Better Access to Dental Care
The cost of seeing the dentist is beyond the means of thousands of New Zealanders - especially those on fixed incomes. A bill of $400 or more to get a sore tooth fixed? They can’t do it.
It’s great that, with our support in government, the cost of seeing the doctor has more than halved for many New Zealanders, and prescription medicines are much cheaper to pick up.
The Progressive Party intends to put dental care within reach of everyone.
It’s not hard to find someone with a scary story about the cost of dental care.
Acceptable dental care is beyond the means of many New Zealanders.
The situation now
Some coverage is provided for children. All school children in New Zealand are entitled to free basic dental treatment. Subsidised care is unavailable for some orthodontic requirements.
After age 18, very little publicly-provided care is available. Most adults have to pay the full cost of treatment or go without.
Hospitals can provide services that relieve pain and extract teeth. Services are heavily restricted – mainly only for people, such as psychiatric patients and long term beneficiaries. Patients have to queue for subsidised care at 5 o’clock in the morning.
Beyond those minimal services, there is nothing unless you can pay for it.
Dental surgery can be cripplingly expensive and beyond the means of many families.
Improved dental care needs to be much more than a trip to the dentist for a check up. The cost of that alone can be beyond the means of many low income families.
But the real cost hits when a person needs more attention – a filling or the replacement of the tooth altogether.
Policy
Dental care should be brought into New Zealand’s health system.
The Progressive Party want to see a programme that steadily introduces more affordable, accessible dental care.
We would like to see a policy phased in over the next five years - similar to the roll-out of cheaper doctors visits. Those population groups in greatest need would get assistance first.
We will work with industry and researchers to develop the mechanism that will best improve access to dental care.
The objectives of the funding mechanism will be:
Options:
We will work closely with the profession, and with others in the health system who have a stake and expertise to develop a scheme that best makes our objectives.
Subsidy
This would work in a similar way to subsidised doctors’ visits. Some doctors provide free, or nearly free, consultations paid for by the subsidy from the government. Other doctors charge a top-up fee.
At first, subsidy levels could increase according to need, so that full subsidies were made available to those least able to afford care they need. As the scheme was rolled out, the level of subsidy would increase for others, so that the cost of dental care began to come down for everyone.
Increased use of dental therapists.
Remember your visit to the school dental clinic? Dental professionals who were not full dentists, took care of you teeth. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
Community dental facilities, funded by government, supervised by professionals, could be part of an improved care programme.
Insurance.
One characteristic of dental care is that your need tends to vary at different times in your life. Young people, and older people tend to have higher demand than working age people.
The actuarial predictability of people’s demand for dental care lends itself to an insurance scheme. New Zealanders could pay in, with the government providing subsidies according to your ability to pay, and the insurance provider setting rules about eligibility and coverage. ACC is already well equipped to do this.
Costing
The cost of more affordable dental care depends on how much more affordable and accessible.
A checkup with scale and polish, with one filling can cost $180. For half the population, paying half the cost of the visit would cost the government $180 million. Some patients would need more care. With a subsidised programme, more cost-effective options could be provided.
Comprehensive improvements need to be phased in because the spare capacity to immediately provide comprehensive care doesn’t exist.
It’s great that, with our support in government, the cost of seeing the doctor has more than halved for many New Zealanders, and prescription medicines are much cheaper to pick up.
The Progressive Party intends to put dental care within reach of everyone.
It’s not hard to find someone with a scary story about the cost of dental care.
- Elderly New Zealanders who have had good teeth all their lives and suddenly find they need comprehensive dental treatment when their incomes are fixed and they are least able to pay for it.
- Families faced with difficult choices between having the treatment they need – and the cost of paying for it.
Acceptable dental care is beyond the means of many New Zealanders.
The situation now
Some coverage is provided for children. All school children in New Zealand are entitled to free basic dental treatment. Subsidised care is unavailable for some orthodontic requirements.
After age 18, very little publicly-provided care is available. Most adults have to pay the full cost of treatment or go without.
Hospitals can provide services that relieve pain and extract teeth. Services are heavily restricted – mainly only for people, such as psychiatric patients and long term beneficiaries. Patients have to queue for subsidised care at 5 o’clock in the morning.
Beyond those minimal services, there is nothing unless you can pay for it.
Dental surgery can be cripplingly expensive and beyond the means of many families.
Improved dental care needs to be much more than a trip to the dentist for a check up. The cost of that alone can be beyond the means of many low income families.
But the real cost hits when a person needs more attention – a filling or the replacement of the tooth altogether.
Policy
Dental care should be brought into New Zealand’s health system.
The Progressive Party want to see a programme that steadily introduces more affordable, accessible dental care.
We would like to see a policy phased in over the next five years - similar to the roll-out of cheaper doctors visits. Those population groups in greatest need would get assistance first.
We will work with industry and researchers to develop the mechanism that will best improve access to dental care.
The objectives of the funding mechanism will be:
- Cheaper access for patients.
- Minimising the expense to taxpayers.
- Ensuring dental care professionals (from dental therapists, to dentists, to surgeons and orthodontists) have incentives to enter and stay in the profession, providing the care needed.
Options:
We will work closely with the profession, and with others in the health system who have a stake and expertise to develop a scheme that best makes our objectives.
Subsidy
This would work in a similar way to subsidised doctors’ visits. Some doctors provide free, or nearly free, consultations paid for by the subsidy from the government. Other doctors charge a top-up fee.
At first, subsidy levels could increase according to need, so that full subsidies were made available to those least able to afford care they need. As the scheme was rolled out, the level of subsidy would increase for others, so that the cost of dental care began to come down for everyone.
Increased use of dental therapists.
Remember your visit to the school dental clinic? Dental professionals who were not full dentists, took care of you teeth. It wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
Community dental facilities, funded by government, supervised by professionals, could be part of an improved care programme.
Insurance.
One characteristic of dental care is that your need tends to vary at different times in your life. Young people, and older people tend to have higher demand than working age people.
The actuarial predictability of people’s demand for dental care lends itself to an insurance scheme. New Zealanders could pay in, with the government providing subsidies according to your ability to pay, and the insurance provider setting rules about eligibility and coverage. ACC is already well equipped to do this.
Costing
The cost of more affordable dental care depends on how much more affordable and accessible.
A checkup with scale and polish, with one filling can cost $180. For half the population, paying half the cost of the visit would cost the government $180 million. Some patients would need more care. With a subsidised programme, more cost-effective options could be provided.
Comprehensive improvements need to be phased in because the spare capacity to immediately provide comprehensive care doesn’t exist.
$200 Winter Power Rebate
The chilling reality is that some people face winter power bills they can’t afford. Imagine if you’re on a fixed income, and you get a $400 monthly power bill? It’s not acceptable.
The cost to keep warm creates too much discomfort, is beyond the means of many and compounds the problem of potential winter health risks, especially for the elderly.
Power company profits are rising quickly. Most of them are publicly owned - so the profits are coming to the government. Just a quarter of their gross profits would pay for a $200 winter power rebate.
The Progressive Party intends to offer New Zealand households an annual rebate of $200 to ease the high cost of heating in winter months.
Progressive Party $200 Winter Power Rebate
What is the rebate policy?
The rebate is a refund from government from the proceeds of its ownership of power companies.
Low income households, and especially those on fixed incomes, would get a rebate of $200 on winter power bills.
$200 is an average monthly power bill for many of the homes in question, so the effect for many homes would be a month’s free power.
Who would be eligible?
At a minimum, we want all low and fixed income households to receive the rebate – superannuitants, beneficiaries, low income wage earners, for example.
Middle income households often find winter power bills tough too. Subject to further analysis of power company profits, we would like to see the rebate extended to other households.
Why a power rebate?
In July, Jim Anderton ran a series of ads around the country expressing concern about New Zealanders struggling to make ends meet in the current world economic climate.
One consistent response that came through was that many households, who are living from week-to-week, struggle to cope with winter power bills. Suddenly, household budgets come under pressure just to avoid a basic necessity like keeping warm.
At the same time, power companies are making strong profits. Most energy generating in New Zealand is owned by the public. As profits at those public companies rise, it’s logical for the owners – the people of New Zealand – to achieve a dividend for their ownership.
Paying out a return on public ownership as a direct rebate to those most in need of assistance is a highly progressive way of helping families. $200 means a lot more to someone whose income is low and fixed. It ensures the cash goes to a necessity.
How much would it cost?
According to Statistics New Zealand, there are about 1.4 million households.
Assuming half were eligible for a $200 winter power rebate, that would cost around $140 million.
A $200 winter power rebate for every household would cost $280 million.
How would it work?
A winter power rebate would be administered by the energy retailers.
Households would register their eligibility by advising their electricity supplier.
A power company might enclose a letter to consumers with the monthly power bill advising that a rebate is available and inviting consumers to register.
Consumers would have to certify that they met the eligibility criteria. The power company would apply a credit to one power bill during the winter months and the government would refund the power company.
How much are publicly-owned power companies making?
A lot.
In the six months to the end of 2007, the three publicly-owned power companies reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and financial instruments of over six hundred million dollars.
Total half-year publicly-owned power company earnings: $604 million.
(EBITDAF. Some rounding).
How does this fit with the Emissions Trading Scheme?
The Emissions Trading Scheme will increase the cost of power that produces climate-changing gases. This helps consumers to make a choice for cleaner energy.
However some consumers will not easily be able to switch to clean choices. And although clean energy will be relatively cheaper, there is a risk that the costs of clean energy will also rise as demand increases. There is therefore a risk that vulnerable households will face increased costs, at the same time that power company profits will increase.
Paying out a flat $200 rebate helps to shield eligible households from the increased cost of energy but still leaves in place an incentive to switch to cleaner energy sources.
Would diverting some of those profits into a rebate reduce much-needed investment in new energy?
The largest investment in new electricity infrastructure since the seventies is underway. Over $7 billion is being spent on generation and transmission in the next few years.
The more that is spent on new infrastructure, the more power companies have to earn to achieve an acceptable return on their investment.
Does a winter energy rebate exist anywhere else?
Yes. Victoria, for example, provides low-income households with more than $1 billion a year in concessions for essential services such as energy and water. It pays a rebate to concession households of $19.50 for households who spend between $82 and $122 on LPG (approx cost of an LPG bottle); $97.50 for households who spend between $123 and $609; and $145 for households who spend more than $609.
In the United Kingdom, the government provides a winter fuel payment of 250 pounds for over 60s and 400 pounds for over-80s.
The cost to keep warm creates too much discomfort, is beyond the means of many and compounds the problem of potential winter health risks, especially for the elderly.
Power company profits are rising quickly. Most of them are publicly owned - so the profits are coming to the government. Just a quarter of their gross profits would pay for a $200 winter power rebate.
The Progressive Party intends to offer New Zealand households an annual rebate of $200 to ease the high cost of heating in winter months.
Progressive Party $200 Winter Power Rebate
What is the rebate policy?
The rebate is a refund from government from the proceeds of its ownership of power companies.
Low income households, and especially those on fixed incomes, would get a rebate of $200 on winter power bills.
$200 is an average monthly power bill for many of the homes in question, so the effect for many homes would be a month’s free power.
Who would be eligible?
At a minimum, we want all low and fixed income households to receive the rebate – superannuitants, beneficiaries, low income wage earners, for example.
Middle income households often find winter power bills tough too. Subject to further analysis of power company profits, we would like to see the rebate extended to other households.
Why a power rebate?
In July, Jim Anderton ran a series of ads around the country expressing concern about New Zealanders struggling to make ends meet in the current world economic climate.
One consistent response that came through was that many households, who are living from week-to-week, struggle to cope with winter power bills. Suddenly, household budgets come under pressure just to avoid a basic necessity like keeping warm.
At the same time, power companies are making strong profits. Most energy generating in New Zealand is owned by the public. As profits at those public companies rise, it’s logical for the owners – the people of New Zealand – to achieve a dividend for their ownership.
Paying out a return on public ownership as a direct rebate to those most in need of assistance is a highly progressive way of helping families. $200 means a lot more to someone whose income is low and fixed. It ensures the cash goes to a necessity.
How much would it cost?
According to Statistics New Zealand, there are about 1.4 million households.
Assuming half were eligible for a $200 winter power rebate, that would cost around $140 million.
A $200 winter power rebate for every household would cost $280 million.
How would it work?
A winter power rebate would be administered by the energy retailers.
Households would register their eligibility by advising their electricity supplier.
A power company might enclose a letter to consumers with the monthly power bill advising that a rebate is available and inviting consumers to register.
Consumers would have to certify that they met the eligibility criteria. The power company would apply a credit to one power bill during the winter months and the government would refund the power company.
How much are publicly-owned power companies making?
A lot.
In the six months to the end of 2007, the three publicly-owned power companies reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and financial instruments of over six hundred million dollars.
- Meridian: Half year profit of 93.7 million, on EBITDAF of $253.7 million.
- Mighty River Power: Half year profit of $83 million profit on EBITDAF of $175 million.
- Genesis Energy: Half year profit of $61 million on EBITDAF of $175 million.
Total half-year publicly-owned power company earnings: $604 million.
(EBITDAF. Some rounding).
How does this fit with the Emissions Trading Scheme?
The Emissions Trading Scheme will increase the cost of power that produces climate-changing gases. This helps consumers to make a choice for cleaner energy.
However some consumers will not easily be able to switch to clean choices. And although clean energy will be relatively cheaper, there is a risk that the costs of clean energy will also rise as demand increases. There is therefore a risk that vulnerable households will face increased costs, at the same time that power company profits will increase.
Paying out a flat $200 rebate helps to shield eligible households from the increased cost of energy but still leaves in place an incentive to switch to cleaner energy sources.
Would diverting some of those profits into a rebate reduce much-needed investment in new energy?
The largest investment in new electricity infrastructure since the seventies is underway. Over $7 billion is being spent on generation and transmission in the next few years.
The more that is spent on new infrastructure, the more power companies have to earn to achieve an acceptable return on their investment.
Does a winter energy rebate exist anywhere else?
Yes. Victoria, for example, provides low-income households with more than $1 billion a year in concessions for essential services such as energy and water. It pays a rebate to concession households of $19.50 for households who spend between $82 and $122 on LPG (approx cost of an LPG bottle); $97.50 for households who spend between $123 and $609; and $145 for households who spend more than $609.
In the United Kingdom, the government provides a winter fuel payment of 250 pounds for over 60s and 400 pounds for over-80s.
Alcohol & Drugs
Reducing the harm caused by alcohol and drugs
Progressives believe New Zealand should have the strength to care about the social costs of drug use.
Research released this year shows that use of illicit drugs like cannabis and P had social costs to New Zealand in 2006 of $1,310 million.
We need to do more as a community to minimise harm.
Research carried out by BERL (and peer reviewed by experts from three universities) shows the social costs of illicit drug use amount to nearly one per cent of New Zealand’s GDP.
We all pay the social costs of harm caused by drug use in paying taxes for our hospitals and police and social agencies to pick up the pieces. The victims of crime pay the social costs. The families of users pay the social costs. And the users pay the cost too. In the case of cannabis they pay around $1,750 each, per year, in social costs.
Progressives won’t support any steps to make alcohol or illicit drugs more available.
After tobacco, the most drug that causes the most harm in New Zealand is alcohol – not because it is intrinsically the most harmful, but because it is the most widely available and the most widely used.
Therefore, our priority for action on drugs in the next three years is to reduce
the harm caused by alcohol.
EVIDENCE-BASED
Progressives support an evidence based approach to the harm caused by drugs.
Where the evidence shows a drug is harmful, we will support action to reduce
the harm.
For example, in 2002, we moved to classify GHB or fantasy. Its use has dropped from 0.8 per cent of the population aged 15 to 45 years to 0.3 per cent. The number of overdoses of GHB cases at Auckland Hospital dropped from 163 people in 2002 to 85 in 2004. Classification stopped a significant increase in use as it came into place shortly after a number of businesses started to really market GHB. It is likely that the casual users who were beginning to use it in 2001/02 are not now using as it is not easy to get hold of as it was prior to classification.
