Feeling that perhaps I am one of those people he criticises as ‘people who in the one breath chant “more jobs, more jobs” and then in the next breath say “but don’t do that, or that, or that”, I thought I would ask Mr Joyce a few questions about why he and the National Government are saying ‘we won’t’ to a prosperous and sustainable Aotearoa.

Mr Joyce criticises those who say ‘you can’t explore for that there’. In actual fact, those of us who are deeply concerned about the Government’s risky ‘drill it, mine it’ agenda for our country are not saying ‘you can’t’ without providing alternatives that will both keep our valuable clean green image intact, and provide a more  sustainable economic path for Aotearoa.

As the Greens have been pointing out for a while, if we were to secure just 1 per cent of the global renewable energy market in the next five years, we’d create a $5.8 billion industry with 60,000 more green jobs. Short term risky exploration ventures will not create a long term stable economy for New Zealand. And with the Government boasting in its recent briefing to incoming Minister of Economic Development that we have one of the lowest royalty rates in the world, how can we take their claims of the economic benefits to New Zealand seriously?

So Mr Joyce, why won’t you and your Government commit to a modern and sustainably prosperous economic plan for Aotearoa, when the opportunities to do so are so viable?

Mr Joyce criticises those who say ‘you can’t build that there’. I wonder if he is referring to the vast expansion of new motorways planned which he himself presided over while Transport Minister? In the recent briefing to the incoming Minister of Transport, data revealed a transport budget blowout of $ 1 billion is expected as oil prices remain high. Is this smart economic planning? As Julie Anne Genter, fellow Green party MP and transport spokesperson said in a blog last week ‘As oil prices rise, people turn to buses, trains, walking and cycling, but this Government is planning to blow the budget on uneconomic motorways’

So Mr Joyce, why won’t you and your Government invest in sustainable transport options for Aotearoa giving Kiwis real choices which will be better for our economy and contribute to healthier lifestyles and a cleaner environment?

As it’s a large part of the Minister’s economic plan, he is also no doubt referring to those of us who criticise asset sales as the ‘you can’ts’. As my colleague Russel Norman revealed on Wednesday, the Government is planning to sell off assets which are earning four times more than the cost of capital tied up in them, some of which, according to the Prime Minister himself, have returned 18.5% shareholder profit over the last five years. Why won’t the Government implement smart economic decisions like a temporary earthquake levy for Christchurch, or a capital gains tax which would unleash capital to be invested in innovative productive Kiwi businesses?

So I ask My Joyce, rather than focusing on the ‘can’ts’ why won’t you and your Government focus on real solutions like renewable energy, green-tech, or smart transport that would deliver for Kiwis.

A transcript is here for those who cannot access the video.

David Clendon: What is the Government’s contingency plan if there is a catastrophic oil spill or leak resulting from exploratory drilling?

Hon HEKIA PARATA: Maritime New Zealand is responsible for ensuring that New Zealand is prepared for, and able to respond to, marine oil spills. The Marine Pollution Response Service consists of internationally respected experts, who manage and train a team of about 400 local, Government, and Maritime New Zealand responders.

I didn’t find that particularly reassuring at the time, and find it much less so now given what is happening off Tauranga. We know some smart and dedicated people, both professionals and volunteers,  are working desperately hard trying to avert a major disaster, but so far we have seen just how little capacity we have to manage an accident.

Nobody ever wants an oil spill anywhere in the marine environment, but in terms of acccess and ability to respond,  the location and timing of this spill could have been a great deal worse.  The vessel ran aground on a reef scarcely 20km from Tauranga, one of our largest, busiest and most modern ports.  It occurred in calm weather, and was known about almost immediately. Yet we have still struggled to bring together the necessary expertise and hardware to deal quickly  with the crisis.

How much worse would the situation be if we were to allow deepwater off shore drilling, which the Energy Minister and her government are so eager to do, and an accident occurred a long way offshore in foul weather.

The American response to the Gulf of Mexico disaster involved hundreds of vessels, and many thousands of  military, civilian and volunteer personnel.  It also required a second rig to drill the relief well that ultimately enabled the stemming of the oil flow into the waters of the Gulf.

