by frog
Kiwiblog and National’s Nick Smith are both complaining that the Greens ‘criteria for choosing who we could or could not work with after the election were biased because they did not ask what each party was going to do to grow the economy or create wealth. This is the perfect opportunity to segue into another aspect of the Greens’ Economic Policy released yesterday: growth.
To grow an economy requires more resources – including carbon, water, trees raw materials, and energy sources. 3 percent growth normally means more carbon is burnt, more trees are felled more water is polluted. Case in point – Labour’s growing economy of the last nine years. Technology can ameliorate this problem but not completely negate it. When the wrong parts of the economy grow too fast it depletes our resources. And we only have a set amount to use. There is no re-deal of cards if we don’t like the hand we’ve been dealt or we accidentally play our good cards too early.
Incidentally the economy also requires the environment to clean up after it, by absorbing and recycling pollutants. Again, the environment has a limited ability to do this. The more we use up that ability now, the less time left before we reach a tipping point in on our planet’s biodiverse sustainability.
So Nickk (Did I mention Russel only has one ‘l’) I’m not quite sure why you think being measured on your plans to put our economic growth into overdrive would have done anything to change the outcome of the Greens decision this afternoon not to work in coalition with National. I suspect the result was more likely cemented in the last months by National’s increasingly apparent policy agenda, including refusing to front up on emissions trading, strip-mining the Resource Management Act and scrapping the $1 billion energy-efficient home insulation fund. Smith’s criticisms of Labour in his media release are all true, and he will see the Greens’ analysis reflect that, but sadly National fared even worse on the same test.
Published in Campaign | Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Mon, October 20th, 2008
Tags: economics, growth, national party, Nick Smith
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
The labour/greens ill concieved policy is destroying our forestry industry as we speak.
Implementing policy in the idealistic way that is becoming so common with this govt is rapidly stuffing any chance of real sustainability.
The Greens are not thinking these things through well enough, just clinging to an idealistic fairy land.
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Shunda,
Please explain to me what aspect of the forestry industry you refer to?
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“The labour/greens ill concieved policy is destroying our forestry industry as we speak.”
Yes, tell us how.
“Implementing policy in the idealistic way that is becoming so common with this govt is rapidly stuffing any chance of real sustainability.”
What would your Nats do to achieve “real sustainability”?
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Valis I am voting national for shear balance I am not particularly in love with them.
Forests are not being replanted because of govt legislation, and Timberlands has finally colapsed after the lies and betrayal of the Labour/greens attack of 99.
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shunda – are you voting for National because of the Christian virtues they exhibit, honesty, compassion etc or doesn’t that figure in your decision making?
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“Forests are not being replanted because of govt legislation,”
ETS or something else? Whatis the disincentive?
” and Timberlands has finally colapsed after the lies and betrayal of the Labour/greens attack of 99.”
What was the lie?
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“shunda – are you voting for National because of the Christian virtues they exhibit, honesty, compassion etc or doesn’t that figure in your decision making?”
Greenfly church leadership and nation leadership are two completely separate mandates.
While the morality of a particular party plays a factor to me, it is not the most important issue at all. The most important to me is the party I feel is most in tune with the issues facing our country.
At the moment I think labour has matured into an arogant bunch of control freaks they have corrupted their party ideals and have had their day.
I think John Key has made national an option again and think they have a better grasp on the issues facing NZ.
That the greens have signed up to be abused by labour again only places their political future in jepardy as far as I am concerned.
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shunda – I didn’t mention church leadership. I do like my political leaders to be honest, compassionate and have integrity though. Oh, and Shunda, watch out for the Big Red Green-eyed Monster!
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“What was the lie?”
They broke the West coast accord ending any chance of sustainable management.
Labour ministers new that timberlands did not have enough exotic to sustain industry.
The greens and labour conducted a smear campain of deception regarding native forestry and West Coasters in general.
With the rediculous climate change legislation being pushed through, farmers a felling remaining native forest as fast as they can to beat the new rules.
I hold the govt responsible for this loss of forest, due to ill concieved and out right stupid policy.
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“I do like my political leaders to be honest, compassionate and have integrity though.”
So you’re unhappy about the Greens going with labour then?
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So Shunda, should we have lied about the Nats to ingratiate ourselves and then corrupt them to our way of thinking once the deal is done? Would just like to know how you think a deal would work with a party we disagree with on just about everything.
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Shunda
Greens haven’t been happy with Labour for at least 3 years now. We’re just even LESS happy with National.
I suspect we’d have more in common with ACT than National if the truth be known.
respectfully
BJ
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shunda – I’m attributing those virtues to the leaders of the Greens. Just out of interest, do you condone your party of choice going with Roger Douglas? He’d make a great Minister of Education, don’t you think (knowing how important schooling is to you)
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Valis, let me get this straight, on one hand you say labour and national are effectively the same, mother coke and father pepsi, and then you say it is impossible to work with father pepsi cause you “disagree with on just about everything” ?
So you have efectively admitted lieing to the NZ public?
BIG BRO I’VE CAUGHT THEM LIEING!!!!!