METHAMPHETAMINE
As chair of the government’s ministerial committee on drug policy, Jim Anderton:
We will continue to work with police to ensure they have sufficient powers to investigate and prosecute P distributors.
CANNABIS
We will not support legalisation of cannabis or any moves that will increase the availability of cannabis.
Cannabis is not as intrinsically damaging as other illicit drugs such as opioids or LSD, with a lower ‘social cost per kilogram’ and lower ‘social cost per user’. But the total social cost of cannabis use is very high because use of the drug is so widespread. The more widespread the use of cannabis gets, the higher that cost will be.
BZP
This year the Progressives in government made BZP, or party pills, a class C1 drug.
The decision to legislate against BZP-based party pills was taken after recommendations by the Experts Advisory Committee on Drugs to do so. This is the determination of expert toxicologists, doctors, and other specialists who recognised the drug poses a danger.
The classification puts BZP in the same category as other substances such as cannabis, and coca leaf. It means a person can be sentenced to up to eight years jail for importing, making or supplying BZP. Someone possessing BZP can be fined up to $500 or receive three months in prison.
The new law was implemented after a recommendation by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs.
The change brings us into line with a number of other countries. BZP is prohibited in the United States, Australia, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, Greece and Malta. BZP is controlled under a specific law on goods dangerous to health in Sweden. In the Netherlands, and Spain, BZP is controlled under medicines legislation. In the UK the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) announced a clampdown on those selling piperazines, warning vendors that they could face prison sentences and an
unlimited fine.
NEW PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES
The classification of BZP and related substances is unlikely to remove the market for legal psychoactive substances in New Zealand.
It is likely that new products with an unknown chemical composition will turn
up.
Progressives support a change in the law to place the onus on of proof on the sponsor of a new substance where it is marketed as inducing a psychoactive response. Currently, when a new substance comes on the market, it can be sold and supplied without restriction until the government determines its safety profile and either lists it as a restricted substance or as a controlled drug.
We want to change the law so that a marketer would need to show a substance is safe before it could be legally sold in New Zealand.
ALCOHOL
Estimated harm: Between $1500 million and $2400 million each year.
In recent years New Zealand has made alcohol much more available. Predictably, the harm caused by alcohol has risen as well.
Lowering the drinking age, allowing more alcohol advertising, and promoting the sale of liquor in more places for longer hours have all contributed.
New Zealand has a cultural tolerance for very heavy drinking and alcohol abuse. A chorus sneers at anyone who points out New Zealand’s alcohol problem with terms like ‘fun police’ and ‘nanny state’.
But alcohol abuse is having direct social costs. The harm caused by alcohol extends far beyond the user.
Lowering the age at which alcohol can be lawfully purchased has led to more deaths and injuries among young New Zealanders.
In 1999, 500 people were killed on our roads. By 2007, total road deaths declined to 410. The number of road deaths among 15-29 year olds has not fallen as much. There were 162 people aged 15-29 killed in cars and vans in 2000. Last year there were 156. If the toll among 15-29 year olds had fallen by the same amount as the general population, there would have been twenty fewer deaths.
In the years prior to 1999 the number of dead drivers who had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit had been tracking down. Since 1999, when the purchase age was lowered, the number of dead drivers has not tracked down.
More young people are also being injured. In 2000 there were 4,079 15 to 29 year old car and van drivers involved in injury crashes. Last year, there were 6,538 - an increase of sixty percent.
The number of injury accidents among the general population has also increased, from 12,000 reported injuries in 1999, to 16,000 last year. That’s an increase of about 25 per cent - far smaller than the increase in deaths involving young New Zealanders. Over half the increase in injuries along the general population is explained by the increase in injuries among young people alone.
Alcohol is an enormous factor in crime.
Police are doing their bit. Increased police enforcement since 2003 has resulted in:
Stronger policing needs to be backed up by tough new measures, restricting availability, increasing enforcement and improving treatment.
Alcohol Availability
The research in New Zealand and around the world is clear: There is a direct link between the availability of alcohol and the level of harm caused by alcohol.
Progressive policy to reduce availability:
If we return Matt Robson to parliament, we will again force Parliament to vote on increasing the minimum legal purchasing age for alcohol.
The police reports should be more comprehensive than an assessment of whether there are objections to a particular licence. They would also make observations about the proliferation of outlets in a community, the hours at which alcohol is supplied and community concerns about alcohol-associated crime in the vicinity. For example, in areas where large numbers of dairies are selling alcohol at all hours, police would be able to submit against granting new licences in the area and to make recommendations about reducing the overall number of outlets.
Increasing the price of alcohol reduces availability.
In 2003 the government took steps to increase the excise rate charged on alcoholic drinks in the range 14-23% by volume. The initiative was taken because manufacturers were taking advantage of the tax rate to produce and market a range of ‘light drinks, which were contributing significantly to binge drinking – especially (although not only) by young people. The initiative was an immediate success – one of principal manufacturers reduced the alcoholic content of his product from 23% to 13.9%. There has been a decline in the quantities of ‘light alcohol’ drinks released for sale of around 80 percent. Overall alcohol consumption has gone down by half a million litres since the excise was increased.
Enforcement
Give police much stronger tools for making alcohol suppliers comply with the law.
At the moment, if police have serious concerns about licence breaches at a venue, or even concerns about criminal behaviour, they have to wait until a licence comes up for review before they can make submissions.
Progressives want police to be able to request an immediate review of liquor licence conditions for licences premises where there are concerns about crime or breaches.
We support improving the ability of police to write infringement notices to managers and licencees for minor breaches of the sale of Liquor Act, such as serving under age drinkers.
Further reduce blood alcohol limits for drivers.
The current blood alcohol level of 80mg/100ml for adults was set in 1978. Research shows a lower level, of 50mg/100ml, would considerably reduce loss of life and injury. The lower level is in force in Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Peru,, the Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland and Venezuela.
Treatment
Increase services nationally for treatment and rehabilitation associated with alcohol abuse.
In particular, there needs to be more treatment for offenders with patterns of using alcohol and getting into trouble. Nine out of ten people in prison have alcohol and drug problems.
Detox centres.
Police cells are not the right place for drunks to detox. Progressives want a network of detox centres, where police and other social agencies could take people to help them recover safely.
Further measures.
In 2007 the Auditor-General reported on liquor licencing by territorial authorities. It found that working relationships between local authorities, police and public health services are generally close, but there needs to be more coordination. “Each approaches the liquor licensing function with different expectations and priorities, and has different resources available for this work,” the auditor reported.
Progressives believe a formal agreement should be negotiated between each local authority, police, and health services setting out roles and approaches, along with protocols for sharing information and resources.
CAYADS
Community Alcohol Youth and Drug Action programmes (Cayads) were introduced in the 1990s, when there were three. As associate minister of health, Jim Anderton won funding to increase the number to twenty-four. They’ve been a great success.
CAYADs are a significant resource in the communities in which they work. The impacts demonstrated by CAYAD improve cross-sectoral collaboration and focus community activities on structural and environmental change.
Reviews of the programme have found Cayads resulted in:
In 2008 the Progressive Party in government announced a new national co-ordination service to support capacity building and workforce development opportunities.
National co-ordination will also allow CAYADs to build momentum and further embed the range of strategies required to reduce drug related harm.
Support to all CAYAD sites for the implementation of the new CAYAD national service specification. This will ensure an effective and managed transition to achieve national programme consistency.
Returned to government, we will continue to support and strengthen the CAYAD programme.
Progressives believe New Zealand should have the strength to care about the social costs of drug use.
Research released this year shows that use of illicit drugs like cannabis and P had social costs to New Zealand in 2006 of $1,310 million.
We need to do more as a community to minimise harm.
Research carried out by BERL (and peer reviewed by experts from three universities) shows the social costs of illicit drug use amount to nearly one per cent of New Zealand’s GDP.
- Illicit drug production cost the country $519 million.
- Related crime cost us $414 million.
- Lost output due to illicit drug use cost $106 million.
- Another $53 million resulted from drug-attributable health care and road smashes.
- Over two fifths of social costs - 42 percent, or $551 million - is caused
- by illicit stimulants, such as P.
- The social costs of cannabis use were estimated at $444 million.
We all pay the social costs of harm caused by drug use in paying taxes for our hospitals and police and social agencies to pick up the pieces. The victims of crime pay the social costs. The families of users pay the social costs. And the users pay the cost too. In the case of cannabis they pay around $1,750 each, per year, in social costs.
Progressives won’t support any steps to make alcohol or illicit drugs more available.
After tobacco, the most drug that causes the most harm in New Zealand is alcohol – not because it is intrinsically the most harmful, but because it is the most widely available and the most widely used.
Therefore, our priority for action on drugs in the next three years is to reduce
the harm caused by alcohol.
EVIDENCE-BASED
Progressives support an evidence based approach to the harm caused by drugs.
Where the evidence shows a drug is harmful, we will support action to reduce
the harm.
For example, in 2002, we moved to classify GHB or fantasy. Its use has dropped from 0.8 per cent of the population aged 15 to 45 years to 0.3 per cent. The number of overdoses of GHB cases at Auckland Hospital dropped from 163 people in 2002 to 85 in 2004. Classification stopped a significant increase in use as it came into place shortly after a number of businesses started to really market GHB. It is likely that the casual users who were beginning to use it in 2001/02 are not now using as it is not easy to get hold of as it was prior to classification.
METHAMPHETAMINE
As chair of the government’s ministerial committee on drug policy, Jim Anderton:
- Reclassified methamphetamine as a Class A controlled drug, and police powers to search and seize without a warrant.
- Increased the maximum jail term for manufacturing or supplying methamphetamine increasing from 14 years to life imprisonment.
- Set the presumption of supply for methamphetamine at 5 grams.
- Provided Police and the Customs Service with enhanced powers to deal with methamphetamine and precursors.
- $55 million has been allocated to Police, Customs, Institute of Environmental
- Science and Research (ESR), and CAYADs to tackle P labs, imports of the
- drug’s components, and community measures.
We will continue to work with police to ensure they have sufficient powers to investigate and prosecute P distributors.
CANNABIS
We will not support legalisation of cannabis or any moves that will increase the availability of cannabis.
Cannabis is not as intrinsically damaging as other illicit drugs such as opioids or LSD, with a lower ‘social cost per kilogram’ and lower ‘social cost per user’. But the total social cost of cannabis use is very high because use of the drug is so widespread. The more widespread the use of cannabis gets, the higher that cost will be.
BZP
This year the Progressives in government made BZP, or party pills, a class C1 drug.
The decision to legislate against BZP-based party pills was taken after recommendations by the Experts Advisory Committee on Drugs to do so. This is the determination of expert toxicologists, doctors, and other specialists who recognised the drug poses a danger.
The classification puts BZP in the same category as other substances such as cannabis, and coca leaf. It means a person can be sentenced to up to eight years jail for importing, making or supplying BZP. Someone possessing BZP can be fined up to $500 or receive three months in prison.
The new law was implemented after a recommendation by the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs.
The change brings us into line with a number of other countries. BZP is prohibited in the United States, Australia, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, Greece and Malta. BZP is controlled under a specific law on goods dangerous to health in Sweden. In the Netherlands, and Spain, BZP is controlled under medicines legislation. In the UK the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) announced a clampdown on those selling piperazines, warning vendors that they could face prison sentences and an
unlimited fine.
NEW PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES
The classification of BZP and related substances is unlikely to remove the market for legal psychoactive substances in New Zealand.
It is likely that new products with an unknown chemical composition will turn
up.
Progressives support a change in the law to place the onus on of proof on the sponsor of a new substance where it is marketed as inducing a psychoactive response. Currently, when a new substance comes on the market, it can be sold and supplied without restriction until the government determines its safety profile and either lists it as a restricted substance or as a controlled drug.
We want to change the law so that a marketer would need to show a substance is safe before it could be legally sold in New Zealand.
ALCOHOL
Estimated harm: Between $1500 million and $2400 million each year.
In recent years New Zealand has made alcohol much more available. Predictably, the harm caused by alcohol has risen as well.
Lowering the drinking age, allowing more alcohol advertising, and promoting the sale of liquor in more places for longer hours have all contributed.
New Zealand has a cultural tolerance for very heavy drinking and alcohol abuse. A chorus sneers at anyone who points out New Zealand’s alcohol problem with terms like ‘fun police’ and ‘nanny state’.
But alcohol abuse is having direct social costs. The harm caused by alcohol extends far beyond the user.
Lowering the age at which alcohol can be lawfully purchased has led to more deaths and injuries among young New Zealanders.
In 1999, 500 people were killed on our roads. By 2007, total road deaths declined to 410. The number of road deaths among 15-29 year olds has not fallen as much. There were 162 people aged 15-29 killed in cars and vans in 2000. Last year there were 156. If the toll among 15-29 year olds had fallen by the same amount as the general population, there would have been twenty fewer deaths.
In the years prior to 1999 the number of dead drivers who had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit had been tracking down. Since 1999, when the purchase age was lowered, the number of dead drivers has not tracked down.
More young people are also being injured. In 2000 there were 4,079 15 to 29 year old car and van drivers involved in injury crashes. Last year, there were 6,538 - an increase of sixty percent.
The number of injury accidents among the general population has also increased, from 12,000 reported injuries in 1999, to 16,000 last year. That’s an increase of about 25 per cent - far smaller than the increase in deaths involving young New Zealanders. Over half the increase in injuries along the general population is explained by the increase in injuries among young people alone.
Alcohol is an enormous factor in crime.
- Between half and three quarters of all police work is associated in some way with alcohol.
- Up to 61 per cent of people the police deal with as offenders have been using alcohol prior to the offence.
- Two thirds of those using alcohol when they are arrested believe alcohol contributed to their offending.
Police are doing their bit. Increased police enforcement since 2003 has resulted in:
- A three-fold increase in the number of liquor ban offences since 2003, from 2347 then to 9012 in 2007.
- A 32% increase in drink driving offences – from, 25133 in 2003, to 32961 last year.
Stronger policing needs to be backed up by tough new measures, restricting availability, increasing enforcement and improving treatment.
Alcohol Availability
The research in New Zealand and around the world is clear: There is a direct link between the availability of alcohol and the level of harm caused by alcohol.
Progressive policy to reduce availability:
- Increase the minimum age for buying alcohol to twenty.
If we return Matt Robson to parliament, we will again force Parliament to vote on increasing the minimum legal purchasing age for alcohol.
- Help communities restrict the proliferation of liquor retailers.
The police reports should be more comprehensive than an assessment of whether there are objections to a particular licence. They would also make observations about the proliferation of outlets in a community, the hours at which alcohol is supplied and community concerns about alcohol-associated crime in the vicinity. For example, in areas where large numbers of dairies are selling alcohol at all hours, police would be able to submit against granting new licences in the area and to make recommendations about reducing the overall number of outlets.
- Reduce promotion.
- Tax alcohol entirely according to its alcohol content, rather than according to the type of beverage.
- Review pricing laws, with a focus on the growing practice of offering discounted alco-pops targeted at teenagers.
Increasing the price of alcohol reduces availability.
In 2003 the government took steps to increase the excise rate charged on alcoholic drinks in the range 14-23% by volume. The initiative was taken because manufacturers were taking advantage of the tax rate to produce and market a range of ‘light drinks, which were contributing significantly to binge drinking – especially (although not only) by young people. The initiative was an immediate success – one of principal manufacturers reduced the alcoholic content of his product from 23% to 13.9%. There has been a decline in the quantities of ‘light alcohol’ drinks released for sale of around 80 percent. Overall alcohol consumption has gone down by half a million litres since the excise was increased.
Enforcement
Give police much stronger tools for making alcohol suppliers comply with the law.
At the moment, if police have serious concerns about licence breaches at a venue, or even concerns about criminal behaviour, they have to wait until a licence comes up for review before they can make submissions.