New Zealand does not and will never have that sort of capacity.  The oil companies will resist having to take responsibility to provide it.

There will always be accidents at sea that threaten our coastlines, wildlife and the livelihoods of people who rely on the marine resource.  We need to continually assess and reassess the risks of such accidents and put in place appropriate safeguards and countermeasures.

To knowingly invite and even encourage deep water drilling, an activity that we know is highly likely to cause problems entirely beyond our ability to resolve them, would be reckless in the extreme.  I hope that the reality of having to deal with the Rena incident will cause the government to think again about our energy future in the interests of our environmental and economic wellbeing.

The Chair of PEPANZ appears almost breathless with excitement as he seeks to fulfil the primary objective of his organisation, “to publicise, promote and advance the interests of the oil and gas exploration industry in New Zealand”.

The East Coast, we are told, has been only ‘lightly explored’.  In fact there have been  surveys done of the area’s onshore and offshore potential since at least the 1970s, and the likely existence of  reserves recognised, albeit in a number of discreet fields rather than one large single reserve. All that has changed is that in the face of declining reserves of cheap, readily accessible oil and gas elsewhere, the industry is moving to ‘frontier’ areas with  a much higher risk profile than would have been contemplated even a decade ago.

Apache we are told is a ‘solid’ company, and isn’t it good that Shell are now players in the South Basin?

With a US$43 billion asset base, Apache are certainly in a position to accept some financial risk from frontier exploration, especially when our government is hanging so much of its misguided economic policy on the back of an extraction-based model worthy of 19th century robber barons.   We  New Zealanders of course will be carrying 100% of the environmental risk – it is our land, water and coastlines that could be irreparably damaged in the event of  a major accident.

And of course while it is noted that Shell has entered the fray in the South Basin, no mention is made of ExxonMobil and Todd both bailing out on the grounds of unacceptably high risk due to the harshness of  the environmental conditions and  remoteness.

Explorers apparently are not put off by protests from Greenpeace (who we are told are only in it for the headlines) nor by ‘local tribal groups’.  That sounds to me like throwing down a wero, a challenge,  one which I’m sure nga iwi o te motu will not hesitate to take up!

We are told that fresh water contamination from fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in the US has only been due to ‘cowboy’ operators cutting corners, but we need not fear for our precious water resources because the Government will ensure that no such operators will be allowed here. I wonder how our single inspector will detect the presence of cowboys, assuming they are astute enough not to turn up wearing a ten gallon hat and carrying a six-gun?  How will he or she manage to be present at every site throughout every operation to spot corner cutting?

We desperately need a government with a progressive, 21st century economic policy, based on the kind of initiatives that groups like Pure Advantage are advocating.  We need a clean green economy that works for everyone, not a backward looking ‘drill and hope’ mentality that creates so much environmental and economic risk for so little benefit.

“The D-word – dairy – cited by Mr Key in in linking together the wonders of free trade with China and India should give cause for concern.  Recent reports on how the likes of the Hauraki Gulf and the Kaipara Harbour are changing into marine sewage ponds thanks to bovine excrement and fertiliser runoffs show we are being ‘uddermined’ by poisoning our country to feed foreigners.  Yes, we can sell artificially sustained grass-fed dairy products, but no – as Mr Key so painfully discovered as an interviewee on BBC television – we can’t keep lying about our pure, clean and green image.”

I spent a great day at the Ice Ideas Conference on Friday and came away more convinced than ever that we have the people, the ideas and the capacity to put our economy on a vastly more sustainable footing.

Nobody in the room of some six hundred was heard to suggest that selling more and more  milk powder, or raw logs, or any other high volume / low value commodity is going to give us any joy economically, socially or environmentally.

Those commodities will inevitably hit environmental limits and constraints, as dairying has already shown, and trying to create financial capital at the expense of natural capital is a fool’s errand.

I suspect it will be considerably more innovative and better informed than what we saw earlier this week from the government-appointed  Green Growth Advisory Group . Their discussion paper makes some  claims about the government’s ‘growth agenda’ that are plain wrong; it misses the point about some fairly fundamental issues around making the transition to a low carbon economy; and appears ill-informed about key parts of the economy, notably the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) sector.

