Mr Speaker, John Key and National talked at length during the election campaign about the need to make sure that our economic priorities as a nation are not overshadowed by environmental considerations.  Well, unlike National, we on this side of the House believe that promoting economic growth and sound environmental outcomes are not mutually exclusive.  Here in New Zealand, we trade, literally and physically, on our image as clean and green. In the global marketplace, demonstrating that a product is environmentally sustainable is an increasingly key issue for New Zealand goods and services.  This budget was a chance to solidify our reputation by promoting growth, encouraging investment and creating new jobs while maintaining leadership on climate change.

But the tragedy of this budget is that it truly is one of lost opportunities.  Bill English, John Key and National failed to provide a plan for a sustainable future.  All around the globe, governments are using the opportunities presented by the economic crisis to invest in what we all know is the necessary and inevitable transition to a lower pollution economy.  Governments in Australia, Britain and the United States have all done this.  These measures are completely missing from Bill English’s budget.  Where is the investment in improved fuel efficiency, increased public transportation, renewable electricity generation, or other essential initiatives to achieve long-term low-pollution economic growth?  All missing, sir.
 

Since taking office in November, National has simply walked away from a strategy for long-term low-pollution economic growth.  There is no economy-wide plan to deal with climate change and the challenges it presents.  Instead, in both the climate change and energy portfolios, National has caused job and investment haemorrhaging uncertainty.  National’s short-sighted policies, of stalling the ETS, repealing the renewable preference for new electricity generation, and removing the biofuels obligation, have all cost kiwi jobs and new investment. 

The record reflects that National’s policies brought the emerging carbon market to a halt – a major opportunity for our country to maximise our geographic, skills-based, language and timezone advantages – thrown away when the ETS was put on hold and the NZX put TZ1 on the market.  The record reflects that same policy has cost us enormous international investment in the forestry sector, along with hundreds of new jobs, while 8000 seedlings rot in the ground as foresters sit on carbon credits, but have no certainty as to with whom they might be able to trade them.  The record reflects that when Gerry Brownlee repealed the biofuels obligation under urgency before Christmas, an international company pulled out of building a 60 million litre biodiesel plant in the Bay of Plenty, and the expansion of production plants in Auckland and Waharoa on hold indefinitely.

There is little in this budget to remedy this appalling situation.  Admittedly, Gerry Brownlee has attempted to fix his mishandling of the biofuels obligation by throwing $36 million at the sector in grants, in an attempt to re-start the domestic biofuels industry after decimating it via the repeal of the biofuels obligation.
 
This Government has the temerity to accuse the former Government of poor quality expenditure!  Mr Speaker, what could be poorer quality than wasting $36 million in the current economic climate.  The Government could and should have simply kept the biofuels obligation, as a means of encouraging the production of biofuels in New Zealand.

What was National’s pretext for opposing the biofuels obligation?  It said that it was concerned about unsustainable biofuels.  So what progress has National made on sustainable biofuels after 7 months?  None. That’s right, none.  Gerry Brownlee said months ago that he would be announcing sustainability standards for biofuels.  He said he had officials working hard on them.  Well so far, these sustainability standards are nowhere to be seen.  What is worse is there appears to be no requirement for recipients of grants for biofuels production to ensure sustainable production.  This makes a mockery of National’s entire policy towards biofuels for the last six months.
 
And where is the support for renewable energy generation in this budget?  New Zealand has an abundance of renewable energy resources that very few countries enjoy.  Our hydro, wind, and geothermal resources mean we are ideally placed to build an energy system that is affordable, sustainable, and reliable. National has gone quiet on this issue.  Does National support the 90 per cent by 2025 renewable target?  Gerry Brownlee has called it aspirational and said he would be making an announcement in the coming weeks – that was in February – three and a half months ago - and we still haven’t heard anything!  He continues to talk about a review of the New Zealand Energy Strategy.  But still no action!
 
And all the while, a ministerial working group is beavering away on the design of the sector.  I ask the House – how can this group do its job while the Minister refuses to his – provide basic direction on matters of policy like whether we have a renewable generation target, and if so, what it is.  Worse, electricity generators have already put the development of new generation projects on hold because of the uncertainty around the ETS and Gerry Brownlee’s Ministerial Review.  These projects take years to bring to fruition and given our country’s need for more generation capacity every year, New Zealanders will repent at leisure over the Minister’s inaction.  Let’s hope we don’t do so shivering in the dark, or, equally badly, reliant on foreign gas imports to keep the lights on.

The National Government has made New Zealand a laughing stock internationally over its constant handwringing and flip-flops on the Emissions Trading Scheme, and climate change generally. This complete lack of direction and ability to provide any form of credible leadership is costing New Zealand dear in reputational terms. Just the other day, Nick Smith came up with another excuse to further delay any progress on climate change policy – the government negotiator told representatives at the Bonn conference that New Zealand would not confirm any 2020 pollution reduction target until it had undertaken public consultation.  This continues the parade of other excuses he has used for not setting a target – awaiting new data, harmonisation with Australia, investigating a carbon tax – the list goes on, and becomes less credible and less consistent.
 

Finally, Mr Speaker, a few words about the home insulation package.  While almost everything the National led Government is reviving from Labour’s programmes in this area is less generous than Michael Cullen had promised, and would have delivered, it is at least something. I want to pay tribute to some of the as-yet unsung heroes of this story, Mr Speaker, because there is no sign that they will get credit for their contribution from the current Minister of Energy.  As the NZ Energy and Environment Business Week notes, the package is in no small part the achievement of a decade of research by the likes of BRANZ and Professor Philippa Howden-Chapman, a public health research pioneer at the Wellington School of Medicine at Otago University.  Professor Howden-Chapman secured around $7m to undertake research into the impact of unhealthy home environments on New Zealand’s chronically high levels of asthma and other respiratory illnesses during the term of the last Labour Government, between 1999 and 2007.  The main funding for this scheme came from the Health Research Council, but to their credit, Contact Energy also kicked in $600,000 over three years, and the Ministry for the Environment came to the party at a similar level.

The budget says that $323.3 million will be allocated to home insulation and heating over the next 4 years, starting on 1 July.   It is not entirely clear, but $100 million of this money seems to have been taken out of vote: Health.   $80 million is existing EECA money.   So the new money here is $143 million over 4 years.   It isn’t clear how this will be made available, but if it is on an annual basis, we are talking about $36 million of new money, not taken from other sources, available each year.  That will provide for grants of $1800 - the figure mentioned in the budget speech - to only 20,000 additional homes every year.
So, a move in the right direction.   But maybe a long way from the 60,500 additional homes targeted every year in the budget.  And with so much detail missing while Gerry Brownlee cobbles together the actual package between now and 18 June, the jury remains well and truly out on the implementation of this first collaboration between National and the Green Party.

Mr Speaker, this truly was a budget of lost opportunity.  The country could ill-afford it.  The balance between our economic well-being and our environmental integrity can ill-afford it.  New Zealanders can ill-afford two more such budgets.  But if the Government continues as it has begun, one thing is for sure - two more are all that it will ever get to deliver.