Progressives want police to be able to request an immediate review of liquor licence conditions for licences premises where there are concerns about crime or breaches.
We support improving the ability of police to write infringement notices to managers and licencees for minor breaches of the sale of Liquor Act, such as serving under age drinkers.
Further reduce blood alcohol limits for drivers.
The current blood alcohol level of 80mg/100ml for adults was set in 1978. Research shows a lower level, of 50mg/100ml, would considerably reduce loss of life and injury. The lower level is in force in Australia, Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Peru,, the Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland and Venezuela.
Treatment
Increase services nationally for treatment and rehabilitation associated with alcohol abuse.
In particular, there needs to be more treatment for offenders with patterns of using alcohol and getting into trouble. Nine out of ten people in prison have alcohol and drug problems.
Detox centres.
Police cells are not the right place for drunks to detox. Progressives want a network of detox centres, where police and other social agencies could take people to help them recover safely.
Further measures.
In 2007 the Auditor-General reported on liquor licencing by territorial authorities. It found that working relationships between local authorities, police and public health services are generally close, but there needs to be more coordination. “Each approaches the liquor licensing function with different expectations and priorities, and has different resources available for this work,” the auditor reported.
Progressives believe a formal agreement should be negotiated between each local authority, police, and health services setting out roles and approaches, along with protocols for sharing information and resources.
CAYADS
Community Alcohol Youth and Drug Action programmes (Cayads) were introduced in the 1990s, when there were three. As associate minister of health, Jim Anderton won funding to increase the number to twenty-four. They’ve been a great success.
CAYADs are a significant resource in the communities in which they work. The impacts demonstrated by CAYAD improve cross-sectoral collaboration and focus community activities on structural and environmental change.
Reviews of the programme have found Cayads resulted in:
- Positive changes in young people’s attitudes and behaviour
- Changes in policies/practices of schools and clubs
- Decreases in drug-related school suspensions and youth crime
- Increased community capacity building
- Increased inter-sectoral collaboration, for example, employment
- Increased perception of harm from the use of the drugs
- Increased awareness of harm from experimentation and occasional use of amphetamines – and -
- Improved social cohesion
In 2008 the Progressive Party in government announced a new national co-ordination service to support capacity building and workforce development opportunities.
National co-ordination will also allow CAYADs to build momentum and further embed the range of strategies required to reduce drug related harm.
Support to all CAYAD sites for the implementation of the new CAYAD national service specification. This will ensure an effective and managed transition to achieve national programme consistency.
Returned to government, we will continue to support and strengthen the CAYAD programme.
A Strong, Caring Economy
Economic Policy
In these tense global economic conditions we need to protect the vulnerable and boost our development of a high-value, high-skill, job rich and creative economy connected to the world.
MMP parties move ideas up the policy agenda. Unlike most other policy areas, any party needs a majority on economic policy to govern. Therefore broad agreement between parties is essential.
We won’t work with parties that increase poverty, that sell publicly-owned strategic assets or that follow policies likely to increase unemployment or that are unsustainable.
Highlights of our economic policy
In government
In government the Progressive Party is proud to have played a role with our partner parties, including:
Building the strength to care
Progressives have five main priorities in economic policy:
Dealing with crisis
Global financial failures and bail-outs show global hands-off monetary policy has failed. There is a strong role for the public sector in bringing stability to the financial sector.
Imbalances and near catastrophe resulted from a sequence of related mistakes: Governments that took a hands off approach to market imbalances, deregulation that helped to spark unsustainable booms, poor finance sector supervision, and in some cases breathtaking greed.
New Zealand enters the difficult global conditions in comparatively strong shape. Government finances are much stronger than most countries. New Zealand carries no net government debt at all. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world, even after high world fuel prices and the natural economic cycle pushed us into recession earlier in the year. We have built our own pool of savings, through the Superannuation Fund, and through Kiwisaver. And we are fortunate to now have our own own bank.
When New Zealand last went through an international financial crisis combined with a drought – ten years ago – the then National government responded by cutting benefits and superannuation and selling Contact Energy. All that did was deepen the recession.
New Zealand’s economy is, more than any other developed country, based on our primary sector, and especially on producing and selling food. Our primary products make up two thirds of our exports.
Demand for these exports is likely to remain robust through any downturn and, with our dollar falling to more competitive levels, the outlook is excellent for our primary producers.
But the dominance of our primary sector has important implications for the future performance of our economy:
We have addressed these concerns with the Fast Forward innovation fund. The current crisis makes the Fast Forward fund even more vital to New Zealand’s future.
Progressives strongly support developing the economy to produce more innovation and higher productivity in New Zealand. In particular, we strongly support New Zealand Fast Forward, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise and R&D tax credits.
Progressives believe further measures to get through the financial crisis should include:
Protecting the vulnerable
The government should work with banks to help households with mortgages stay in their homes. We support investigating a scheme to help homeowners pay some costs of putting mortgage repayments on hold when main breadwinners lose their jobs.
Remove stand down periods for eligibility to assistance benefits.
A jobs priority package. Investment in retraining for workers made redundant.
A one-off cash grant to beneficiaries and superannuitants to increase purchasing power.
Immediately suspend provisional tax payments for small businesses.
Stimulate the economy
Progressives support a retail and wholesale guarantee for banks to ensure our capital markets continue to operate strongly.
Progressives would create an infrastructure development bank to increase infrastructure investment (see separate policy section.)
A one-off cash grant to beneficiaries and superannuitants will increase purchasing power, benefitting New Zealand retail businesses.
Transform the industrial base of our economy.
Retain initiatives championed by Progressive MP Jim Anderton:
Fast Forward, the two billion dollar investment in innovation and science to work in partnership with the private sector and achieve a step-change in New Zealand’s innovation and productivity. (See more below.)
Ministry of Economic Development and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, to work in partnership with business. They helping growing exporters to increase their international connections. They can improve the capability of businesses and they can help to remove the barriers to growth.
Retain R&D tax credits (National’s proposal to remove R&D credits means the largest ever increase in corporate tax. We oppose that policy.)
Fast Forward
Fast Forward is the largest ever boost to research, development, and innovation funding in New Zealand’s history and will help transform New Zealand’s primary industries to meet future challenges.
The government’s upfront investment of $700 million will grow to around $1 billion as it earns interest over the next ten to fifteen years. In addition, industries have committed to match the government’s commitment, resulting in an expected total fund of around $2 billion over the next ten to fifteen years.
We need to lift our levels of innovation on the farm, in the factory, and in the laboratory to keep ahead of the rest of the world and ensure that our pastoral and food industries are part of the new economy for New Zealand in future.
Fast Forward will help transform our economy into a smart, innovative, and high value supplier of goods and services which global markets demand.
The $700 million fund is currently in its own bank account. It will be looked after by a three-person board of managers –the same way as the superannuation fund is. It is earning interest, and that interest is going back into the fund to be spent on research. In the end, the Government's contribution will end up worth about $1 billion.
Six important industry groups have signed up to participate in Fast Forward-funded research: Dairy NZ, Fonterra, Meat and Wool NZ, Meat Industry Association, PGG Wrightsons, and Zespri. Aquaculture NZ and the Foundation for Arable Research also made public commitments to contribute.
Monetary Policy
New Zealand has escaped the worst of the financial crisis in the global economy to date, but if we don’t take more control of our financial system there is no guarantee we will escape similar outcomes in the future.
The US crisis was caused by a housing bubble, which was in turn generated by a deregulated financial system and monetary policy that encouraged overseas borrowing. It’s better to take control of the financial system before a crisis than to spend hard-won public funds bailing people out after it.
The Reserve Bank Act needs to be changed so that we never end up needing the New Zealand equivalent of a giant bailout for the banking sector. In the US, banks were able to keep lending well beyond prudent levels for the economy, and new financial instruments allowed debt to be repackaged so that risk was wrongly priced. Likewise in New Zealand, the Reserve Bank only controls the price of lending. There are no reserve ratios that control the level of bank liquidity. When a debt bubble takes off, all our Reserve Bank can do is put up interest rates. But that attracts more overseas lending, which therefore continues to fuel the bubble – as happened in our housing market here for several years. It also overvalues our dollar and increases the deficit in our account with the world because it gets harder to export and easier to import.
New Zealand also had a problem with mispriced risk and an uncontrolled financial system. The failure of many of our finance companies shows that interest rates in the New Zealand economy were not well-matched to the odds that investors could lose their money. When anyone could start a finance company, the savings of many small investors were too easily destroyed. Even responsible finance companies were affected.
Changes Progressives would make to monetary policy:
Widen the criteria to which monetary policy is subject.
Monetary policy would not only control the price of borrowing money, but would also have regard to the balance of payments, the rate of foreign exchange, the stability of the housing market and employment.
Strengthen Reserve Bank controls on the financial system.
Ensure that the financial system runs a properly diversified loans portfolio and has systems in place to ensure large risks are spread. Ensure the financial system has sufficient equity capital available in relation to the level of risk undertaken.
Off-balance sheet transactions should be explicit in financial accounts.
Transactions such as the sale of derivatives that have allowed risk to be repackaged and resold have hidden the systems’ exposure to potential default. It is in the nature of contingent risks that they can’t be defined precisely, but they should be disclosed so that the financial system can adequately measure the soundness of the risk and adequacy of capital provisions.
Tax
Progressives were the first party to call for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Due to fiscal conditions at the moment we would keep it at the present rate. But, because business tax is effectively a withholding tax, over time we support reducing it to the level of withholding taxes paid by international corporates invested here – and possibly further.
Infrastructure spending stimulates the economy when it would otherwise be starved of capital.
An economic vicious circle works like this: Large numbers of potential home buyers, worried that they might lose their jobs and that house prices are falling, decide not to buy a new house. As a result of falling demand, house prices fall more steeply. Less building activity results in less money in circulation and people lose their jobs. The resulting slow down confirms the fears of those potential house buyers, and so even more people continue to hold off from buying. Meanwhile, investors such as retired people who had some savings put away in finance companies have watched more than two dozen finance companies fail. As one after another tipped over, they withdrew their cash and others kept their money out, making the squeeze on those companies worse still. As a result, the investment those companies provided in new property developments and other projects has disappeared. There is less capital available for investment, holding back the pace of our economy.
The Great Depression was caused by a cycle similar to this. Policy-makers at the time decided to wait for the market to respond. It didn’t, until Keynesian policy-makers proposed using government capital to kick start investment and activity.
Today, the government needs to increase investment in infrastructure like housing, rail, roads, power stations, water projects and broadband to stimulate the economy quickly.
The next issue for policy-makers is how to make those investments.
Progressives propose that new infrastructure investment over ‘business as usual’ should be made through a New Zealand Infrastructure Development Bank.
The bank would be capitalised with Crown debt, just as any infrastructure project is currently funded.
The bank would then transparently select infrastructure projects that fit general criteria (see below).
The bank would issue bonds up to an agreed limit. A bond is an interest-bearing investment that is backed by an underlying asset. So Mum and Dad investors would be able to buy infrastructure development bonds associated with particular projects. It would even be possible to make the bonds tradeable on the NZX.
So, for example, the bank might approve an investment in a new toll road. The project would be funded partly out of capital from Crown debt, and partly by issuing bonds to New Zealand investors at a set interest rate. The business case for the road would make plain how the road would repay the investment and interest.
At other times we might have said projects like these can be funded on their own merits if they are truly bankable. But the problem is that, in today’s environment, the economy is capital starved.
The whole point of bringing forward infrastructure investment is to get capital moving through the economy again as quickly as possible.
Providing some stability for investors will help retain confidence to keep investing.
Governance
The bank would be run by an independent board. This would ensure infrastructure investments were made on a sound economic basis, and it would maximise transparency and accountability for investment.
For example, when the government decides to invest in, say, a railway line - it is making a choice about the opportunity cost of not making that investment in a housing project. A bank, run by an independent board would make the opportunity cost clearer.
Only a certain, specified quantity of capital would be available, just as it is to government; but the sum at stake would be clearer. Economists would debate how much to invest. The Reserve Bank would take a close interest in the level of stimulation.
A board arrangement would ensure that investment was made on transparent grounds, not on the most politically convenient grounds. For example, when the government began its development investment projects in the early eighties (known as Think Big), observers noted a coincidental overlap between the location of new projects and the location of marginal seats. (It was nicknamed the ‘marginal seat retention drilling programme’.)
A board is also accountable for decisions. If it backs a project, and the project fails, the board will be to blame.
The bank should be set up as a Crown entity, with ministerial responsibility to the minister of finance and the minister of economic development. It should have policy support from the Ministry of Economic Development.
So where does the money come from?
Crown debt; plus
What would it invest in?
The government would set investment criteria when it set up the bank. Investments would be made in the highest priority projects reaching the criteria.
The government would also require that, at first, preference was given to projects that are quick to get underway. As projects are completed and funding comes back, new projects could be commenced - a new electricity generator takes time to plan and get resource consents.
Priority criteria would include:
An economic return also unlocks future capital - as the money is repaid, it can be used again for a new development.
Some government investment in infrastructure, like new school buildings, cannot generate an economic return. The case for building more schools stands on issues like the quality of schooling we want our kids to have, expert advice about population projections and more. These investments would continue to be made, as they are now, by the government on its own balance sheet. They would not be Investment Development Bank projects.
So why not just get on with these new projects anyway?
Some will be started almost immediately, whether there is a bank or not.
It doesn’t take long to set up an infrastructure development bank. But without the bank, the government will have a much harder job of attracting private capital to buy bonds. One priority for policy should be to get Mum and Dad investment moving again as quickly as possible.
Second, a bank provides better transparency into development, so that trade-offs and the quantum of capital being used to stimulate the economy is more easily judged and debated.
And third, a bank provides a revolving pool of capital, avoiding the potential for a stop-start, boom-and-bust response to recession.
Ownership - Who would own the projects funded?
It would depend on the project.
When the bank lends money to you to buy a house - it doesn’t take ownership.
The Infrastructure Development Bank might partner with local authorities and building companies to develop low income housing projects. Ownership would go to the ultimate buyer.
The bank might partner with a water company to build a new storage facility. The ownership might go to a local authority.
How much?
The question of how much to invest through an infrastructure development bank is not really a question about the bank - it’s a question about how much stimulus the government should apply to the New Zealand economy.
To make any difference it would need to start off with seeding capital in the billions. This would be raised by increasing Crown debt. But the Crown would no longer be increasing debt to pay for infrastructure projects and so the net position is the same.
More quality investment is likely to be made through a bank because standards of transparency and accountability are higher. Therefore, the net impetus through the bank is higher.
In addition, the bank’s involvement will help to attract private capital which, in the current environment is highly unlikely to be attractive to long term development financing in sufficient quantities.
In these tense global economic conditions we need to protect the vulnerable and boost our development of a high-value, high-skill, job rich and creative economy connected to the world.
MMP parties move ideas up the policy agenda. Unlike most other policy areas, any party needs a majority on economic policy to govern. Therefore broad agreement between parties is essential.
We won’t work with parties that increase poverty, that sell publicly-owned strategic assets or that follow policies likely to increase unemployment or that are unsustainable.
Highlights of our economic policy
- We will promote policies that protect the vulnerable.
- We will promote policies that transform the industrial base of our economy to be higher skilled, more sustainable, and better connected internationally.
- We propose an infrastructure development bank to make investment in infrastructure more transparent and accountable, and allow private capital to be brought in without having to privatise public projects.
- We want monetary policy that better promotes growth and the competitiveness of our tradable sector.
- We want a fair tax system.
- We will work for fiscal policy that ensures all New Zealanders have access to essential social services, and makes provision for our future needs.
In government
In government the Progressive Party is proud to have played a role with our partner parties, including:
- Creating 380,000 new jobs.
- Launching Fast Forward, the largest ever investment in New Zealand science, research and innovation. Fast Forward works with the private sector to invest two billion dollars to achieve a step change in the performance of our highest-potential industries - the food and pastoral sectors.
- We set up NZ Trade & Enterprise and the Ministry of Economic Development to work in partnership with industry, broaden our international connections and strengthen regions.