We are told for example that ‘Natural capital – natural resources and ecological systems that provide services to society – is a core consideration in all policy making’.  Really?  Even the policies that involve a huge investment into mineral extraction, massive roading projects, a preference for urban sprawl rather than compact urban form?

The document notes that economies ‘will shift to more sustainable practices’, and that our ability to ‘anticipate and respond appropriately to these changes’ is of importance.  It is clearly news to the authors that ‘economies’ including high-value markets like Europe, North America and Japan are already making the shift, and New Zealand is proving to be a very slow follower instead of fulfilling our potential role as leader by example.

The paper seriously understates the economic risk posed by our failure to live up to our ‘clean and green’  brand, despite acknowledging the importance of authenticity (i.e. no greenwash!) and that our environmental stewardship is already under scrutiny internationally.

We are encouraged to reduce our GHG emissions intensity, but not our emissions in absolute terms.  There is no recognition that the government has an enormous ability to influence the behaviour of  economic players by rewarding those who are getting real about sustainability with government supply contracts – the existing approach to procurement, having sustainability as one ‘tick box’ along with many others, is just inadequate.

The assumptions made about SMEs, and the ‘advice’ offered to them, reflects how badly out of touch this government is with the sector, where a lot of work is already being done that is  motivated by a very clear understanding of the imperatives to move to a more sustainable footing. (Maybe the government’s failure to have even one member attend the recent Small Business summit is symptomatic of this lack of engagement.)

Watch the presentation on YouTube. Sadly embedding of the video has been disabled for that video.

If we care for our environment and create a just, equitable and creative society, a “place where talent
wants to live”, then we can attract the best in the world, and provide opportunity for our most talented Kiwis to see their future here. Imagine what we could achieve if we built a strategy around, and made central to our thinking, the existing success of our emerging knowledge sector, gearing our education system accordingly.

I am not 100% about the detail of the policy suggestions he makes very briefly in one slide near the end but it is clear that there are hard environmental limits to how much further we can go with what we have been doing so far. In the future we need to think differently, not double-down on what worked in the past.

Blackball speech – Time for a Green Change

30^th April 2011

(speech as delivered was slightly different)

E nga mana, e nga reo, e nga iwi o te motu, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa.

It’s great to be in Blackball again this year to be part of this great Mayday mix of food, entertainment and politics. Thanks to everyone involved in the organisation.

I very much appreciated being part of this afternoon’s opening of the memorial wheel for the Pike 29.  I couldn’t be here on Thursday, having earlier promised to attend the Service and Food Workers Union event in Nelson for Workers Remembrance Day, but I want to add my voice to those mourning the guys who were lost to our community in the mine. No reira, e nga mate, haere, haere, haere ki Hawaiki Nui, Ki Hawaiki Roa, Ki Hawaiki Pamamao. Apiti hono, tatai hono. Te hunga mate ki te hunga mate.

It is a national disgrace that these guys will now only be brought from the mine as an inadvertent consequence of some future decision based on commercial grounds.

I know on Thursday Helen Kelly spoke about the responsibility of employers to provide a healthy and safe workplace. I am certainly going to be monitoring the Royal Commission of Inquiry to see that it fulfils its responsibility to determine whether Pike River Coal did all it could to meet that responsibility but also that successive governments did all they could to create and maintain a framework for mining to occur that would achieve maximum workplace health and safety. I guess it’s no secret that I believe shortcomings will be found on both of those grounds.

And that’s not a surprise. I spoke last year about the central idea in capitalist economic theory in which big capital extracts as much profit as it possibly from people’s labour and from the environment, which it regards as “raw materials”. It’s an amoral process, in which if costs can be reduced, they will be. This National Government sees its fundamental role as allowing this process to occur with as few obstacles as possible, and at the same time dismantling the role of the State, to create fresh opportunities for profit maximisation.

