Budget Debate 2011: Dr Kennedy Graham: A Green Vision of an (Sustainable) Economy

This year's Budget is essentially more of the same: a traditional neoclassical Budget in a time of national austerity. Let me critique it from a Green perspective, and offer an alternative, ecological Budget in a time of global crisis.

The 49th Parliament has passed 224 Acts in 30 months. These Acts reflect the Government's world view to make New Zealand a better place as it sees it. What stands apart in importance for every Government and every Parliament is the annual Budget, which sets the course for a country's macroeconomic policy.

Solid Energy defends its lignite proposals by Claire Browning

In which Solid Energy defends its lignite proposals before a Parliamentary select committee, defines sustainability loosely, and fails to define some other things at all, except the megabucks

I sat in on Parliament's financial review of Solid Energy yesterday, and heard CEO Dr Don Elder tell the committee that his company — whoops, our company — meets New Zealand’s, and the world’s, sustainability expectations.

That’s sustainability as redefined by Solid Energy.

Southland has, said Elder, world-scale quantity and quality of lignite. On today’s prices, let alone projected future prices, it would earn trillions and squillions of dollars, with which might be bought: hip operations, teachers, rural broadband rollouts galore. A pony from Santa for every child for Christmas. That kind of thing.

I didn’t write the dollar-numbers down. I tried, but the CEO had the bit between his teeth, and he was galloping.

The Treasury and big Green hopes

Colin James's column for the Otago Daily Times for 31 May 2011

The Greens last week celebrated the Treasury's venture into wider measures of wellbeing. Come November 26, will they be celebrating their own broader support?

"This is one of the best news stories in my living memory," Green MP Kennedy Graham enthused about the Treasury's "higher living standards" paper, which sets up a "framework" for a wider assessment of prosperity encompassing social and environmental factors in addition to economic measures.

"Our singular focus on growing gross domestic product (national production) has concealed the related decline in other measures of our prosperity, like the rapidly declining quality of water in our rivers and lakes or the record growth in inequality. If we change the measure, we're likely to change the outcome," Graham said. "It is a good start."

Signs of Change - Keynote - Kennedy Graham - Part 2

Signs of Change - Keynote - Kennedy Graham - Part 1

"My vote is for Ecan"

In his general debate speech on Wednesday, Green MP Kennedy Graham launched a blistering attack on the government's plans to overthrow Canterbury's elected regional council and replace it with an appointed dictator:

the Creech report is a shoddy piece of work and fails rudimentary tests of professional standards. First, the report lacks intellectual integrity. It criticises Environment Canterbury for being science-driven and not science-informed. The Creech report is politically-driven and not politically-informed. If it were politically informed, it would acknowledge that democracy is bigger than business; that the subsidiarity principle is bigger than government; and that one does not replace elected councillors with appointees of central government, just because they are making decisions one might not like. That is political arrogance of the highest order.

Green Business Network

The Green Business network (GB) is a group for Green Party members who are business people, or supporters of sustainable business practice. All Green Party members who have an active interest in the business sector are welcome to join.
The Green Party has a substantive policy base which we will support by networking and strengthening the links between the business sector and the Green Party. The Group will also inform and educate our Green members about the critical role business plays in our economy, ways to embed better business practice, and other opportunities for positive engagement. The Network will highlight the breadth of business models available and the ways they can address sustainability, including cooperatives, social enterprise, SMEs and larger corporates.
See : Sustainable Business Policy Summary

Key Principles
• Support and educate businesses to adopt sustainability as a core value
• Protect business from outright competition with products and services from countries with poor human and worker rights records and with poor environmental practices
• Encourage public and private investment in sustainable businesses
• Promote public recognition and pride in New Zealand companies
• Support New Zealand's manufacturing base
• Make it easier for businesses to invest in appropriate technology and research
• Make compliance easier, especially for small and medium enterprises

GB will establish an email list, a Facebook page and will meet on occasion (typically at scheduled party events) to plan activities and to network.
David Clendon is the MP responsible for Sustainable Business

Greens Kennedy Graham on government Energy Strategy

Dr Kennedy Graham interviewed by TV 7 on New National Government Energy Strategy

Imagining a green manifesto

by Claire Browning

The Greens’ policy platform needs as much rebuilding as any other party’s, to make it strong and sustainable


When I was a child, before I put away childish things, about, well, a year or so ago, I used to think that eventually, if I kept my ears open, the Greens would explain themselves to me; if I kept my eyes open, I would figure them out. They had a communications problem, I thought.
I was wrong. Communication is not the problem. In fact, I think that the Greens present a pretty true picture of themselves, and get reported pretty accurately, on the whole.