- We set up a people’s bank for New Zealand - Kiwibank. It’s been a huge success; 650,000 customers, and a robust institution of our own in a difficult global climate.
- Bought back strategic assets like Air New Zealand and KiwiRail.
- Starting the largest ever investment in infrastructure, including the largest investments in road and rail in our history, and the largest hospital building programme.
- Reduced company tax from 33% to 30% (as we advocated at the last election.)
- Created research and development tax credits to speed up innovation.
- Rural broadband.
- KiwiSaver and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to provide for retirement needs in future.
- Working For Families, which helped to lift more children out of poverty than at any time since the Great Depression.
- In government we have reduced Crown debt, delivered record low unemployment and better funded essential social services.
Building the strength to care
Progressives have five main priorities in economic policy:
- Protecting the vulnerable. Ensure purchasing power of those on low and fixed incomes is maintained. Choose infrastructure projects such as housing to stimulate the economy out of recession.
- Accelerating investment in infrastructure to ease the economy through the global financial conditions with the creation of an infrastructure development bank.
- Strengthening investment in economic development and innovation, especially in the primary sector, to ensure we are among the leading economies to recover.
- Retain ownership of publicly-owned assets. We won’t let them sell Kiwibank.
- Widen goals of Reserve Bank Act to include growth and employment.
Dealing with crisis
Global financial failures and bail-outs show global hands-off monetary policy has failed. There is a strong role for the public sector in bringing stability to the financial sector.
Imbalances and near catastrophe resulted from a sequence of related mistakes: Governments that took a hands off approach to market imbalances, deregulation that helped to spark unsustainable booms, poor finance sector supervision, and in some cases breathtaking greed.
New Zealand enters the difficult global conditions in comparatively strong shape. Government finances are much stronger than most countries. New Zealand carries no net government debt at all. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world, even after high world fuel prices and the natural economic cycle pushed us into recession earlier in the year. We have built our own pool of savings, through the Superannuation Fund, and through Kiwisaver. And we are fortunate to now have our own own bank.
When New Zealand last went through an international financial crisis combined with a drought – ten years ago – the then National government responded by cutting benefits and superannuation and selling Contact Energy. All that did was deepen the recession.
New Zealand’s economy is, more than any other developed country, based on our primary sector, and especially on producing and selling food. Our primary products make up two thirds of our exports.
Demand for these exports is likely to remain robust through any downturn and, with our dollar falling to more competitive levels, the outlook is excellent for our primary producers.
But the dominance of our primary sector has important implications for the future performance of our economy:
- Any step change in economic performance in the forseeable future will most likely come from the primary sector.
- We need to position our food exports as high value and sustainable.
- We need to transform the industrial base of our economy to build strong and innovative new industries capable of complementing the high value returns from knowledge, skill and creativity that the primary sector already generates.
We have addressed these concerns with the Fast Forward innovation fund. The current crisis makes the Fast Forward fund even more vital to New Zealand’s future.
Progressives strongly support developing the economy to produce more innovation and higher productivity in New Zealand. In particular, we strongly support New Zealand Fast Forward, New Zealand Trade & Enterprise and R&D tax credits.
Progressives believe further measures to get through the financial crisis should include:
- Protect the most vulnerable from bearing the highest cost of economic pressure.
- Invest in infrastructure through an infrastructure bank.
- Ensure monetary policy remains in the control of New Zealand, and amend the Reserve Bank Act to give employment and growth as much emphasis as price stability.
- Keep strategic publicly-owned assets in New Zealand ownership. Kiwibank, Kiwirail and Air New Zealand, the energy SOEs and others help us keep control of our financial destiny.
- Keep a fiscal policy strategy that promotes expansion of the economy until the risk of recession is removed.
- Use our international advocacy to promote more accountability and better performance in international institutions, so that organisations like the IMF are better equipped to coordinate international responses to crisis.
Protecting the vulnerable
The government should work with banks to help households with mortgages stay in their homes. We support investigating a scheme to help homeowners pay some costs of putting mortgage repayments on hold when main breadwinners lose their jobs.
Remove stand down periods for eligibility to assistance benefits.
A jobs priority package. Investment in retraining for workers made redundant.
A one-off cash grant to beneficiaries and superannuitants to increase purchasing power.
Immediately suspend provisional tax payments for small businesses.
Stimulate the economy
Progressives support a retail and wholesale guarantee for banks to ensure our capital markets continue to operate strongly.
Progressives would create an infrastructure development bank to increase infrastructure investment (see separate policy section.)
A one-off cash grant to beneficiaries and superannuitants will increase purchasing power, benefitting New Zealand retail businesses.
Transform the industrial base of our economy.
Retain initiatives championed by Progressive MP Jim Anderton:
Fast Forward, the two billion dollar investment in innovation and science to work in partnership with the private sector and achieve a step-change in New Zealand’s innovation and productivity. (See more below.)
Ministry of Economic Development and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, to work in partnership with business. They helping growing exporters to increase their international connections. They can improve the capability of businesses and they can help to remove the barriers to growth.
Retain R&D tax credits (National’s proposal to remove R&D credits means the largest ever increase in corporate tax. We oppose that policy.)
Fast Forward
Fast Forward is the largest ever boost to research, development, and innovation funding in New Zealand’s history and will help transform New Zealand’s primary industries to meet future challenges.
The government’s upfront investment of $700 million will grow to around $1 billion as it earns interest over the next ten to fifteen years. In addition, industries have committed to match the government’s commitment, resulting in an expected total fund of around $2 billion over the next ten to fifteen years.
We need to lift our levels of innovation on the farm, in the factory, and in the laboratory to keep ahead of the rest of the world and ensure that our pastoral and food industries are part of the new economy for New Zealand in future.
Fast Forward will help transform our economy into a smart, innovative, and high value supplier of goods and services which global markets demand.
The $700 million fund is currently in its own bank account. It will be looked after by a three-person board of managers –the same way as the superannuation fund is. It is earning interest, and that interest is going back into the fund to be spent on research. In the end, the Government's contribution will end up worth about $1 billion.
Six important industry groups have signed up to participate in Fast Forward-funded research: Dairy NZ, Fonterra, Meat and Wool NZ, Meat Industry Association, PGG Wrightsons, and Zespri. Aquaculture NZ and the Foundation for Arable Research also made public commitments to contribute.
Monetary Policy
New Zealand has escaped the worst of the financial crisis in the global economy to date, but if we don’t take more control of our financial system there is no guarantee we will escape similar outcomes in the future.
The US crisis was caused by a housing bubble, which was in turn generated by a deregulated financial system and monetary policy that encouraged overseas borrowing. It’s better to take control of the financial system before a crisis than to spend hard-won public funds bailing people out after it.
The Reserve Bank Act needs to be changed so that we never end up needing the New Zealand equivalent of a giant bailout for the banking sector. In the US, banks were able to keep lending well beyond prudent levels for the economy, and new financial instruments allowed debt to be repackaged so that risk was wrongly priced. Likewise in New Zealand, the Reserve Bank only controls the price of lending. There are no reserve ratios that control the level of bank liquidity. When a debt bubble takes off, all our Reserve Bank can do is put up interest rates. But that attracts more overseas lending, which therefore continues to fuel the bubble – as happened in our housing market here for several years. It also overvalues our dollar and increases the deficit in our account with the world because it gets harder to export and easier to import.
New Zealand also had a problem with mispriced risk and an uncontrolled financial system. The failure of many of our finance companies shows that interest rates in the New Zealand economy were not well-matched to the odds that investors could lose their money. When anyone could start a finance company, the savings of many small investors were too easily destroyed. Even responsible finance companies were affected.
Changes Progressives would make to monetary policy:
Widen the criteria to which monetary policy is subject.
Monetary policy would not only control the price of borrowing money, but would also have regard to the balance of payments, the rate of foreign exchange, the stability of the housing market and employment.
Strengthen Reserve Bank controls on the financial system.
Ensure that the financial system runs a properly diversified loans portfolio and has systems in place to ensure large risks are spread. Ensure the financial system has sufficient equity capital available in relation to the level of risk undertaken.
Off-balance sheet transactions should be explicit in financial accounts.
Transactions such as the sale of derivatives that have allowed risk to be repackaged and resold have hidden the systems’ exposure to potential default. It is in the nature of contingent risks that they can’t be defined precisely, but they should be disclosed so that the financial system can adequately measure the soundness of the risk and adequacy of capital provisions.
Tax
- Support a progressive income tax scale.
- Retain R&D tax credits.
Progressives were the first party to call for a reduction in the corporate tax rate. Due to fiscal conditions at the moment we would keep it at the present rate. But, because business tax is effectively a withholding tax, over time we support reducing it to the level of withholding taxes paid by international corporates invested here – and possibly further.
- Provisional tax is simply an expensive and unnecessary compliance cost and we would remove it.
- Publicly-owned assets
- Increasing infrastructure investment
Infrastructure spending stimulates the economy when it would otherwise be starved of capital.
An economic vicious circle works like this: Large numbers of potential home buyers, worried that they might lose their jobs and that house prices are falling, decide not to buy a new house. As a result of falling demand, house prices fall more steeply. Less building activity results in less money in circulation and people lose their jobs. The resulting slow down confirms the fears of those potential house buyers, and so even more people continue to hold off from buying. Meanwhile, investors such as retired people who had some savings put away in finance companies have watched more than two dozen finance companies fail. As one after another tipped over, they withdrew their cash and others kept their money out, making the squeeze on those companies worse still. As a result, the investment those companies provided in new property developments and other projects has disappeared. There is less capital available for investment, holding back the pace of our economy.
The Great Depression was caused by a cycle similar to this. Policy-makers at the time decided to wait for the market to respond. It didn’t, until Keynesian policy-makers proposed using government capital to kick start investment and activity.
Today, the government needs to increase investment in infrastructure like housing, rail, roads, power stations, water projects and broadband to stimulate the economy quickly.
The next issue for policy-makers is how to make those investments.
Progressives propose that new infrastructure investment over ‘business as usual’ should be made through a New Zealand Infrastructure Development Bank.
The bank would be capitalised with Crown debt, just as any infrastructure project is currently funded.
The bank would then transparently select infrastructure projects that fit general criteria (see below).
The bank would issue bonds up to an agreed limit. A bond is an interest-bearing investment that is backed by an underlying asset. So Mum and Dad investors would be able to buy infrastructure development bonds associated with particular projects. It would even be possible to make the bonds tradeable on the NZX.
So, for example, the bank might approve an investment in a new toll road. The project would be funded partly out of capital from Crown debt, and partly by issuing bonds to New Zealand investors at a set interest rate. The business case for the road would make plain how the road would repay the investment and interest.
At other times we might have said projects like these can be funded on their own merits if they are truly bankable. But the problem is that, in today’s environment, the economy is capital starved.
The whole point of bringing forward infrastructure investment is to get capital moving through the economy again as quickly as possible.
Providing some stability for investors will help retain confidence to keep investing.
Governance
The bank would be run by an independent board. This would ensure infrastructure investments were made on a sound economic basis, and it would maximise transparency and accountability for investment.
For example, when the government decides to invest in, say, a railway line - it is making a choice about the opportunity cost of not making that investment in a housing project. A bank, run by an independent board would make the opportunity cost clearer.
Only a certain, specified quantity of capital would be available, just as it is to government; but the sum at stake would be clearer. Economists would debate how much to invest. The Reserve Bank would take a close interest in the level of stimulation.
A board arrangement would ensure that investment was made on transparent grounds, not on the most politically convenient grounds. For example, when the government began its development investment projects in the early eighties (known as Think Big), observers noted a coincidental overlap between the location of new projects and the location of marginal seats. (It was nicknamed the ‘marginal seat retention drilling programme’.)
A board is also accountable for decisions. If it backs a project, and the project fails, the board will be to blame.
The bank should be set up as a Crown entity, with ministerial responsibility to the minister of finance and the minister of economic development. It should have policy support from the Ministry of Economic Development.
So where does the money come from?
Crown debt; plus
- The issue of infrastructure bonds, project by project - and possibly longer term generic infrastructure bonds; plus
- Possible contributions to capital, project by project, by other interested parties. The bank might fund capital investment in some local authority or even private projects that have national benefit and would not otherwise get off the ground in current conditions.
What would it invest in?
The government would set investment criteria when it set up the bank. Investments would be made in the highest priority projects reaching the criteria.
The government would also require that, at first, preference was given to projects that are quick to get underway. As projects are completed and funding comes back, new projects could be commenced - a new electricity generator takes time to plan and get resource consents.
Priority criteria would include:
- Economic return
An economic return also unlocks future capital - as the money is repaid, it can be used again for a new development.
Some government investment in infrastructure, like new school buildings, cannot generate an economic return. The case for building more schools stands on issues like the quality of schooling we want our kids to have, expert advice about population projections and more. These investments would continue to be made, as they are now, by the government on its own balance sheet. They would not be Investment Development Bank projects.
- Contribution to New Zealand’s development
- Other criteria
So why not just get on with these new projects anyway?
Some will be started almost immediately, whether there is a bank or not.
It doesn’t take long to set up an infrastructure development bank. But without the bank, the government will have a much harder job of attracting private capital to buy bonds. One priority for policy should be to get Mum and Dad investment moving again as quickly as possible.
Second, a bank provides better transparency into development, so that trade-offs and the quantum of capital being used to stimulate the economy is more easily judged and debated.
And third, a bank provides a revolving pool of capital, avoiding the potential for a stop-start, boom-and-bust response to recession.
Ownership - Who would own the projects funded?
It would depend on the project.
When the bank lends money to you to buy a house - it doesn’t take ownership.
The Infrastructure Development Bank might partner with local authorities and building companies to develop low income housing projects. Ownership would go to the ultimate buyer.
The bank might partner with a water company to build a new storage facility. The ownership might go to a local authority.
How much?
The question of how much to invest through an infrastructure development bank is not really a question about the bank - it’s a question about how much stimulus the government should apply to the New Zealand economy.
To make any difference it would need to start off with seeding capital in the billions. This would be raised by increasing Crown debt. But the Crown would no longer be increasing debt to pay for infrastructure projects and so the net position is the same.
More quality investment is likely to be made through a bank because standards of transparency and accountability are higher. Therefore, the net impetus through the bank is higher.
In addition, the bank’s involvement will help to attract private capital which, in the current environment is highly unlikely to be attractive to long term development financing in sufficient quantities.
Crime
Early Intervention Works Best, Costs Less
Top Priorities
MMP parties make a difference by moving policies up the policy agenda. Our top priorities in law and order are:
In government
Progressives worked to have the minimum age for buying alcohol put back up to twenty.
Progressive leader Jim Anderton significantly increased resources for Police and Customs to enforce drug laws, increased penalties for those crimes and boosted community programmes to get at root causes.
We supported:
Early intervention works best, costs less.
While holding the Corrections portfolio, Matt Robson released the About Time report about reducing re-offending and turning people away from a life of crime.
We started looking at Early Intervention because New Zealand has the second highest rate of imprisonment in the world.
Experience has shown that changing the rate of imprisonment doesn't affect the crime rate. For example, Finland cut the number of crimes punishable by imprisonment. The prison population fell. The crime rate didn't change. Some states of the US went the other way and put offenders away for much longer terms. The prison population began growing enormously. The crime rate didn't change.
The point is that the likelihood of going to prison doesn't seem to affect whether or not offenders go out and commit crimes. So if we want to reduce crime, then there must be something else we can do to keep the public safe.
Young people who are at risk of becoming serious adult offenders are recognisable with increasing certainty as newborns, as school entrants, as young offenders and as early adult offenders.
Each of the main risk factors increases the probability of anti-social behaviour by four to ten times. The key risk factors are where the mother is:
So the first step is to reduce the number of highest risk births. We can do that by working with young women who fit the profile and who are in the social welfare and justice systems.