Since I spoke last year, the Government has kindly provided me with yet more examples:

• The new law allowing workers to be sacked for no reason at all within their first 90 days of work
• The new law denying trade unions right of access to their members’ workplaces
• Wave after wave of attacks on beneficiaries
• Effectively nothing to create new jobs, thus maintaining high demand for jobs and keeping wages low
• No new state houses (despite the waiting list of 10,000)
• Tax changes that greatly benefited the rich while leaving the poor worse off
• Ongoing dismantling of our ACC scheme and preparation for its privatisation
• Significant cuts to DOC’s budget, with nearly 3,000 species on the endangered list and in the International Year of Biodiversity
• The Minister’s refusal to agree to new marine reserves

There’s also been progress towards the TPP, the free-trade agreement being developed with the United States and others. We have mostly been attacking it because it will involve compromising on important NZ laws, allowing tobacco companies, for example, to sue the NZ Government for smokefree initiatives, and requiring changes to our patent laws to allow big pharmaceutical giants to maximise their profits at our expense. But some of you may recall that last year I also made a critique of free trade agreements and globalisation in general: fundamentally these are about lowering national boundaries so that big capital has access to the cheapest labour and cheapest natural resources wherever they are in the world.

In that light you may want to note a couple of other developments:

• The Government changing well-established employment law because Warner Brothers didn’t like it
• The Government issuing an oil exploration permit (which requires drilling) to the Brazilian company, Petrobras, which has a poor safety record, without it having to submit any plan to deal with an oil spill, and without there being any realistic way at all of dealing with an oil spill.

In both cases, you may observe that these companies take all the profit. All we get is the wages, in return for all the risk.

Last year I outlined the Green Party’s overall approach to turning things around. We say that the relationships between economy, environment and people need to be reversed. Rather than people and the environment serving the economy, we need to re-engineer a smart economy as a set of tools for achieving our goals of environmental protection and a fair, just society.

Over the past week or so we have fired off an opening salvo in this election campaign with a leaflet with the theme ‘Looking Forward’. In part that reflects that long-term thinking that the Greens are well known for. But it’s also meant in the sense of “what are you looking forward to?” We are asking everybody to engage in thinking about what they most want to see – effectively setting those environmental and social goals we want to achieve. There’s been an extraordinary diversity so far, but also some really consistent themes.

Closer to the election the Greens will issue a number of concrete and robust commitments that we will advance in the next Parliament if you give us your party vote (and remember that’s what we campaign for, not the electorate). In the meantime, here’s some of the things we would do if we led the next Government:

• Increase the minimum wage (and index it to the median wage, along with MP salaries)
• Compulsory quality standards for all freshwater streams, rivers and lakes
• Recovery plans for all threatened species in NZ and realistic support to help DOC achieve that in partnership with communities
• Building resilience in rural areas by relocalising economies (encouraging local food and energy production,  local goods and services and Government services)
• Plan for energy independence from oil
• Return to a planned system for making electricity generation decisions in which all the alternatives are considered and the ones that are best for the public are chosen
• Reprioritise Government spending (less on roads and more on “nice to haves” like education and health)
• Repeal the anti-worker laws
• Cancel the plans to sell SOEs and privatise government services
• Retain our economic sovereignty by much tighter restrictions on foreign ownership of NZ land and assets
• Incentivise research and development to help build a clean tech economy that delivers higher wages by making higher value products, at no net cost to the environment
• Help make the 100% Pure brand real, by reducing taxes on people’s work and replacing the revenue with new taxes on waste (including Carbon emissions) and resource rentals
• Create green collar jobs by directing both public and private investment into areas that are job-rich and help protect and restore the environment
• Build 6,000 new state houses
• Legislation to require rental properties to be healthy and warm
• Extend our home insulation scheme to schools and other public buildings
• Introduce a capital gains tax to redirect investment into productive activity rather than housing speculation and fund other policies like first $10,000 of income tax free, progressive electricity pricing, extending the WFF in-work tax credit to beneficiaries, reinstating the training incentive allowance
• Incentives for new and more diverse forestry
• Encourage businesses whose profits are retained in the communities where they were obtained
• Encourage community- and cooperative-owned businesses
• Sharing the cost of rebuilding fairly by a temporary levy on those with higher incomes rather than making the poor pay by service cuts or are kids pay through more borrowing

That’s a programme that would provide immediate benefit in the places and for the people who need it most, but maybe more importantly would put in place the correct relationships between economy, environment and society and establish a virtuous cycle whereby the whole system would continue to improve. And it’s all practical, and achievable by reprioritising spending and tax reform. Big business would hate it!