Climate change, lignite, and Solid Energy: Searching for truth and reason

Matters are coming to a head, on the lignite saga in Southland.

As climate change intensifies around the world and not least here in New Zealand, our national responsibility to respond proportionate to our size and liability increases commensurately.

The UN has prescribed a national emission reduction target of 25% to 40% off 1990 levels by 2020 for the rich (‘developed’) countries. Few have responded adequately. New Zealand, displaying the foresight of the Dodo, has committed to 10% to 20%, conditional. While that is shameful, let us explore the implications of how (not) to get there.

Signs of Change - Interview with MP Kennedy Graham

Small is beautiful: economy of resources, and the politics of enough by Claire Browning

Economy, by definition, means prudently managing resources, yet in practice growth consumes them, unsustainably. We need a new narrative, say the Greens, that decouples progress from growth: this might be a myth and it is a gamble, but so is growth

Here is a spectre of some straw men. Huddled around a carbon-emitting camp-fire, they scorn even the primitive fun of chewing on a mammoth bone: it’s burlap and lentils for these guys, if they’re lucky.

David Cunliffe: a political vision? by Claire Browning

David Cunliffe offers personal observations from the Greens’ economic conference, on how to do good — “to do good, first we must win” — and possibly, also on how to win

The convenor fires off two cheap shots, one not quite appreciated by his audience (a snipe about burning coal at Huntly, to air-condition the chilly late-afternoon room) and the other hugely enjoyed, including by butt of the joke Nick Smith. “I’m probably the least green person in the room,” he says, “or maybe,” (glancing at Dr Smith sitting beside him) “the second least green person …”.

He starts as he means to go on, in other words: detached, and even-handed about the politics of sustainability.

The Sustainable Economy Conference

Our conference on ‘A Sustainable Economy for New Zealand’ was held in Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber last Friday.

We’re pleased with the way it went – both the turnout (about 200 people) and the quality of the presentations. The keynote, given by Canadian environmentalist, Dr David Suzuki, was simply outstanding.

So, in my opinion, were the two theoretical expositions that followed, by Dr. John Peet and Assoc. Prof. Marjan van den Belt. But in truth, all presenters gave insightful and thought-provoking addresses and participated in the discussion constructively.

Thanks to our two National and Labour colleagues, Hon. Dr Nick Smith (Minister for the Environment) and Hon. David Cunliffe (Opposition finance spokesperson). We appreciated their decision to join us across party lines. We respected the quality of their presentations.

Pretty much all commentators have said the conference was interesting and successful. A couple, however, saw it as the Greens talking to the greens. Not so. There were many academics, think-tank experts, and others who were certainly not connected to the Green Party and who in fact go to considerable lengths to make that clearly understood.

The aim of the conference had been to strike a dialogue with MP colleagues across all parties, and all members of the general public, on the nature of economics in the 21st century, and the common understanding that might be developed between us. Invitations had been extended to all 122 MPs. Many decidedly non-green individuals had been invited through various networks.

I’m hoping this conference, whose central purpose was a cross-party initiative, will encourage others (and for that matter ourselves) to try this kind of thing again. Parliament’s Legislative Council Chamber is a perfect venue to act as an antidote to the adversarial exchanges that occur in the House, some 20 metres down the corridor. Our economic thinking and the resulting Green policies that come from the conference will be smarter as a result.

My thanks to all who participated in the conference for making it such a pleasant and meaningful event.

Political Perceptions of Economic Sustainability

How do the three main political parties understand sustainability? That’s the question for the final panel of the day-long economics conference the Green Party’s organising this Friday, in Parliament.

After a full day exploring the issues of global and national sustainability, neo-classical and ecological economic theories, and how New Zealand can practically pursue sustainability in business, agriculture, trade, energy, and through fiscal and monetary policy, it’ll then be the turn of the MPs.

Up on the panel are Dr Nick Smith, National’s Minister for the Environment, Labour’s finance spokesperson David Cunliffe, and myself. The hope is that each of us can offer our insights into what sustainability means and how it can be achieved through informed economic policy.