They need sexual health services - teaching them about contraception and avoiding exploitation. Teaching young women about the advantages of delaying child bearing until they are settled, mature and suitable support is available. The cost for each intervention is as little as about $500. The benefit to cost ratio has been assessed as fifty to one.
We need to back that up with more support for high-risk new mothers.
Family Start programmes are a good example of the sort of assistance that can be provided. Each intervention costs about $3000. The benefit to cost ratio is assessed at twenty-five to one.
And then we can move to children as they enter school.
Teachers have long been able to identify many of the school entrants that they believe will end up as adult offenders. For example an intervention for a five year old who is aggressive and defiant is estimated to cost about $5000-$10,000 per case with a success rate of 70%. The same behaviour at the age of 25 years costs $30-40,000 and has a success rate of only 20%.
Earliest possible intervention works best and costs less.
Children who are at risk of progressing to serious adult offending get easier to identify between the ages of ten and fifteen.
That is when they begin their offending career. The single most powerful indicator of a trajectory to serious adult offending is early repeat offending as a child.
The obvious risk factors include failure at school, substance abuse, deviant friends and a family that has problems - poor supervision, criminal parents and child abuse.
The remedies that work are fairly simple:
Working with these kids to prevent them moving on to serious adult offending would mean intervention with about two thousand kids a year, at a cost of about $7-15,000 each.
If one in four of them moves on to a lifetime of offending without the intervention, and one in three interventions actually work, then the benefit-cost ratio is about 36-1.
We want to increase use of Day Reporting Centres.
They give the kids job skills and life skills; and help to place them in jobs;
More than half of the teenagers who enter the adult justice system are re-convicted within one year of ending their sentence. About 80 or 90% are re-convicted within five years.
Dangerous teenage offenders who commit violent and sexual offences would still go to prison. For the others an offence will still result in the appropriate penalty.
Attendance at Day Reporting Centres would be compulsory five days a week for six months, and might be accompanied by night curfews and electronic monitoring. The units cost about $10-20,000 per offender to run, with a benefit to cost return of 37-1.
Corrections Department research indicates the measures in this package could eventually reduce imprisonable offending by around 17% a year.
The earlier you intervene, the more effective the result, but the harder it is to work out where the intervention is needed. The preventive measures we support are not quick fixes, but they are effective. They will take enormous co-ordination across a number of government agencies - Corrections, health, CYFS, education and others.
Top Priorities
MMP parties make a difference by moving policies up the policy agenda. Our top priorities in law and order are:
- Heavy investment in early intervention to reduce re-offending and turn young people away from a life of crime. (See details below).
- Preventing easier access to, and promotion of, alcohol and drugs.
In government
Progressives worked to have the minimum age for buying alcohol put back up to twenty.
Progressive leader Jim Anderton significantly increased resources for Police and Customs to enforce drug laws, increased penalties for those crimes and boosted community programmes to get at root causes.
We supported:
- Significant increases in funding for law and order, including for victim support.
- Considerable increases in police numbers.
- Tightened rules on fine defaulters, expanded restorative justice, and tightened parole conditions.
- Tougher sentences and minimum sentences for a range of crimes, particularly crimes involving violence.
- New courts and police stations, and two new prisons.
- Steps to discourage tagging and boy racers.
Early intervention works best, costs less.
While holding the Corrections portfolio, Matt Robson released the About Time report about reducing re-offending and turning people away from a life of crime.
We started looking at Early Intervention because New Zealand has the second highest rate of imprisonment in the world.
Experience has shown that changing the rate of imprisonment doesn't affect the crime rate. For example, Finland cut the number of crimes punishable by imprisonment. The prison population fell. The crime rate didn't change. Some states of the US went the other way and put offenders away for much longer terms. The prison population began growing enormously. The crime rate didn't change.
The point is that the likelihood of going to prison doesn't seem to affect whether or not offenders go out and commit crimes. So if we want to reduce crime, then there must be something else we can do to keep the public safe.
Young people who are at risk of becoming serious adult offenders are recognisable with increasing certainty as newborns, as school entrants, as young offenders and as early adult offenders.
Each of the main risk factors increases the probability of anti-social behaviour by four to ten times. The key risk factors are where the mother is:
- Young;
- Has little education;
- Is from a disadvantaged family where she received little care or attention;
- Is substance dependent;
- Is socially isolated; and
- Has a number of male partners.
So the first step is to reduce the number of highest risk births. We can do that by working with young women who fit the profile and who are in the social welfare and justice systems.
They need sexual health services - teaching them about contraception and avoiding exploitation. Teaching young women about the advantages of delaying child bearing until they are settled, mature and suitable support is available. The cost for each intervention is as little as about $500. The benefit to cost ratio has been assessed as fifty to one.
We need to back that up with more support for high-risk new mothers.
Family Start programmes are a good example of the sort of assistance that can be provided. Each intervention costs about $3000. The benefit to cost ratio is assessed at twenty-five to one.
And then we can move to children as they enter school.
Teachers have long been able to identify many of the school entrants that they believe will end up as adult offenders. For example an intervention for a five year old who is aggressive and defiant is estimated to cost about $5000-$10,000 per case with a success rate of 70%. The same behaviour at the age of 25 years costs $30-40,000 and has a success rate of only 20%.
Earliest possible intervention works best and costs less.
Children who are at risk of progressing to serious adult offending get easier to identify between the ages of ten and fifteen.
That is when they begin their offending career. The single most powerful indicator of a trajectory to serious adult offending is early repeat offending as a child.
The obvious risk factors include failure at school, substance abuse, deviant friends and a family that has problems - poor supervision, criminal parents and child abuse.
The remedies that work are fairly simple:
- Re-entry to school, with some incentive for doing well;
- Better parenting
- A complete ban on alcohol and drug use
- New social activities and friends.
Working with these kids to prevent them moving on to serious adult offending would mean intervention with about two thousand kids a year, at a cost of about $7-15,000 each.
If one in four of them moves on to a lifetime of offending without the intervention, and one in three interventions actually work, then the benefit-cost ratio is about 36-1.
We want to increase use of Day Reporting Centres.
They give the kids job skills and life skills; and help to place them in jobs;
More than half of the teenagers who enter the adult justice system are re-convicted within one year of ending their sentence. About 80 or 90% are re-convicted within five years.
Dangerous teenage offenders who commit violent and sexual offences would still go to prison. For the others an offence will still result in the appropriate penalty.
Attendance at Day Reporting Centres would be compulsory five days a week for six months, and might be accompanied by night curfews and electronic monitoring. The units cost about $10-20,000 per offender to run, with a benefit to cost return of 37-1.
Corrections Department research indicates the measures in this package could eventually reduce imprisonable offending by around 17% a year.
The earlier you intervene, the more effective the result, but the harder it is to work out where the intervention is needed. The preventive measures we support are not quick fixes, but they are effective. They will take enormous co-ordination across a number of government agencies - Corrections, health, CYFS, education and others.
ACC
ACC
Progressives support a comprehensive accident compensation scheme administered by a single provider.
It is fairer and more effective in providing care and rehabilitation. It cares for New Zealanders better than the alternatives. And it strengthens New Zealand in several ways.
A no fault scheme is highly desirable to working people.
We are in a competitive global market for skills and talent. The quality of our employment conditions is a substantial contributor in helping New Zealand attract and retain a skilled workforce.A comprehensive ACC scheme, offering better, more reliable coverage for people who are injured offers a better incentive to working people to come to and to stay in New Zealand.
The other way the comprehensive single provider scheme strengthens New Zealand is that the evidence shows it is easily the most efficient scheme for our most important industries. Our primary industries are the backbone of our economy. They comprise two thirds of our mechandise goods exports.
A report from the previous National-Liberal Government comparing accident compensation in Australia and New Zealand in 2004 shows levies in Australia’s competitive market were twice as expensive as those in New Zealand for the primary sector.
A competitive scheme could result in a levy hike of as much as 250 per cent for rural people.
Our ACC administration cost is about a third of Australian schemes.
In Victoria – where two companies competed so seriously they ran each other out of business – they competed by underfunding the tail. In other words, in a competitive system, companies can go broke and leave liabilities for long term claims unpaid.
Injured people are left without the coverage they have paid for.
So the Progressives are committed to the principles of the Woodhouse Commission.
As far as future development of the scheme, the comprehensive nature of the ACC scheme has exposed one injustice that often crops up – that is, that the way we treat sick people and the way we treat victims of accidents is very different.
There is no reason in morality or social well-being for treating people differently according to how they get sick.
A person who is ill, whether because of an accident, or some other cause, is always required to bear a substantial part of the cost. A fundamental issue is how much of the cost they should have bear alone.
We want to make sure that the incentives and regulations are right to reduce accidents as far as we are able without imposing excessive deadweight costs.
The evidence is very strong that ACC not only provides more even, more just and reliable care for working people, it also fairly spreads the load and it does so much more efficiently than alternative schemes.
Progressives support a comprehensive accident compensation scheme administered by a single provider.
It is fairer and more effective in providing care and rehabilitation. It cares for New Zealanders better than the alternatives. And it strengthens New Zealand in several ways.
A no fault scheme is highly desirable to working people.
We are in a competitive global market for skills and talent. The quality of our employment conditions is a substantial contributor in helping New Zealand attract and retain a skilled workforce.A comprehensive ACC scheme, offering better, more reliable coverage for people who are injured offers a better incentive to working people to come to and to stay in New Zealand.
The other way the comprehensive single provider scheme strengthens New Zealand is that the evidence shows it is easily the most efficient scheme for our most important industries. Our primary industries are the backbone of our economy. They comprise two thirds of our mechandise goods exports.
A report from the previous National-Liberal Government comparing accident compensation in Australia and New Zealand in 2004 shows levies in Australia’s competitive market were twice as expensive as those in New Zealand for the primary sector.
A competitive scheme could result in a levy hike of as much as 250 per cent for rural people.
Our ACC administration cost is about a third of Australian schemes.
In Victoria – where two companies competed so seriously they ran each other out of business – they competed by underfunding the tail. In other words, in a competitive system, companies can go broke and leave liabilities for long term claims unpaid.
Injured people are left without the coverage they have paid for.
So the Progressives are committed to the principles of the Woodhouse Commission.
As far as future development of the scheme, the comprehensive nature of the ACC scheme has exposed one injustice that often crops up – that is, that the way we treat sick people and the way we treat victims of accidents is very different.
There is no reason in morality or social well-being for treating people differently according to how they get sick.
A person who is ill, whether because of an accident, or some other cause, is always required to bear a substantial part of the cost. A fundamental issue is how much of the cost they should have bear alone.
We want to make sure that the incentives and regulations are right to reduce accidents as far as we are able without imposing excessive deadweight costs.
The evidence is very strong that ACC not only provides more even, more just and reliable care for working people, it also fairly spreads the load and it does so much more efficiently than alternative schemes.
Broadband Internet
New Zealand needs faster, cheaper broadband.
The Progressive party in government has supported the $500 million digital strategy package. It targets high speed open access urban fibre networks, better connectivity in rural New Zealand and international links.
We want New Zealand to set an ambitious target of being in the top five countries in the OECD for broadband speeds, uptake and cost competitiveness within seven years.
THIS WILL REQUIRE:
The Progressive party in government has supported the $500 million digital strategy package. It targets high speed open access urban fibre networks, better connectivity in rural New Zealand and international links.
We want New Zealand to set an ambitious target of being in the top five countries in the OECD for broadband speeds, uptake and cost competitiveness within seven years.
THIS WILL REQUIRE:
- Investment in new international connections. Significant government capital may be necessary to make capacity upgrades in our international links available.
- Strong competitive regulations. Progressives support strongly pro-competitive regulation. We support the unbundling of Telecom – any networks with a dominant market position in any technology will need to provide access to competing providers on a fair commercial basis.
- We support the retention of the Telecommunications commission as an office with specific responsibility for regulating the sector.
- Extension of high speed broadband to rural New Zealand is critical for our primary industries and the backbone of our economy, and we support continued government partnership with industry to ensure rural New Zealand has access to high quality broadband links.
- We support the development of our broadcasters to move more content online, and will support investment by SOEs in broadband infrastructure to ensure more video content can be delivered over the Internet.
Climate Change
The Progressive Party believes that human-induced climate change is a reality, and that we have to do our part to address it.
There are two ways of doing this: firstly, through international agreements and secondly, through adaption and mitigation measures at home.
The Kyoto Protocol is currently the main international agreement to address climate change. New Zealand has signed and ratified this agreement, and the Labour-Progressive Government has passed law to introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme to meet our Kyoto obligations.
We have also started implementing a $175 million five-year plan to ensure that there is good sustainable land management and climate change mitigation schemes in place so we can adapt to expected increases in extreme weather events and other demands on our primary industries.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE ADVANCED THE CAUSE OF SUSTAINABILITY BY:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
IN GOVERNMENT AND OUTSIDE IT WE HAVE TAKEN A STRONG STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY:
AS MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE JIM ANDERTON HAS:
Progressives understand that farming is of crucial importance to the New Zealand economy, and no government can create unreasonable risk or an uneconomic framework which would make development impossible.
As part of that, we demonstrated in government our commitment to the sector by investing heavily in research and development to uncover technological solutions to agriculture emissions.
Through the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Plan of Action, the Government is investing $175 million over five years for work that includes:
In government the Progressives got government working with the dairy and fertiliser industries to investigate and apply measures to significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions in the dairy sector over the next five years. This would involve a significant new research, demonstration and communication programme to help prepare the dairy sector for the entry of agriculture greenhouse gas emissions into the Emissions Trading Scheme in 2013. The programme would seek to drive a substantial increase in uptake of new and existing technologies and practices to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate losses over the next 5 years.
If the research currently underway doesn’t deliver, then no Government the Progressive Party is a part of will penalize agriculture for that. The potential liabilities will not be imposed until that research is capable of delivering results.
There are two ways of doing this: firstly, through international agreements and secondly, through adaption and mitigation measures at home.
The Kyoto Protocol is currently the main international agreement to address climate change. New Zealand has signed and ratified this agreement, and the Labour-Progressive Government has passed law to introduce an Emissions Trading Scheme to meet our Kyoto obligations.
We have also started implementing a $175 million five-year plan to ensure that there is good sustainable land management and climate change mitigation schemes in place so we can adapt to expected increases in extreme weather events and other demands on our primary industries.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE ADVANCED THE CAUSE OF SUSTAINABILITY BY:
- Greatly increasing the Budget allocations for this purpose, including $4.6 million for a network of public recycling facilities, $7.4 million for a sustainable government procurement initiative, and $10.4 million to shift the public sector towards carbon neutrality.
- Allocating further funds in the 2008 Budget for: insulation and clean heating retrofits for state house; another 32,000 insulation retrofits for low income families owning their own homes; a vehicle fuel economy labelling programme; and an initiative which enables business and government to work together to save energy.
- Allocating $600 million to upgrade the Auckland and Wellington passenger rail networks to encourage use of public transport.
- Developing an energy strategy framework which targets a 90% renewable energy objective by 2025.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Continue research into realistic energy alternatives which will reduce our dependence on polluting hydrocarbon fuels.
- Continue initiatives which encourage the use of public transport and non-pollutant based alternatives such as cycling for shorter journeys.
IN GOVERNMENT AND OUTSIDE IT WE HAVE TAKEN A STRONG STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY:
- Supporting the signing of the Kyoto protocols when other parties were opposing this or expressing scepticism as the existence of a problem.
- Fully endorsing the Emissions Trading Scheme as a significant and practical first step in implementing a programme which will ultimately reduce greenhouse gases economy wide. Our support for this scheme recognises that its introduction must be phased to allow for the practicalities of bringing specific economic sectors within its frameworks.
- In the most recent Budget significant resources were provided to ensure that the scheme is linked to the international market requirements of our economy, and to assist communities and families to adapt to the impacts of the emissions trading initiatives.
AS MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE JIM ANDERTON HAS:
- Played a leading role in rationalising and extending the government assistance programmes available to farmers and rural communities in dealing with the economic impact of unusual weather patterns.