The fact is that NZ faces big challenges. National is steering the ship with blinkers on and without using the radar. If it is re-elected, its programme – whether through ignorance or malice – will be an acceleration of these policies that have done so much to unravel NZ’s social fabric and benefit a few to the cost of so many. The Greens have chosen to focus on hope for a better society and on a programme of practical, achievable and fiscally responsible steps that will be good for you, for me and our planet. Party vote Green!

In the first reading speech I said of the proposed Commission :

“It could reinforce outmoded, destructive, and well-discredited neo-liberal approaches to economic growth… a new bureaucracy… that could become little more than a publicly funded think tank for ACT Party policy and the advancement of that policy.”

The Labour party, which supported the Commision’s establishment, has rather belatedly realised the error of its ways.

There’s not a lot of satisfaction (in this case anyway) of being proved right!  The appointment of former Act candidate Graham Scott to the commission, and the terms of reference for the first enquiry, speak volumes about the agenda playing out here.

The conclusion the Commission is clearly being encouraged to come to is that getting cheaper housing depends on us opening up the way to more urban sprawl, with the new outlying developments ‘served’ by motorways. The cabinet papers released by Rodney Hide last month spell out very clearly his  analysis of housing  unaffordability, so why go through the expensive farce of asking the Commission for advice?

I asked a panel of business people at  SBN’s  ‘Sustainability is Mainstream’ forum this week for their thoughts on improving productivity in the New Zealand economy.  The responses included more  investment and commitment to science, research and technology; staff engagement programmes  that create a positive company culture where employees know they are valued and listened to; encouraging health and fitness through good nutrition and exercise, so people not only live better lives but also become more productive.

Pretty sensible ideas, already proven in practice by successful companies.  No bogus research projects by a politically influenced commission required.

I’m sure NorthTec and other institutions are not cutting their teaching capacity for fun – it is just another symptom of an underfunded and under-resourced sector, and of the government’s failure to deliver a comprehensive strategy around building and retaining our skills base.

In other tertiary news, Stephen Joyce is waving the big legislative stick  at tertiary institutions he claims are being less than transparent in setting and spending compulsory student service levies.  All well and good, but the minister might want to think about the effect of the voluntary student association membership bill that his government is about to pass. 

Weakening the funding base of the associations will inevitably mean  a lower level of service, and we can anticipate the tertiary institutions will have to pick up some of  the slack.  That means increased student levies, or trying to stretch core funding even more thinly, or both.  None of this will make for high quality affordable education and training, which is a necessary precursor to building both social capital and economic value.

The question that immediately comes to mind is how are we going to pay for the recovery and reconstruction?

The Earthquake Commission (EQC) and private insurance will cover most of the cost to private property. Everything else—the hospitals, the roads, the rail, the sewerage—will likely be borne by central government. More borrowing by central government is being contemplated.

As a practical, principled response to the Christchurch earthquake, the Green Party is putting forward for discussion the idea of a small temporary earthquake levy on all income earners over $48,000.

The levy would work like the one being introduced in Australia to pay the A$7.2 billion fix-it bill after their floods.

To make it fair, the levy would fall on those most able to pay it. Those earning between $48,000 and $70,000 a year could pay up to an additional one per cent income tax, while those earning over $70,000 could pay up to an additional two per cent income tax to help pay for the reconstruction of Christchurch. (People earning less than $48,000 and all those living in the Christchurch region would be exempt from paying the levy.)

A levy at those levels would raise an additional $921 $457 million per year and be directly tagged for disaster relief and reconstruction. The levy could last for a defined time period such as a year, or end with the reconstruction of Christchurch, whatever comes first.

Here are a number of different levy scenarios with estimates of the amounts they raise:

Scenario 1: A levy of 0.5% applied to an individual’s income between $48,001-$70000 and a levy of 1.0% applied to an individual’s taxable income greater than $70,001.