Anyone who can drink coke can drink pepsi.
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greenfly what alternative do I have? Labour couldn’t give a stuff about a man in my situation and they have all but buggered the education system anyway.
What you don’t realise is that I and many many other Kiwi’s feel we have no choice but vote national. I have spoken to people who vowed they would never vote national again, well Clark and co have sure helped change their minds now.
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“greenfly what alternative do I have?”
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“BIG BRO I’VE CAUGHT THEM LIEING!!!!!”
Eh? I’ve been saying we wouldn’t support a Nat govt for weeks. And we’ve never said it would be impossible to work with the Nats. Jeanette expressly reiterated this again today. But we’ve also always said Labour and the Nats are closer to each other than either is to us, even where there is a taste difference. And in many areas, they are both appallingly bad.
Pepsi and Coke are both fizzy brown suggary liquids that have their own distinct characters too. Compare that to say, crisp clear spring water and you might understand what we mean.
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No Valis you are BUSTED…. yeah!!!
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Valis
“Pepsi and Coke are both fizzy brown suggary liquids that have their own distinct characters too.”
Best you ban them as well then.
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Greenfly,
INDEED, the conflict of conflicts
Nothing gives me a bi polar headache like the green party.
I would work with you any day on tree planting, sustainability, whatever, (and actually look forward to doing so at some stage) but then comes the other stuff.
I still have serious doubts that your party would roll out the welcome mat out for evangelical christians but I am open to the possibility (however remote).
I do get abused on behalf of the green party quite regularly though, it amazes me how people think growing/planting native trees is linked to your sexuality and political allegence’s.
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shunda – thanks for taking some ‘hail’ for us and thanks for your offer of help on the eco stuff. Can we get you to put up a couple of billboards for us at your place
Have you looked at the Green policy on education? Especially the focus on environmental education, growing food in schools, giving students the power to decide on sustainability issues in their school etc. It’s very good.
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BB said: “Pepsi and Coke are both fizzy brown suggary liquids that have their own distinct characters too.” Best you ban them as well then.
Only from school tuckshops! Anywhere else, kids should be free to buy them, with parental consent of course.
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Shunda,
Please, you have not satisfactorily explained to me just what your problem is with forestry.
By the by, it is my understanding in our rural region that the district and regional councils do not permit landowners to fell swathes of native forest.
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>I and many many other Kiwi’s feel we have no choice but vote national
You could exercise your right not to vote or invalidate your voting slip
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So let me get this straight greenfly wants me to put out green bill boards and kjuv wants me to abstain from voting? Sounds like some strange sort of confidence and supply deal to me.
Gee you guys drive a hard bargain!!
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“Have you looked at the Green policy on education? Especially the focus on environmental education, growing food in schools, giving students the power to decide on sustainability issues in their school etc. It’s very good.”
No I haven’t yet but it sounds like a good idea to me, I would even be prepared to help out with that stuff in the local schools, kids seem to love it too.
P.S. how do you put smiley faces on your posts?
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bj
“Greens haven’t been happy with Labour for at least 3 years now. We’re just even LESS happy with National.
I suspect we’d have more in common with ACT than National if the truth be known. ”
Are you SERIOUSLY saying that the Green’s would cosy up with a Climate Change denier? Hide actively voted AGAINST the ETS not because it didn’t go far enough – but because he thinks global warming is a “hoax”. Get a grip!
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“No Valis you are BUSTED…. yeah!!!”
Yeah what? What part of what I said are you unable to understand? Or are you doing a big bro and now ignoring reasonable discourse for unsubstantiated blather?
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Valis
chill out dude! we all get caught out at times!!
Have a biscuit and a cofee, that helps me when I’m feeling cranky
Or have a coke……or a pepsi I hear they’re pretty much the same.. bwaa ha haa haaa haa ha ha!!!!!
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Shunda,
http://blog.greens.org.nz/index.php/help-how-to/smilies-and-formatting/
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The point is that ACT at least is honest about what it believes and would do, and I really do not feel I could trust National as far as I could throw a bank.
BJ
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Really Shunda, I thought better of you. I think you’ve said some crazy things on this blog, but you have also shown some humility and ability to say when you got something wrong or didn’t know something. You said hanging out here has been good for improving you ability to communicate. But if its leading you to emulate big bro, you need to take a deep breath and think things through.
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bjchip Says:
October 20th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
> The point is that ACT at least is honest about what it believes and would do, and I really do not feel I could trust National as far as I could throw a bank.
sure, but that’s not enough by itself. I used to think Graham Capill was sincere, but it didn’t make me any more inclined to vote for him.
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Valis, I re-read some of your posts and yes it was unfair to accuse you of lieing about supporting national, but it does make make Jeanette’s coke/ pepsi thing a little hypocritical.
So sorry about that:oops: , but why argue when you can:D smile!!
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Valis, I re-read some of your posts and yes it was unfair to accuse you of lieing about supporting national, but it does make make Jeanette’s coke/ pepsi thing a little hypocritical.
, but why argue when you can 
smile!!
So sorry about that
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thats better
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Thanks for that Shunda. I take the big bro thing back.