Progressives understand that farming is of crucial importance to the New Zealand economy, and no government can create unreasonable risk or an uneconomic framework which would make development impossible.
As part of that, we demonstrated in government our commitment to the sector by investing heavily in research and development to uncover technological solutions to agriculture emissions.
Through the Sustainable Land Management and Climate Change Plan of Action, the Government is investing $175 million over five years for work that includes:
- A research programme of $6 million a year in 2008/09, increasing to $10 million, was announced to be invested according to a strategic research plan agreed with the sector. One of the four key themes under this programme focuses on GHG mitigation and sink enhancement. This represents a significant new investment in this area over and above the funding government has already committed to the Pastoral Greenhouse Gas Research Consortium and New Zealand Fast Forward.
- A Technology Transfer Strategy was developed to ensure that information, tools and technologies are available to land managers. Underpinning this work is a total of $21.8 million of funding available over the next 5 years for Climate Change technology transfer. $10 million of this will be available through the Sustainable Farming Fund (SFF-CC) for community initiated projects. 34 SFF-CC projects have already been approved in 2008.
- MAF worked with the primary sector to develop the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprinting strategy – positioning NZ to respond to significant and increasing pressure from major export markets for information on the GHG intensity of primary products, and to capitalise on business opportunities for low carbon-intensive products.
- Climate change adaptation work is proceeding with sectors playing a key role by providing advice, strategic direction and helping develop a five year adaptation programme. The programme will set adaptation outcomes and help prioritise research and technology transfer in adaptation over the next five years. Reports have been commissioned to help understand what a changing climate may mean for agriculture and what adaptation activities are already occurring. Sectors have also sought further comment from their members to ensure the needs of land managers are incorporated into the adaptation programme.
In government the Progressives got government working with the dairy and fertiliser industries to investigate and apply measures to significantly reduce nitrous oxide emissions in the dairy sector over the next five years. This would involve a significant new research, demonstration and communication programme to help prepare the dairy sector for the entry of agriculture greenhouse gas emissions into the Emissions Trading Scheme in 2013. The programme would seek to drive a substantial increase in uptake of new and existing technologies and practices to reduce nitrous oxide emissions and nitrate losses over the next 5 years.
If the research currently underway doesn’t deliver, then no Government the Progressive Party is a part of will penalize agriculture for that. The potential liabilities will not be imposed until that research is capable of delivering results.
Conservation and Environment
New Zealand’s natural environment is our greatest asset. Not only are our landscape and our unique flora and fauna one of the principal bases of our economy, it is also the foundation upon which we have built one of the world’s most successful and efficient agricultural export industries.
It is our policy to secure and sustain our environmental heritage for the future, and as the party of our egalitarian tradition and a fair go for all, to ensure that it remains available to all of our citizens as a source of recreation and opportunity to advance the economic and social well being of our nation.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE MADE MAJOR ADVANCES IN PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
IN GOVERNMENT JIM ANDERTON HAS TAKEN EFFECTIVE MEASURES TO CONSERVE OUR ENVIRONMENT AND OUR UNIQUE FLORA AND FAUNA BY:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE ADVANCED THE CAUSE OF SUSTAINABILITY BY:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
IN GOVERNMENT AND OUTSIDE IT WE HAVE TAKEN A STRONG STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY:
AS MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE JIM ANDERTON HAS:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
THE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT
The Progressive Party considers this Act (the RMA) to be basically sound, but we also agree that there are issues around its application. However, its critics need to take into account a number of factors which should be a part of any consideration of its operations.
The first of these is that it did not come out of the air. No developed economy in the world is without some resource management legislation and before the RMA was passed there were something like fifty Acts on the New Zealand statute book which dealt with resource management in one way or another. Central to these was the Town and Country Planning Act which by the time the RMA replaced it was well out of date. No-one wants to return to that sort of legislation which was cumbersome and complex. The RMA may not be perfect but in its time it was a considerable advance.
Nor should anyone be surprised that the RMA generates a degree of controversy. When scarce resources, such as land or water in particular, are being allocated there is bound to be some conflict and hotly contested points of view, particularly when it comes to sustainable development. There has to be some form of legislation within which these disputes can be contained and arbitrated or otherwise settled. We in the Progressive Party believe that while the RMA has the potential to do that it also has problems associated with cost, delays and uncertainties which need to be addressed.
Mostly these problems have arisen because the philosophy prevailing at the time the Act was passed was that all that was needed was a framework for allocation of resources and the market would do the rest. That philosophy has turned out to be seriously flawed because it leaves out an important factor. That is the need for efficient strategic planning of resource use over the medium to longer term. That in its turn means there must be a degree of active community leadership. We think that the concept of sustainable management of effects under the RMA needs to be broadened to require sustainable development outcomes.
This gap in the legislation, coupled with the often inordinate expense of preparing major applications for resource use and the delays which can also often be considerable, means that existing resource uses are favoured over new and more efficient and sustainable methods because the costs and delays involved in getting the consents impose barriers to new and imaginative approaches to resource allocation problems. This is particularly true of water use and energy projects.
We believe that the way forward is to be found in putting significant resources into developing greater community consensus through national and local government around the sorts of developments desired nationally, regionally and locally, and then to develop clear and consistent guidelines for approvals for these activities. This would provide a ‘fast track’ for such developments instead of treating each consent as a ‘one off’ needing to be debated and arbitrated from scratch. This would not end all disputes but would almost certainly reduce the costs, delays and uncertainties experienced in the majority of them.
We want to see a cultural change in this area with local and regional government in particular taking a more pro-active approach rather than abdicating in favour of the sorts of court based arbitration which has sometimes turns this area into a lawyers’ playground with outcomes that suit no-one. We are committed in government to providing the resources which would enable local and regional government to take on these tasks rather than abdicating them.
GENETIC MODIFICATION
The Progressive Party policy on this matter differs significantly from that of our Labour colleagues in government. This is one of the very few areas in which we have uplifted our option in our coalition agreement to vote against government legislation.
We have, in fact, a long history in parliament on the GM issue. Our former colleague Phillida Bunkle introduced Bills in 1997 and 1998 while we were in opposition seeking a Royal Commission of Inquiry into GM, and the inclusion of GM content on food labels. Both of these initiatives later became Government policy due, in part, to our influence in the first Labour led coalition government.
The Progressive’s policy on this issue has consistently been that the moratorium on GM should remain in place until the economic benefits of GM outweigh the risks, the technology is proven safe, and the consent of the community is gained. We are also pro-science, and we have consistently supported GM research which leads to identifiable medical advances. When the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill came before the House as the end of the moratorium approached, we took expert advice on this issue from both scientists and those engaged in the export business. In the light of that advice we concluded that the moratorium should remain on GM organisms likely to enter the human food chain.
We see many potential benefits in the future for GM technology, particularly in relation to medicine and health, and we believe contained research should continue. However, consumer resistance to GM foods appears to be hardening and overseas food suppliers are increasingly seeking foods guaranteed to be GM free. Some New Zealand exporters are already benefiting from promoting our GM free status. By changing the perception that New Zealand is a GM free food producer we risk losing our marketing edge in the sensitive markets where our premium, high value goods are sold. Because we want high quality, sustainable jobs for all New Zealanders, we are concerned that New Zealand’s exporters, who rely so heavily upon our clean, green image, are protected from any perception that New Zealand is a GM food producer.
Our position is shared by a number of New Zealand’s leading biotechnologists, who believe New Zealand should extend its moratorium on food products for at least a further five years.
Consistent with our policy we sought amendments to the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill which would have made this legislation acceptable to us, but unfortunately these did not gain sufficient voting support. Consequently, we voted against the Bill because a vote for conditionally released GM organisms is still a vote for the release of GM.
It is our policy to secure and sustain our environmental heritage for the future, and as the party of our egalitarian tradition and a fair go for all, to ensure that it remains available to all of our citizens as a source of recreation and opportunity to advance the economic and social well being of our nation.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE MADE MAJOR ADVANCES IN PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH:
- The Sustainable Water Programme of Action in which local and central government are working in partnership to develop strategic approaches to fresh water management, particularly in the areas of allocation of supply and water quality. We have mounted a programme specifically directed to reducing and minimising water pollution arising from agricultural land use. This is showing significant results.
- The Ambient Air Quality Guidelines which establish world beating standards for clean air quality. The implementation of these guidelines will literally extend hundreds of Kiwi lives over the next decade by protecting New Zealanders from respiratory illnesses arising from air pollution.
- Ensuring that New Zealand families enjoy a home environment which includes warm and affordable protection from illness while at the same time ensuring that their heating options are clean and efficient, and are coupled with vastly improved standards of home insulation. In particular we are working with local government on the Warm Homes project which brings efficient and pollution free heating within the reach of all New Zealanders.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Press for increased resources for the Department of Conservation dedicated to the better monitoring of ecosystems and their preservation.
- Advocate for the extension of current resource strategies in regard to specific resources to a ‘whole of government’ approach, and the extension of the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to produce annual environmental audit reports on progress with these strategies.
- Continue to support the South Island high country initiatives which have seen the return of significant areas of high country to primarily conservation use and purpose.
IN GOVERNMENT JIM ANDERTON HAS TAKEN EFFECTIVE MEASURES TO CONSERVE OUR ENVIRONMENT AND OUR UNIQUE FLORA AND FAUNA BY:
- Protecting one of our rarest species, the Hector’s and Maui’s dolphins through the significant extension of the areas in which the use of set nets is banned.
- Extended the national marine protection and conservation concept to our marine economic zone so that a third of the seabed in the zone is protected from over-exploitation. This is the largest single seabed area in the world which is protected in this way.
- In association with the Minister of Conservation greatly extended the areas of coastline denominated marine reserve areas.
- Progressively reduced the maximum allowable annual sealion by-catch and taken further steps to protect endangered seabirds from line fishing techniques.
- Moved to protect endangered fish stocks, most notably and recently blue cod.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Continue to press through the International Whaling Commission for an international ban on whaling.
- Continue to support New Zealand’s international stance against the use of nuclear energy, and through the United Nations for non-proliferation of such uses.
- Press for Antarctica to be declared a world park.
- Continue with current programmes to exterminate introduced pests which endanger our native flora and fauna, and the health of our livestock, while continuing to support research which seeks alternatives to some less than satisfactory current control methods.
- Discuss with recreational hunting groups at their initiative how best they might be incorporated into the efficient management of introduced recreational species.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE ADVANCED THE CAUSE OF SUSTAINABILITY BY:
- Greatly increasing the Budget allocations for this purpose, including $4.6 million for a network of public recycling facilities, $7.4 million for a sustainable government procurement initiative, and $10.4 million to shift the public sector towards carbon neutrality.
- Allocating further funds in the 2008 Budget for: insulation and clean heating retrofits for state house; another 32,000 insulation retrofits for low income families owning their own homes; a vehicle fuel economy labelling programme; and an initiative which enables business and government to work together to save energy.
- Allocating $600 million to upgrade the Auckland and Wellington passenger rail networks to encourage use of public transport.
- Developing an energy strategy framework which targets a 90% renewable energy objective by 2025.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Continue research into realistic energy alternatives which will reduce our dependence on polluting hydrocarbon fuels.
- Continue initiatives which encourage the use of public transport and non-pollutant based alternatives such as cycling for shorter journeys.
IN GOVERNMENT AND OUTSIDE IT WE HAVE TAKEN A STRONG STANCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY:
- Supporting the signing of the Kyoto protocols when other parties were opposing this or expressing scepticism as the existence of a problem.
- Fully endorsing the Emissions Trading Scheme as a significant and practical first step in implementing a programme which will ultimately reduce greenhouse gases economy wide. Our support for this scheme recognises that its introduction must be phased to allow for the practicalities of bringing specific economic sectors within its frameworks.
- In the most recent Budget significant resources were provided to ensure that the scheme is linked to the international market requirements of our economy, and to assist communities and families to adapt to the impacts of the emissions trading initiatives.
AS MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE JIM ANDERTON HAS:
- Played a leading role in rationalising and extending the government assistance programmes available to farmers and rural communities in dealing with the economic impact of unusual weather patterns.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Press for a higher priority to be given to the current review of the Resource Management Act, and the extension of the scope of this review to ensure that it is fully comprehensive.
THE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT ACT
The Progressive Party considers this Act (the RMA) to be basically sound, but we also agree that there are issues around its application. However, its critics need to take into account a number of factors which should be a part of any consideration of its operations.
The first of these is that it did not come out of the air. No developed economy in the world is without some resource management legislation and before the RMA was passed there were something like fifty Acts on the New Zealand statute book which dealt with resource management in one way or another. Central to these was the Town and Country Planning Act which by the time the RMA replaced it was well out of date. No-one wants to return to that sort of legislation which was cumbersome and complex. The RMA may not be perfect but in its time it was a considerable advance.
Nor should anyone be surprised that the RMA generates a degree of controversy. When scarce resources, such as land or water in particular, are being allocated there is bound to be some conflict and hotly contested points of view, particularly when it comes to sustainable development. There has to be some form of legislation within which these disputes can be contained and arbitrated or otherwise settled. We in the Progressive Party believe that while the RMA has the potential to do that it also has problems associated with cost, delays and uncertainties which need to be addressed.
Mostly these problems have arisen because the philosophy prevailing at the time the Act was passed was that all that was needed was a framework for allocation of resources and the market would do the rest. That philosophy has turned out to be seriously flawed because it leaves out an important factor. That is the need for efficient strategic planning of resource use over the medium to longer term. That in its turn means there must be a degree of active community leadership. We think that the concept of sustainable management of effects under the RMA needs to be broadened to require sustainable development outcomes.
This gap in the legislation, coupled with the often inordinate expense of preparing major applications for resource use and the delays which can also often be considerable, means that existing resource uses are favoured over new and more efficient and sustainable methods because the costs and delays involved in getting the consents impose barriers to new and imaginative approaches to resource allocation problems. This is particularly true of water use and energy projects.
We believe that the way forward is to be found in putting significant resources into developing greater community consensus through national and local government around the sorts of developments desired nationally, regionally and locally, and then to develop clear and consistent guidelines for approvals for these activities. This would provide a ‘fast track’ for such developments instead of treating each consent as a ‘one off’ needing to be debated and arbitrated from scratch. This would not end all disputes but would almost certainly reduce the costs, delays and uncertainties experienced in the majority of them.
We want to see a cultural change in this area with local and regional government in particular taking a more pro-active approach rather than abdicating in favour of the sorts of court based arbitration which has sometimes turns this area into a lawyers’ playground with outcomes that suit no-one. We are committed in government to providing the resources which would enable local and regional government to take on these tasks rather than abdicating them.
GENETIC MODIFICATION
The Progressive Party policy on this matter differs significantly from that of our Labour colleagues in government. This is one of the very few areas in which we have uplifted our option in our coalition agreement to vote against government legislation.
We have, in fact, a long history in parliament on the GM issue. Our former colleague Phillida Bunkle introduced Bills in 1997 and 1998 while we were in opposition seeking a Royal Commission of Inquiry into GM, and the inclusion of GM content on food labels. Both of these initiatives later became Government policy due, in part, to our influence in the first Labour led coalition government.
The Progressive’s policy on this issue has consistently been that the moratorium on GM should remain in place until the economic benefits of GM outweigh the risks, the technology is proven safe, and the consent of the community is gained. We are also pro-science, and we have consistently supported GM research which leads to identifiable medical advances. When the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill came before the House as the end of the moratorium approached, we took expert advice on this issue from both scientists and those engaged in the export business. In the light of that advice we concluded that the moratorium should remain on GM organisms likely to enter the human food chain.
We see many potential benefits in the future for GM technology, particularly in relation to medicine and health, and we believe contained research should continue. However, consumer resistance to GM foods appears to be hardening and overseas food suppliers are increasingly seeking foods guaranteed to be GM free. Some New Zealand exporters are already benefiting from promoting our GM free status. By changing the perception that New Zealand is a GM free food producer we risk losing our marketing edge in the sensitive markets where our premium, high value goods are sold. Because we want high quality, sustainable jobs for all New Zealanders, we are concerned that New Zealand’s exporters, who rely so heavily upon our clean, green image, are protected from any perception that New Zealand is a GM food producer.