Scenario 2: A levy of 1% applied to an individual’s income between $48,001-$70000 and a levy of 1.5% applied to an individual’s taxable income greater than $70,001.

Scenario 3: A levy of 1% applied to an individual’s income between $48,001-$70000 and a levy of 2% applied to an individual’s taxable income greater than $70,001.

EDIT: These figures have been updated by the Parliamentary Library and are based on a progressive tax. The original tables were calculated as a flat rate over the entire income rather than just the income above $48,000

There are those who argue against such a levy. Australia’s flood levy has been attacked by the Right who argue that further government cutbacks are the best way to find the necessary funds to pay for their flood damage. And a new, albeit tiny, tax raise for upper-income earners goes against the Key Government’s current pathway towards a flat tax structure. And of course we have already paid into the EQC kitty over many years.

However, we don’t believe these arguments against a small temporary levy are convincing. The public sector is already being cut and further cutbacks won’t help the jobs situation. A tax rise may go against National Party ideology but it is only temporary for a national emergency situation. And the size of the damage bill appears to be greater than current reserves and re-insurance.

With this small temporary earthquake levy we don’t wish to politicise the argument. We don’t wish to re-litigate the argument around National’s tax changes, nor do we think the Right should use the opportunity to promote their agenda of asset sales to pay for the damage. We need a pragmatic response to the situation we’re in. We can return to the arguments about tax rates and privatisation later.

A small temporary earthquake levy does appear to offer a fair way for all of us to do our bit to contribute to Christchurch’s recovery without adding to Government debt. We welcome your feedback.

EDIT: these are the old tables.

The additional tax to pay for individuals would look like:

It was a great and powerful speech that clearly defined the Green vision for Aotearoa. Russel also attacked National and Labour for bludging off our grandchildren and pulling the ladder of opportunity out of reach for those who need it the most.

Watch the speech below or click here to read.

In the latest (December 3rd) issue, Mr Hooton reveals that, “…everyone from Mr [Trevor] Mallard to Mr [David] Cunliffe to Mr [Bill] English agrees SOEs need to become more dynamic… [so] surely it’s time to abandon the current practice of having SOE ownership policy determined solely by the demented ravings of the Greens?”

Who knew we had such power over the government’s policy? I wonder what we should start raving about next (in a suitably demented manner) to determine what John Key et al put into their policy platform? The opportunities are limitless!

(just in case you’re wondering, my favourite comic strip is Dilbert)

Len Brown came into office on a platform (among other things) of advocating strongly for public transport investment, with a key project being the CDB rail loop to open up the ‘dead end’ that is Britomart, which will reduce the congestion in the inner city area that imposes significant cost on businesses as well as compromising the ability of people to get around quickly and easily.

The government routinely tells us that economic success in Auckland is critical to the wellbeing of the national economy, and yet they are resisting an investment that would offer a significant economic benefit, as well as future proofing the city against the inevitable rise in fuel costs associated with peak oil and our response to climate change.

To say that the investment in the CBD loop must wait until an annual operating deficit is ‘resolved’ differs remarkably from  the government’s approach to funding new roads.  Is the minister suggesting that the direct return on investment in road building  is positive, and therefore we can continue spending freely on any roading project that grabs his fancy?  That’s a set of figures I would very much like to see!

Rodney Hide’s primary excuse for inflicting his Supercity model on Aucklanders was that having multiple local authorities led to fragmentation, stalled decisions, and no progress on key regional infrastructure, especially transport.  Now we have a newly elected mayor with a massive popular mandate, who campaigned on developing rail, and it is central government that is finding excuses not to engage in a meaningful way to advance a necessary and otherwise well supported project.

Couldn’t possibly be sour grapes that the ‘wrong’ mayor won, could it?

There is no question that climate change and rising fossil fuel prices will change travel patterns, and we should be taking this future into account in our tourism and economic strategies.

International air travel was not covered in the original Kyoto Accord, but Europe recognised early on that a price on carbon emissions from long haul flights would have to be applied.  Otherwise, growth in demand for air travel would quickly outstrip any gains in fuel efficiency.

