or solar water heaters.
One of the difficulties, when protecting the capital of the planet, is many of its “assets” are not easily costed.
For example, at the northern end of Auckland City a very active community group wants to establish a Long Bay-Okura Great Park — which the Greens have been supporting. The problem the community is up against is that it would cost around $200 million to buy the land and forestall a planned housing sub-division — and the local councils say they can’t afford this.
But how do you cost the enjoyment that future generations of Aucklanders will get out of a Long Bay-Okura Great Park — particularly if Auckland becomes more populous? Surely, it is worth more than $200 million? We have to apply a different form of economics to take that into account — not one based simply on immediate and measurable economic outcomes, or which gives priority to individual property rights.
One of the beautiful things about public recreational areas — like the existing, smaller, Long Bay reserve – is that Aucklanders from all walks of life meet and play there — rich and poor, Pakeha, Maori, and Chinese; Christian and Moslem.
They then go home to suburbs that are quite divided on wealth and race lines. For example, the Epsom electorate which Rodney and I contested, has 4446 people earning $100,000 or more a year, whereas the Mangere electorate has only 183.
The “trickle down” theory has created more wealth disparity in New Zealand. So even in an economy which now has high levels of employment a sizeable chunk of our society is struggling to make ends meet.
And that is simply unacceptable. It can’t be dismissed as a necessary downside of an affluent Western society. You can’t put a price on people’s misery.
We can do something about the hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders still living in poverty. Those necessarily on welfare must have a better level of income support. Unfortunately, the government’s Working for Families package only covers those where a parent is in employment.
Working for Families was a kind of tax package, and the Greens are not against using the tax system as for income redistribution. In this vein, we advocate a tax cut too — that is, making the first $5,000 of income tax free — which most help those at the bottom of the income ladder.
However, many moves that would reduce inequality are not really a burden on the taxpayer. For example, a better industrial relations framework could give unions more leverage in their negotiations with employers and produce higher wages increases for the lower paid. A further increase in the minimum wage, to $13 an hour, is also needed.
Stopping poorer kids falling off the education ladder is also very important. It might cost a bit more money up front, targeted at problem groups, but the payoff is a more highly skilled workforce and a more dynamic New Zealand economy.
Improving Auckland’s ramshackle public transport system would also help poor people a lot. Many can’t afford to drive their cars very much — because of the high price of petrol.
You don’t need to be an economic wizard to work out that Auckland would have a much more efficient economy if we didn’t have to rely so much on the private car. The spinoffs from reducing car miles are huge — for individuals, companies, the balance of payments (by reducing oil imports) — not to mention reduced pollution and the consequent reduction in the health budget.
A 21st centure public transport system would also contribute substantially to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, as required under the Kyoto agreement.
I appeal to the smart business people in ACT to welcome Kyoto and the way it is helping to make New Zealand businesses more sustainable.
In today’s world, environmentally sustainable businesses will be the success stories. No New Zealand business today can ignore its carbon footprint, for example.
Hopefully, a recognition of this will lead to more common ground between ACT and the Greens.
Some in ACT may see all this talk about sustainability as overly cramping our lifestyle. But I believe it will mean we bequeath to our grandchildren a world which is healthier, more caring and egalitarian. It will be a more enjoyable place to live in. That’s why we Greens have “Quality of Life” as the strapline under our logo.
I have to say that right now – when we look at economic, social and environmental policy — Labour is a bit closer to us than ACT (or National) — even if Labour is still well behind the play in many areas — including bringing in effective measures to reduce New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions.
So I hope this doesn’t come too much as a shock to those assembled here today, but I can’t yet see ACT and the Greens sitting around the Cabinet table together.
But the more relevant issue, in 2007, is how we can work together in the Parliamentary chamber.
The beauty of MMP is that it is making Parliament more sovereign. The minority governments we’ve had, ever since MMP came in, can’t push bills through on their own. In this Parliament the Labour government has to take into account every party’s view and see what combination of parties will support it on this issue or that.
This is making for better Parliamentary debate, and hopefully we can restore some of the public trust in Parliament — which is lost when the Chamber degenerates into a slanging match.
I see my being here today as part of that process. Today we are showing to New Zealanders that two parties of quite different philosophies, that are a long way from being in a Cabinet together — can discuss their political similarities and differences in a friendly and constructive manner, and learn something from each other.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.