Our position is shared by a number of New Zealand’s leading biotechnologists, who believe New Zealand should extend its moratorium on food products for at least a further five years.
Consistent with our policy we sought amendments to the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill which would have made this legislation acceptable to us, but unfortunately these did not gain sufficient voting support. Consequently, we voted against the Bill because a vote for conditionally released GM organisms is still a vote for the release of GM.
Defence
The Progressive Party is committed to a defence capability which best serves our security through playing a full part in multilateral based initiatives to solve international conflict and by contributing materially to peacekeeping in our region. This means developing a defence force that our resource base allows us to adequately support, centred on the army with appropriate naval and air force capacity to provide support to the land-based force.
As well as having the capacity to engage in international operations and carry out the armed defence of our territory the armed forces are structured to meet our civil defence needs, and provide assistance to our Pacific neighbours for disaster relief. The Progressive Party fully supports retaining the capacity to protect our exclusive economic zone and borders, as well as to operate effectively with multinational forces under international law.
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
The Progressive Party fully supports the previous government’s decision not to participate in the invasion of Iraq led by the United States. This invasion was held by our government, and the United Nations, to be contrary to international law.
We supported the dispatch of a unit after the invasion to participate in UN authorized reconstruction work. This unit was directly under New Zealand command and did not participate in the military activities of the United States led occupation force.
We continue to participate in operations in Afghanistan under the auspices of the United Nations with a brief to restore and rebuild civil society in that country.
Our defence forces are internationally respected for their participation in peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations, in particular for their expertise in locating and removing landmines.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
As well as having the capacity to engage in international operations and carry out the armed defence of our territory the armed forces are structured to meet our civil defence needs, and provide assistance to our Pacific neighbours for disaster relief. The Progressive Party fully supports retaining the capacity to protect our exclusive economic zone and borders, as well as to operate effectively with multinational forces under international law.
IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN
The Progressive Party fully supports the previous government’s decision not to participate in the invasion of Iraq led by the United States. This invasion was held by our government, and the United Nations, to be contrary to international law.
We supported the dispatch of a unit after the invasion to participate in UN authorized reconstruction work. This unit was directly under New Zealand command and did not participate in the military activities of the United States led occupation force.
We continue to participate in operations in Afghanistan under the auspices of the United Nations with a brief to restore and rebuild civil society in that country.
Our defence forces are internationally respected for their participation in peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations, in particular for their expertise in locating and removing landmines.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Maintain the focus on creating a highly efficient land force, supported by relevant air and naval capacity, capable of responding quickly to any lawful requests to assist with military forces.
- Support maritime surveillance to enable timely analysis of threats to New Zealand’s security, including economic and environmental security throughout the south Pacific region.
- Further develop New Zealand’s capacity to provide search and rescue and disaster relief not only for New Zealand but also in the South Pacific. This will include an effective tsunami warning system linked to other international systems.
- Continue to use military resources for voluntary and trade related training for young people that enhances their prospects of gaining suitable employment following service.
Disability
The Progressive Party and its predecessors have a longstanding commitment to a ‘fair go’ society, and believe that all citizens, especially those who are disabled, either physically or intellectually, should enjoy access to the benefits of living in an egalitarian culture and should be able to play a full part in membership in their communities.
In particular we support full funding of the educational needs of children with intellectual disabilities. Our policy on disability emphasises the key roles played by education and employment in ensuring the fullest possible integration of the disabled into our communities, and we fully recognise the need for good support services in both these areas if this objective is to be achieved.
The funding this demands has been significantly enhanced over the past decade, but we recognise that the resources required to establish and maintain true equality of opportunity are massive and that we have quite some distance to go before we can say that we have arrived close to that goal.
You can be assured that whether returned to government or not we will continue to press for the resources required to ensure that the disabled have the opportunity and the right to be fully active and participating members of our society.
In particular we support full funding of the educational needs of children with intellectual disabilities. Our policy on disability emphasises the key roles played by education and employment in ensuring the fullest possible integration of the disabled into our communities, and we fully recognise the need for good support services in both these areas if this objective is to be achieved.
The funding this demands has been significantly enhanced over the past decade, but we recognise that the resources required to establish and maintain true equality of opportunity are massive and that we have quite some distance to go before we can say that we have arrived close to that goal.
You can be assured that whether returned to government or not we will continue to press for the resources required to ensure that the disabled have the opportunity and the right to be fully active and participating members of our society.
Disarmament
The Progressive Party endorses the principles of a non-nuclear South Pacific, international disarmament, a ban on weapons of mass destruction and infection, and arms control.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE:
Taken a leading international role in the establishment of international conventions on the abolition of land mines, small arms transfers, and cluster bombs.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
Continue, in cooperation with other nations in the region to seek to achieve a southern hemisphere and adjacent areas nuclear weapons free zone including a ban on the transit of nuclear weapons and their components, and of any nuclear materials through the zone, and the exclusion from the zone of missiles, missile guidance systems and any support facilities used for nuclear weapons.
Continue to oppose the dumping of nuclear, industrial and domestic waste in the Pacific area and advocate international regulation to eliminate this abuse of our oceanic neighbourhood.
Support peace research, peace education and people working in these fields and explore the scope for New Zealand to be more active in offering international mediation services parallel to our military peace keeping commitments.
Seek enhanced resourcing of the Ministry of Disarmament and Arms Control so that it can continue to give quality advice to government, inform and educate the public on disarmament and arms control, and work effectively on the international stage to advance disarmament policy and initiatives.
Ensure that investment practices for government funds are consistent with New Zealand’s policies on the abolition of weapons of mass destruction, landmines and cluster munitions.
Lead an international effort to negotiate a global treaty which would prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Promote the beneficial role that disarmament can play in protecting the environment, liberating resources, and ensuring safe and secure conditions for sustainable development .
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE:
Taken a leading international role in the establishment of international conventions on the abolition of land mines, small arms transfers, and cluster bombs.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
Continue, in cooperation with other nations in the region to seek to achieve a southern hemisphere and adjacent areas nuclear weapons free zone including a ban on the transit of nuclear weapons and their components, and of any nuclear materials through the zone, and the exclusion from the zone of missiles, missile guidance systems and any support facilities used for nuclear weapons.
Continue to oppose the dumping of nuclear, industrial and domestic waste in the Pacific area and advocate international regulation to eliminate this abuse of our oceanic neighbourhood.
Support peace research, peace education and people working in these fields and explore the scope for New Zealand to be more active in offering international mediation services parallel to our military peace keeping commitments.
Seek enhanced resourcing of the Ministry of Disarmament and Arms Control so that it can continue to give quality advice to government, inform and educate the public on disarmament and arms control, and work effectively on the international stage to advance disarmament policy and initiatives.
Ensure that investment practices for government funds are consistent with New Zealand’s policies on the abolition of weapons of mass destruction, landmines and cluster munitions.
Lead an international effort to negotiate a global treaty which would prohibit and eliminate nuclear weapons.
Promote the beneficial role that disarmament can play in protecting the environment, liberating resources, and ensuring safe and secure conditions for sustainable development .
Education
The Progressive Party is committed to free education.
All New Zealanders have an entitlement to an education which fulfils their potential as individuals, and enables them to make a lifelong contribution to our economy, their community and to the society at large. This is best achieved through a fully funded, well resourced, state sector education system from pre-school to tertiary levels.
In government we:
All New Zealanders have an entitlement to an education which fulfils their potential as individuals, and enables them to make a lifelong contribution to our economy, their community and to the society at large. This is best achieved through a fully funded, well resourced, state sector education system from pre-school to tertiary levels.
In government we:
- Introduced twenty hours of free pre-school education for all 3 and 4 year olds to give them a head start when they enter the formal primary education system
- Taken steps to ensure that in line with other OECD countries our young people remain in education or training until aged at least eighteen. We have committed a further $39.7 million to this initiative through the Schools Plus package in the 2008 Budget.
- Resourced the building of fourteen new schools and added 180 classrooms and 10 new gymnasiums across the country to our education capital stock
- Provided 5,200 new teachers and delivered enhanced resources for teacher professional development
- Worked to provide computer, laptop, and internet access in all schools. We are now close to delivering 100% on this commitment
- Rebuilt the apprenticeship system which was allowed to run down under previous governments with serious negative consequences in many industries. The Modern Apprenticeships scheme now in operation is specifically designed for our twenty first century economy. A total of 14,411 young people have benefited from this scheme since its inception in 2000. Of these, 3,877 have completed their training and are now contributing to our economy and building their personal futures.
- Capped tuition fees for tertiary education, increased student allowances, and abolished student interest on student loans.
- Introduced a new approach to funding tertiary education which is no longer based on a crude system of ‘counting heads’ but on flexible criteria which take into account the need for quality, and skill shortages in our commercial and social economies.
- A continuing commitment to applying extra resources to low decile areas to make sure that social status does not matter in accessing education
- More teachers, particularly in specialist fields, and better teacher resourcing to ensure continuing professional development throughout teaching careers
- Co-ordination of schools with social, health, and employment agencies.
- Post tertiary provision for graduates who remain in New Zealand to work off their student loan repayments on a phased basis so they will not be held back in their careers and lives by the constraints of a burden of debt
- More liberal criteria for student allowances to extend their availability
- Enhanced current resourcing for the support and promotion of industry training and skills development programmes to ensure that all eighteen and nineteen year olds not in work are in education or training
- Children with special needs and their teachers receiving the resources, training and specialist support they need
- Extending the range of recreational and sporting activities available to all children (see Progressive Sports policy)
- Extension of the current early childhood preschool subsidy from twenty to twenty five hours
- The restoration and extension of adult and continuing education programmes, particularly including those in literacy and parenting
Genetic Modification
The Progressive Party policy on GM differs significantly from that of our Labour colleagues in government. This is one of the areas in which we have uplifted our option in our coalition agreement to vote against government legislation.
We have, in fact, a long history in parliament on the GM issue. Our former colleague Phillida Bunkle introduced Bills in 1997 and 1998 while we were in opposition seeking a Royal Commission of Inquiry into GM, and the inclusion of GM content on food labels. Both of these initiatives later became Government policy due, in part, to our influence in the first Labour led coalition government.
The Progressive’s policy on this issue has consistently been that the moratorium on GM should remain in place until the economic benefits of GM outweigh the risks, the technology is proven safe, and the consent of the community is gained. We are also pro-science, and we have consistently supported GM research which leads to identifiable medical advances. When the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill came before the House as the end of the moratorium approached, we took expert advice on this issue from both scientists and those engaged in the export business. In the light of that advice we concluded that the moratorium should remain on GM organisms likely to enter the human food chain.
We see many potential benefits in the future for GM technology, particularly in relation to medicine and health, and we believe contained research should continue. However, consumer resistance to GM foods appears to be hardening and overseas food suppliers are increasingly seeking foods guaranteed to be GM free. Some New Zealand exporters are already benefiting from promoting our GM free status. By changing the perception that New Zealand is a GM free food producer we risk losing our marketing edge in the sensitive markets where our premium, high value goods are sold. Because we want high quality, sustainable jobs for all New Zealanders, we are concerned that New Zealand’s exporters, who rely so heavily upon our clean, green image, are protected from any perception that New Zealand is a GM food producer.
Our position is shared by a number of New Zealand’s leading biotechnologists, who believe New Zealand should extend its moratorium on food products for at least a further five years.
Consistent with our policy we sought amendments to the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill which would have made this legislation acceptable to us, but unfortunately these did not gain sufficient voting support. Consequently, we voted against the Bill because a vote for conditionally released GM organisms is still a vote for the release of GM.
We have, in fact, a long history in parliament on the GM issue. Our former colleague Phillida Bunkle introduced Bills in 1997 and 1998 while we were in opposition seeking a Royal Commission of Inquiry into GM, and the inclusion of GM content on food labels. Both of these initiatives later became Government policy due, in part, to our influence in the first Labour led coalition government.
The Progressive’s policy on this issue has consistently been that the moratorium on GM should remain in place until the economic benefits of GM outweigh the risks, the technology is proven safe, and the consent of the community is gained. We are also pro-science, and we have consistently supported GM research which leads to identifiable medical advances. When the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill came before the House as the end of the moratorium approached, we took expert advice on this issue from both scientists and those engaged in the export business. In the light of that advice we concluded that the moratorium should remain on GM organisms likely to enter the human food chain.
We see many potential benefits in the future for GM technology, particularly in relation to medicine and health, and we believe contained research should continue. However, consumer resistance to GM foods appears to be hardening and overseas food suppliers are increasingly seeking foods guaranteed to be GM free. Some New Zealand exporters are already benefiting from promoting our GM free status. By changing the perception that New Zealand is a GM free food producer we risk losing our marketing edge in the sensitive markets where our premium, high value goods are sold. Because we want high quality, sustainable jobs for all New Zealanders, we are concerned that New Zealand’s exporters, who rely so heavily upon our clean, green image, are protected from any perception that New Zealand is a GM food producer.
Our position is shared by a number of New Zealand’s leading biotechnologists, who believe New Zealand should extend its moratorium on food products for at least a further five years.
Consistent with our policy we sought amendments to the New Organisms and Other Matters Bill which would have made this legislation acceptable to us, but unfortunately these did not gain sufficient voting support. Consequently, we voted against the Bill because a vote for conditionally released GM organisms is still a vote for the release of GM.
Health
The Progressive Party is committed free health care for all.
In the provision of health services our priority is investment in a public health system meeting the needs of the twenty first century and which matches and surpasses any available internationally.
Our immediate key goals are early intervention and access for all to front line services to ensure that those needing health care are identified as early as possible so they can be directed to the appropriate services without impediments such as lack of affordability.
Our ultimate goal is the restoration of a comprehensive free public health service accessible to all New Zealanders.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
AS ASSOCIATE MINISTER FOR HEALTH, JIM ANDERTON:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
In the provision of health services our priority is investment in a public health system meeting the needs of the twenty first century and which matches and surpasses any available internationally.
Our immediate key goals are early intervention and access for all to front line services to ensure that those needing health care are identified as early as possible so they can be directed to the appropriate services without impediments such as lack of affordability.
Our ultimate goal is the restoration of a comprehensive free public health service accessible to all New Zealanders.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
- Ensured that from July 2007 healthcare became more affordable and accessible to nearly a million more New Zealanders through Primary Health Care Organisations, by halving the costs of doctor’s visit and prescriptions.
- Boosted resources for elective surgery. In the last three years, for instance, this has meant some twenty thousand extra hip and knee replacements, and seven and a half thousand extra eye cataract operations.
- Significantly increased the numbers of front line professional medical staff in the public health system. There are 5,525 doctors and nursing staff working in public hospitals than there were when we came into government nine years ago.
- Introduced free health care for kids under six from July 2007, and boosted vaccination rates from 60% to 80%.
- Raised home based support funding for older citizens by 250%.
- Initiated the largest hospital building programme in New Zealand’s history.
- Launched a new nationwide health screening programme for four and five year olds and strengthened and extended oral health services for children and adolescents.
- Commenced a campaign to ensure that the New Zealanders have access to opportunities to improve their physical health and reduce obesity, particularly in the young.
AS ASSOCIATE MINISTER FOR HEALTH, JIM ANDERTON:
- Established and continued to fund some twenty nine community based and well funded community projects to bring together and co-ordinate initiatives within communities against substance abuse.
- Developed a new policy and initiated a major campaign to reduce suicide in New Zealand.
- Banned the use of BZP and related substances sold as ‘party pills’ because of the serious potential danger they pose to public health.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Continue to work to re establish a fully funded free comprehensive public health system through an incremental step by step approach.
- Press for the implementation of Progressive policy of allowing new graduate doctors to have their student loan repayments paid by 20 per cent of the total loan each year being written off for at least 3 years, if they work in the Public Hospital system.