There is nothing wrong with the Government lobbying for New Zealand’s interests in the UK, but we need to be realistic. Collectively humans will travel by air less frequently in the near future, because we’re not going to see a cheap replacement for fossil fuels for aircraft any time soon.  Even if we weren’t concerned about human induced climate change, rising oil prices will have the exact same dampening effect on international tourism.

So it’s time to pull our heads out of the sand, and start planning for an economic future that isn’t reliant on cheap fossil fuels. This means rethinking tourism, Mr Key. Here are some ideas about a realistic tourism strategy.

It all sounds quite familiar, but, all cynicism aside, it is really good to hear Labour talking like this. The more political parties put children at the heart of their policy development, the better off we’ll all be.

The proof though is in the degree to which Labour will risk votes in the centre to truly work for the poor.

So, I’d invite the Labour Party to take a look at our Mind the Gap package for reducing inequality in New Zealand, especially if they really are committed to breaking the cycle of poverty.

If they are serious, then here’s something they can adopt right now –we’ve already done all the work for them – extend the In-Work Tax Credit (IWTC) to the children of beneficiaries.

A bit of background: under Working for Families, Labour introduced the IWTC as an additional way to support low-income families with dependent children. It’s a tax credit available to parents on low incomes, to ensure that their kids get the basics: food, clothing, a warm, dry home. For families with 1-3 kids its worth an extra $60 per week.

But there’s a catch. The IWTC is only available to parents who are in employment, and not to families in which the parent/s are on a benefit, even though they are the poorest families. For the children of these families, who need the basics just as much, this is just discrimination. Why should some kids from some low-income families get extra support, but not others? The Human Rights Review Tribunal agrees that the IWTC amounts to real and substantive discrimination, and yet it persists.

140,000 of our poorest kids are missing out on vital support because their families are denied access to the IWTC. With the level of child poverty we have in New Zealand, this is just not ok.

Extending the IWTC to the children of beneficiaries is part of our Mind the Gap package, and we also have a members’ bill drafted and ready to go.

I’d be delighted if Labour showed their commitment to “breaking the cycle of socio-economic deprivation” by adopting our policy especially since it was Labour’s decision to exclude beneficiary children in the first place.

Obama has just this week met with three small business owners in Seattle, Washington, and reflecting that “Small Businesses Are the Backbone of Our Economy and the Cornerstones of Our Communities”.  He is trying to get Senate support for a bill that would increase the availability of credit for small businesses, and provide tax incentives for small business job creation.

Funnily enough this comes as I am in the middle of my ‘Smart Business’ listening tour of the country; I was in Waitakere Eco-City last week, Nelson tomorrow, and Dunedin on Thursday 2^nd September.

It is great to see the American leadership actively supporting the small business sector, and we will be doing our best to encourage a similar level of awareness and political support for our small business sector.

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/08/17/small-businesses-are-backbone-our-economy-and-cornerstones-our-communities

On Monday 5^th July I hosted a Smart Business breakfast in Christchurch. It was a  cosy meeting (despite the frosty morning!) at the ‘Under the Red Verandah’ cafe  with a diverse bunch of people including representatives from the renewable energy sector, coffee  roasting  industry and even an open source software consultant. Last Friday  morning I hosted another breakfast for Wellington small business owners in the Southern Cross bar and restaurant. Again, another success with a range of industry leaders and business sectors coming along, including local councillors, an architect, solicitors, a theatre director and an osteopath.

As I meet with more small to medium enterprise (SME) owners and industry leaders many themes are coming to the forefront. Of course, compliance costs are a biggie for all those involved in business but focusing in on which compliance cost is causing the most stress is a heated topic. Tax (especially the looming GST rise to 15%), IRD, staff holidays and ACC seem to keep steering the conversation. As does the question of who should or is responsible for supporting the SME industry – is it central government? Local government? Regional councils? Or even the SMEs themselves through cooperatives or clusters?

How SMEs access information is evolving too, with the realms of social networking being used more and more to keep abreast of government announcements and changes to current legislation, and also to communicate with customers, co lleagues  and even competitors. The business world is changing rapidly and  there is clearly value in the Greens lobbying  government to ensure SMEs are not only supported, but remembered when making big decisions.