It is not totally clear what the present Government makes of sustainability. John Key describes his Government’s policies thus:
The driving goal of the new Government will be to grow the NZ economy in order to deliver greater prosperity, security and opportunities to all New Zealanders. It will be going for growth because it believes in the power of economic growth to deliver higher incomes, better living conditions and ultimately, a stronger society for New Zealanders. My Government views economic growth as the platform upon which a stronger NZ will be built. It views political leadership from this Parliament as essential to achieving that goal.

It will be interesting to learn from Dr Smith what the Government thinks about the relationship between growth and sustainability in 2010.

Helen Clark’s Government addressed sustainability thus:
My government sees its most important task as building the conditions for increasing New Zealand’s long-term sustainable rate of economic growth… the appropriate mix of policies can, over time, return NZ to the top half of the developed world… Economic growth is a means to an end, not the end itself. It is about creating real opportunities for us all – a richer, more inclusive, more diverse and dynamic nation, and about creating the resources to enable governments to provide better social services.

Russel Norman has described the Green view as follows:
We believe that a sustainable society, one which lives within its resource limits and leaves some space for the natural world, is a society best placed to avoid ruthless competition for ever diminishing resources …The next economic wave is the green economic wave and, if New Zealand wants to prosper, we must prioritise research, science, and technology spending in areas such as renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, green tech manufacturing, green design, and energy efficiency.

Clearly there are subtle, and not-so-subtle, differences between the three parties on this question. It’s our hope that Friday’s conference will give us all a chance to dialogue on this critical issue and see how much common ground we can find among us.

A sustainable economy for New Zealand

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A sustainable economy for New Zealand can no longer be achieved purely within the confines of national monetary and fiscal policy.  National sustainability for every country today has to take into account the broader context of the global economy.

The impact of human activity on the planet has transformed in the past two centuries.  The global population explosion and increases in per capita production and consumption have generated a sixty-fold increase in the size of the global economy.  Many aspects of the global ecosystem are facing serious strain as a result, and this is being exacerbated now by climate change (and perhaps ‘peak oil’).

Southland coal would be climate disaster

Digging up the reserves of lignite in Southland can only increase global greenhouse gas emissions, said the Green Party today.

Don Elder, CEO of state-owned Solid Energy, told their annual conference yesterday that mining the low grade coal lignite would reduce global emissions.

Green Party spokesperson on energy, Dr Kennedy Graham responded that the claim was simply illogical.

"Burning coal results in greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to dangerous climate change," said Dr Graham.

Thieving from the kids: Ecological debt and other moral sins

Yesterday was my 18^th wedding anniversary.  It’s been a heart-warming 18 years on the personal front with Marilyn.  I’d marry her again tomorrow – assuming she’d have me.

The day before was less uplifting.  Saturday was Ecological Debt Day.

That is the day humanity has consumed, for the year, all the resources of the planet that it should if the planet is to be sustainable – if we are to pass it on in the same state we inherited it.

Bringing the Budget down to Earth

Green MP Ken Graham’s Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill, newly introduced to the members’ ballot, would revolutionise the annual government budget

Businesses report on their ‘triple bottom line’ — profit, people, planet. But New Zealand governments don’t, in their annual budget.

Dr Kennedy Graham’s Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill would change that. Newly introduced to the members’ ballot, the Bill requires the Finance Minister to have annual regard to, and provide information about, sustainable development measures and principles. It brings ecological economics to the heart of the budget process — and where the money goes, policy follows.

Ecan Bill: Committee Stages 3: 'What We Say Goes' Continues

I wish to address Part 3 and, in particular, clause 34, which is titled “Imposition of moratorium. ‘Power to impose moratorium on specified applications.’”
It begins “ECan may,”, and on that point I allude back to a point made earlier by Brendon Burns. I attempted to get the same point across before our debate on Part 1 was cut off.
The reference to “ECan” is very sloppy drafting. Throughout the bill, the text is littered with references to “ECan”. Indeed, it is defined in the interpretation clause, but it is a poor use of legal drafting.
It is almost as bad as clause 9, which states that “Elected members cease to hold office”, and that this provision applies “no matter what the Local Electoral Act 2001 or the Local Government Act 2002 may say.”