As for Coke and Pepsi, if you don’t like the analogy I made above re two brown fizzy drinks vs clear water, consider that this metaphor is actually Russel’s, used at the beginning of June when the Nats had released little policy and were saying they wouldn’t reverse one Labour policy after another. Remember them being called Labour-lite in the media? Some Greens really thought Key might be making a more profound difference in National, rather than just being a nicer looking front man. But in the last several months, we’ve seen the opposite. From the Greens point of view, they have said they would gut the ETS, gut the RMA (their best piece of legislation) and have offered nothing concrete in any other environmental area. If that wasn’t enough, saying they’d change the ETS to remove the recycling of SOE windfall profits on renewable energy into home insulation and more efficient heating systems was simply proof to us that this leopard had not changed its spots a bit.
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3 percent growth normally means more carbon is burnt, more trees are felled more water is polluted.
Thats only because money has become a thing instead of the symbolic representation of exchange value that originally was. I’ve just started a new job a lot closer to where I live. My pay has dropped by the same amount as my fuel bill so I’m no worse off but the “economy” is because there’s a bit less money in circulation. I’ve invested seed capital in my vege garden which is included in the “economy” but the labour of love isn’t, so when I don’t buy veges from the supermarket the economy goes down even though the same amount of goods is being consumed.
We could grow the economy by 3 percent growth by investing to make sure that less carbon is burnt (by investing in solar, wind, geothermal), more trees are planted (for shelter belts), less water is polluted (by biodigesting dairy effluent).
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Grow or die
the rule of evolution (or is that not a green theory?)
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I thought it was grow until you die. Same if you are bacteria or John key really…
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# Strings Says:
October 21st, 2008 at 9:13 am
> Grow or die
> the rule of evolution (or is that not a green theory?)
True of most plants, but not of most animals. Humans are slightly different because we have a long childhood, but a creature like a sheep, for instance, spends the vast majority of its natural life neither growing nor dying, but staying about the same size and just living. Through the 1990s, the Japanese economy followed the same pattern (but if you compare a Japanese car from 1990 with a Japanes car from 2000, you’ll see that no growth is not the same as no innovation).
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Why must growing our economy use more resources? That may be true for the past, but it’s not necessarily true for the future. I was recently in Sweden, which has successfully decoupled growth from carbon emissions. Its carbon emissions dropped almost 9% between 1990 and 2006; over the same period, economic growth reached 44%. Why can’t NZ do this? With the right carrots and sticks (eg moratorium on dairy farming) why can’t we still grow, while using less resources?
The problem with stating the party’s ambition is zero growth, is that it’s not an ambition. With zero growth how will NZ avoid falling further and further behind the rest of the world? Where will we get the money to pay for green infrastructure and subsidies? How do you plan to make zero growth attractive to ambitious business owners?
These are real questions I would love to have answered by the Green party. You most likely have my party vote but I just can’t get my head around this. To me zero growth sounds old fashioned and limited, given the design, engineering and scientific opportunities offered by challenges like peak oil and cradle-to-cradle design.
I think this is one of the reasons why the Greens are struggling to get more than single-figure percentages in the polls, and one of the reasons why the public and mainstream media seem skeptical about the other, perfectly valid economic arguments the Greens make about, for example, the ETS and the findings of the UK Stern Report.
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evolution suggests growth of ability to deal with the world you occupy a piece of.
Businesses that do not grow do die. British Leyland Motor Company Ltd (Morris, Austin, Hillman, etc., etc., are some of the brand names) didn’t grow; it is dead. Sri Lanka, viewed in the 1970s as the gateway to the East didn’t grow, today it is virtually dead. New ZEaland is following that same path, we are NOT GROWING we are dying!
A simple characteristic of a country that is dying is its dependence on imports for ‘things’ and on services for economic turnover, leading to a balance of trade deficit. Think about that
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Strings Says:
October 21st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
> evolution suggests growth of ability to deal with the world you occupy a piece of.
> Businesses that do not grow do die. British Leyland Motor Company Ltd (Morris, Austin, Hillman, etc., etc., are some of the brand names) didn’t grow; it is dead.
British Leyland (which never owned Hillman) didn’t die because it stopped growing. It didn’t even die because it stopped innovating. It stopped growing because of poor quality control, and it later died because of the same poor quality control.
> A simple characteristic of a country that is dying is its dependence on imports for ‘things’ and on services for economic turnover, leading to a balance of trade deficit. Think about that
That’s true, but it has nothing to do with growth.
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“Growth” is a word with a lot different meanings. Simply getting bigger and consuming more of the same stuff is a zero-sum game. Or, it’s like a cancer, growing beyond the capacity of the earth/body to cope with it.
However, there are many, many areas of the economy that need stimulation: research and development into renewable and sustainable energy; r and d into sustainable farming; likewise technology, conservation – all the green issues have plenty of room to expand and create meaningful work. It’s about being creative and visionary, exploring new ways of doing things, not increasing the same old stuff.
An interesting little film is Wall-E which explores some aspects of the uncontrolled growth scenario.
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