It will be interesting to see if these themes arise strongly throughout the rest of the country. In the coming month we’re hoping to be in Waitakere City  and Nelson. Let us know if you’re keen to attend either event.

To top it off we’ve had over 70 SME owners complete our online survey, we’re hoping to reach 100 before August so please fill it out if you own or are involved in the operation of an SME (20 or less employees) or pass on to anyone you know who is.

http://www.greens.org.nz/surveys/smart-business-survey-sme-owners-we-want-be-your-voice-parliament

Green Party MP and serial volunteer Catherine Delahunty recounts one of the most entertaining and impressive experiences of a coordinated volunteer programme.  It took a village of volunteers to support a community court case against a mine in the Coromandel, sustained over several months.

It’s worth thinking about the oft-overlooked importance of unpaid work, which is excluded from calculations of wealth and GDP, to supporting our economy. What do you think about the many non-monetary reasons humans have for chipping in and doing things for each other?

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Back to Incheon airport this morning, waiting to board en route to Bangkok. I have seen some novel and interesting things in the last few days, as one would hope and expect when visiting a country for the first time. But a few minutes catching up on the news from home via dear old Granny Herald online made me think I had fallen down the rabbit hole in a way that nothing in Korea managed. Does Gerry Brownlee really believe that mining is or can be seen as a ‘green’ activity. And does Paula Bennett really think that ‘most’ New Zealanders will accept that breaches of the Bill of Rights can be ‘fair and reasonable’?

Having got that bit of madness off my chest, I am now free to reflect a bit on impressions gained from our very short snapshot tour of Korean life and politics.

One of the ministers we spoke to had an interesting take on Korea’s situation in relation to the US, China, and (perhaps to a lesser extent) Japan.  He suggested that at one time Korea was the prawn amongst the whales, but that now Korea could see itself as a dolphin.  Still smaller, but also perhaps more agile, able to change direction more quickly, and certainly not short of intelligence. 

The people we have spoken to – business people, politicians, various aides – all seem to display a considerable capacity for strategic thinking, a tendency to take the long view.  This is balanced by an equally strong tendency to pragmatism, to do what is needed for the moment.  One dramatic representation of that was the guy we saw ducking and swerving through the always lively Seoul traffic with a large pane of glass, perhaps 2 metres wide by 2.5 meters tall, strapped to the side of his small motorcycle. 

We have talked a lot about education, and also in passing about research and development.  There seems to be a general mood for major educational reform, at both a ‘policy’ level, and beyond that, a proposition that there ought to be a fundamental change in pedagogy.

 Traditionally the Confucian practice has held sway, which means that education is seen as the passing on of a body of knowledge from one generation to the next.  Teachers have been and still are highly respected as repositories and disseminators of knowledge.

The education system in Korea is also highly competitive, with students being required to pass through many examined ‘gates’ in order to progress through ‘mandatory’ education (from age 6 to age 18) and then a remarkable 85% of young people go to some form of tertiary study.  Combine that with the obligation for every young man to do two years of military service, and young people may not enter the work force until they are well into their twenties or beyond.

Meeting the cost of tertiary education falls heavily on families, and puts many under considerable financial pressure.  There is also concern that young people are spending too much time studying, attending ‘cram schools’, engaging in prescribed extra-curricular activities (always with a view to improving the all important CV) and along the way missing out on opportunities to enjoy their youth or to explore more ‘random’ pursuits. 

The weakness of the ‘banking’ model of education, where the all knowing teacher deposits knowledge into the ‘empty vessel’ student, was eloquently expressed by Paulo Freire in the 1970s.  Freire saw how this model could prevent intellectual (and by extension social and political) challenge or critical thinking.  Korean policy makers seem to be arriving at a similar conclusion, and thinking that a more liberal, more autonomous practice might actually serve their social and especially their economic needs better. 

 Korea’s economic strategy of building a massive capacity to manufacture high quality goods, from ships to cars to electronics, has been highly successful.  There is a realisation however that wealth of the future is more likely to come from innovation, creativity and adaptability, and the emerging consensus seems to be that this is precisely what the country’s education system may not be well geared to deliver.