- Work to reduce the incidence and impact of cancer as a major priority for our health system.
- Keep working to restore the legal drinking age to 20.
Immigration
The Progressive Party policy on immigration recognises that New Zealand has one of the most immigrant oriented cultures of any country in the world.
Everyone who lives here either came here themselves or their ancestors did within the last nine hundred years. This has had a fundamental influence on the sort of ‘fair go’ society we are.
As advocates for that society, in which every citizen has the opportunity to join in the advantages of living in New Zealand, the Progressives want everyone, including immigrants and refugees, to be able to join fully in all of the activities that make New Zealand unique, and which enables all of our communities to partake fully of the richness and diversity of cultures which immigration brings to New Zealand.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
WE WILL:
Everyone who lives here either came here themselves or their ancestors did within the last nine hundred years. This has had a fundamental influence on the sort of ‘fair go’ society we are.
As advocates for that society, in which every citizen has the opportunity to join in the advantages of living in New Zealand, the Progressives want everyone, including immigrants and refugees, to be able to join fully in all of the activities that make New Zealand unique, and which enables all of our communities to partake fully of the richness and diversity of cultures which immigration brings to New Zealand.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
- Took steps to rationalise and simplify immigration procedures, including the rights of appeal for refugees denied residence;
- Rationalised the criteria for immigration to ensure that it meets the needs of our economy rather than encouraging ‘cheque book’ immigration by the wealthy;
- Launched and are working to improve the Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme to help meet seasonal labour shortages and assist with employment opportunities for our Pacific neighbours;
- Passed legislation to regulate immigration agents and to weed out dubious practitioners.
WE WILL:
- Ensure a continuing supportive environment for the settlement of all immigrants and refugees including boosting resettlement programmes to assist in the learning of English, adapting to life in New Zealand and finding employment and accommodation.
- Further integrate economic development and immigration policies which have always gone hand in hand in New Zealand to ensure that first priority is given to immigrants who contribute to our continuing economic development and our population growth on a rational basis.
- Assist regional development through targeted immigration to meet pressing needs outside New Zealand’s largest cities for key skills – medical, dental and other health professionals; business development; school teachers; skilled technical workers.
- Ensure that the conditions of employment for migrants conform to all New Zealand laws and standards both for permanent entrants and for those on seasonal schemes.
- Support all measures that assist with migrant settlement and that protect migrant communities from acts of discrimination.
- Ensure that our policies towards refugees continue to reflect our longstanding commitment to the international humanitarian conventions on which those policies are based.
Infrastructure
An Infrastructure Development Bank for New Zealand
New Zealand’s economy needs faster infrastructure investment to help it through the slow down caused by global financial conditions.
Infrastructure spending stimulates the economy when it would otherwise be starved of capital.
Today, the government needs to increase investment in infrastructure like housing, rail, roads, power stations, water projects and broadband to stimulate the economy quickly.
The next issue for policy-makers is how to make those investments.
Progressives propose that new infrastructure investment over ‘business as usual’ should be made through a New Zealand Infrastructure Development Bank.
The bank would be capitalised with Crown debt, just as any infrastructure project is currently funded.
The bank would then transparently select infrastructure projects that fit general criteria.
The bank would issue bonds up to an agreed limit. A bond is an interest-bearing investment that is backed by an underlying asset. So Mum and Dad investors would be able to buy infrastructure development bonds associated with particular projects. It would even be possible to make the bonds tradeable on a capital market.
So, for example, the bank might approve an investment in a new toll road. The project would be funded partly out of capital from Crown debt, and partly by issuing bonds to New Zealand investors at a set interest rate. The business case for the road would make plain how the road would repay the investment and interest.
At other times we might have said projects like these can be funded on their own merits if they are truly bankable. But the problem is that, in today’s environment, the economy is capital starved.
The whole point of bringing forward infrastructure investment is to get capital moving through the economy again as quickly as possible.
Providing some stability for investors will help retain confidence to keep investing.
Governance
The bank would be run by an independent board. This would ensure infrastructure investments were made on a sound economic basis, and it would maximise transparency and accountability for investment.
For example, when the government decides to invest in, say, a railway line - it is making a choice about the opportunity cost of not making that investment in a housing project. A bank, run by an independent board would make the opportunity cost clearer.
Only a certain, specified quantity of capital would be available, just as it is to government; but the sum at stake would be clearer. Economists would debate how much to invest. The Reserve Bank would take a close interest in the level of stimulation.
A board arrangement would ensure that investment was made on transparent grounds, not on the most politically convenient grounds. For example, when the government began its development investment projects in the early eighties (known as Think Big), observers noted a coincidental overlap between the location of new projects and the location of marginal seats.
A board is also accountable for decisions. If it backs a project, and the project fails, the board will be to blame.
The bank should be set up as a Crown entity, with ministerial responsibility to the minister of finance and the minister of economic development. It should have policy support from the Ministry of Economic Development.
So where does the money come from?
What would it invest in?
The government would set investment criteria when it set up the bank. Investments would be made in the highest priority projects reaching the criteria.
The government would also require that, at first, preference was given to projects that are quick to get underway. As projects are completed and funding comes back, new projects could be commenced - a new electricity generator takes time to plan and get resource consents..
Priority criteria would include:
An economic return also unlocks future capital - as the money is repaid, it can be used again for a new development.
Some government investment in infrastructure, like new school buildings, cannot generate an economic return. The case for building more schools stands on issues like the quality of schooling we want our kids to have, expert advice about population projections and more. These investments would continue to be made, as they are now, by the government on its own balance sheet. They would not be Investment Development Bank projects.
So why not just get on with these new projects anyway?
Some will be started almost immediately, whether there is a bank or not.
It doesn’t take long to set up an infrastructure development bank. But without the bank, the government will have a much harder job of attracting private capital to buy bonds. One priority for policy should be to get Mum and Dad investment moving again as quickly as possible.
Second, a bank provides better transparency into development, so that trade-offs and the quantum of capital being used to stimulate the economy is more easily judged and debated.
And third, a bank provides a revolving pool of capital, avoiding the potential for a stop-start, boom-and-bust response to recession.
Ownership - Who would own the projects funded?
It would depend on the project.
When the bank lends money to you to buy a house - it doesn’t take ownership.
The Infrastructure Development Bank might partner with local authorities and building companies to develop low income housing projects. Ownership would go to the ultimate buyer.
The bank might partner with a water company to build a new storage facility. The ownership might go to a local authority.
How much?
The question of how much to invest through an infrastructure development bank is not really a question about the bank - it’s a question about how much stimulus the government should apply to the New Zealand economy.
To make any difference it would need to start off with seeding capital in the billions. This would be raised by increasing Crown debt. But the Crown would no longer be increasing debt to pay for infrastructure projects and so the net position is the same.
More quality investment is likely to be made through a bank because standards of transparency and accountability are higher. Therefore, the net impetus through the bank is higher.
In addition, the bank’s involvement will help to attract private capital which, in the current environment is highly unlikely to be attractive to long term development financing in sufficient quantities.
New Zealand’s economy needs faster infrastructure investment to help it through the slow down caused by global financial conditions.
Infrastructure spending stimulates the economy when it would otherwise be starved of capital.
Today, the government needs to increase investment in infrastructure like housing, rail, roads, power stations, water projects and broadband to stimulate the economy quickly.
The next issue for policy-makers is how to make those investments.
Progressives propose that new infrastructure investment over ‘business as usual’ should be made through a New Zealand Infrastructure Development Bank.
The bank would be capitalised with Crown debt, just as any infrastructure project is currently funded.
The bank would then transparently select infrastructure projects that fit general criteria.
The bank would issue bonds up to an agreed limit. A bond is an interest-bearing investment that is backed by an underlying asset. So Mum and Dad investors would be able to buy infrastructure development bonds associated with particular projects. It would even be possible to make the bonds tradeable on a capital market.
So, for example, the bank might approve an investment in a new toll road. The project would be funded partly out of capital from Crown debt, and partly by issuing bonds to New Zealand investors at a set interest rate. The business case for the road would make plain how the road would repay the investment and interest.
At other times we might have said projects like these can be funded on their own merits if they are truly bankable. But the problem is that, in today’s environment, the economy is capital starved.
The whole point of bringing forward infrastructure investment is to get capital moving through the economy again as quickly as possible.
Providing some stability for investors will help retain confidence to keep investing.
Governance
The bank would be run by an independent board. This would ensure infrastructure investments were made on a sound economic basis, and it would maximise transparency and accountability for investment.
For example, when the government decides to invest in, say, a railway line - it is making a choice about the opportunity cost of not making that investment in a housing project. A bank, run by an independent board would make the opportunity cost clearer.
Only a certain, specified quantity of capital would be available, just as it is to government; but the sum at stake would be clearer. Economists would debate how much to invest. The Reserve Bank would take a close interest in the level of stimulation.
A board arrangement would ensure that investment was made on transparent grounds, not on the most politically convenient grounds. For example, when the government began its development investment projects in the early eighties (known as Think Big), observers noted a coincidental overlap between the location of new projects and the location of marginal seats.
A board is also accountable for decisions. If it backs a project, and the project fails, the board will be to blame.
The bank should be set up as a Crown entity, with ministerial responsibility to the minister of finance and the minister of economic development. It should have policy support from the Ministry of Economic Development.
So where does the money come from?
- Crown debt; plus
- The issue of infrastructure bonds, project by project - and possibly longer term generic infrastructure bonds; plus
- Possible contributions to capital, project by project, by other interested parties. The bank might fund capital investment in some local authority or even private projects that have national benefit and would not otherwise get off the ground in current conditions.
What would it invest in?
The government would set investment criteria when it set up the bank. Investments would be made in the highest priority projects reaching the criteria.
The government would also require that, at first, preference was given to projects that are quick to get underway. As projects are completed and funding comes back, new projects could be commenced - a new electricity generator takes time to plan and get resource consents..
Priority criteria would include:
- Economic return
An economic return also unlocks future capital - as the money is repaid, it can be used again for a new development.
Some government investment in infrastructure, like new school buildings, cannot generate an economic return. The case for building more schools stands on issues like the quality of schooling we want our kids to have, expert advice about population projections and more. These investments would continue to be made, as they are now, by the government on its own balance sheet. They would not be Investment Development Bank projects.
- Contribution to New Zealand’s development
- Other criteria
So why not just get on with these new projects anyway?
Some will be started almost immediately, whether there is a bank or not.
It doesn’t take long to set up an infrastructure development bank. But without the bank, the government will have a much harder job of attracting private capital to buy bonds. One priority for policy should be to get Mum and Dad investment moving again as quickly as possible.
Second, a bank provides better transparency into development, so that trade-offs and the quantum of capital being used to stimulate the economy is more easily judged and debated.
And third, a bank provides a revolving pool of capital, avoiding the potential for a stop-start, boom-and-bust response to recession.
Ownership - Who would own the projects funded?
It would depend on the project.
When the bank lends money to you to buy a house - it doesn’t take ownership.
The Infrastructure Development Bank might partner with local authorities and building companies to develop low income housing projects. Ownership would go to the ultimate buyer.
The bank might partner with a water company to build a new storage facility. The ownership might go to a local authority.
How much?
The question of how much to invest through an infrastructure development bank is not really a question about the bank - it’s a question about how much stimulus the government should apply to the New Zealand economy.
To make any difference it would need to start off with seeding capital in the billions. This would be raised by increasing Crown debt. But the Crown would no longer be increasing debt to pay for infrastructure projects and so the net position is the same.
More quality investment is likely to be made through a bank because standards of transparency and accountability are higher. Therefore, the net impetus through the bank is higher.
In addition, the bank’s involvement will help to attract private capital which, in the current environment is highly unlikely to be attractive to long term development financing in sufficient quantities.
Maori Development and Treaty
As the party which believes that caring for one another is a positive sign of strength in our society and in our communities, the Progressive Party is fully committed to honouring the Treaty of Waitangi as a basic building block for creating the sort of fair go place that New Zealand has striven for in the past and needs to be for the future.
The Treaty of Waitangi is important to all New Zealanders as a document of promise and those promises should and can be fulfilled. We need to remind ourselves that there are two parties to the Treaty and we commit ourselves to those promises for all New Zealanders.
The Progressives believe that honouring the Treaty means:
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
IN TREATY NEGOTIATIONS WE:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
The Treaty of Waitangi is important to all New Zealanders as a document of promise and those promises should and can be fulfilled. We need to remind ourselves that there are two parties to the Treaty and we commit ourselves to those promises for all New Zealanders.
The Progressives believe that honouring the Treaty means:
- That our government is a government for all New Zealanders. If Maori feel they have been short changed on that promise then it has not been fulfilled and this needs to be redressed if we are to move forward. We are committed to the current Treaty negotiation and arbitration process as the most effective way forward.
- The Treaty is also for Pakeha. It is the basis of our sovereignty and the legitimacy of our government. It bestows citizenship upon us all.
- That we honour the motives of those who signed it on both sides and remember that it was seen at the time as a way of preventing violent or poisonous divisions between two groups of people who were coming together and who needed to find some way to live in harmony. In honouring the Treaty we honour those bold motives and those who formulated them – our ancestors.
- But commitment is not enough in itself. It needs to be given concrete form in the real world.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
- Reduced Maori unemployment levels to their lowest point for over two decades. Maori unemployment fell by 54% between 1999 and 2008.
- Provided resources and leadership specifically in Maori education.
- Radically increased the numbers of Maori in tertiary education.
- Provided the means to build the asset base of Maori organisations which has increased 83% since 2001 to $16.5 billion.
- Established Business Aotearoa New Zealand which will deliver business support to Maori, identify development opportunities, and provide facilities for loans to Maori enterprises. We believe that people are best helped when they are helped to help themselves.
IN TREATY NEGOTIATIONS WE:
- Concluded by negotiated agreement a wide range of significant settlements including those with Taranaki Whanui Wellington, Ngati Porou, and Waikato Tainui.
- Reached terms of agreement with the North Island central iwi on a basis to allocate Crown owned forest lands.
- Concluded two major agreements, with Ngati Porou and Te Whanau a Apanui, to acknowledge long standing customary rights to the foreshore and seabed, thus proving unfounded claims in some quarters that the legislation allowing for this was a land grab. On the contrary, in our view, it honours the Treaty by ensuring that New Zealanders can live together in mutual respect for each others cultures and rights.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Continue working to ensure that Maori reach the goal of full employment on equal terms to non Maori.
- Continue to deliver educational opportunities to Maori which remove the remaining disparities in levels of achievement in all areas of our educational system.
- Continue to implement social programmes designed to iron out inequalities in earnings, life span, housing and health among Maori which will genuinely implement the promises of equal status for all New Zealanders contained in the Treaty.
- Continue to work towards full acceptance of fluency in te reo as a fully recognised and uniquely New Zealand taonga/treasure for all New Zealanders.
Sport
Sporting activities are activities central to the New Zealand way of life. The Progressive Party is committed to improving the physical health of all New Zealanders by enabling them to participate regularly in a wide range of publicly sponsored sporting activities and physical education programmes.
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
IN GOVERNMENT WE HAVE:
- Increased sports funding from $2.5 million in 1999 to $69.5 million today.
- Kept drugs out of sport by implementing new sports anti-doping legislation.
- Got Kiwis active through the ‘Push Play’ campaign.
- Passed laws which toughen penalties for ticket scalpers.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Implement a comprehensive athletic development scholarships scheme in which the key feature will be participation to encourage increasing numbers of New Zealanders to take part in sporting activities. We see this as ultimately encompassing several thousand athletes every year.
- Invest $50 million a year in a sports development programme featuring accessible training facilities and bringing world class coaches and sporting administrators to New Zealand.
- Establish a dedicated international sports events fund to attract major international sporting competitions to New Zealand both to give our own athletes the chance to meet and compete with the best in the world and to raise the level of awareness of sporting achievement among New Zealanders.
- Continue to press for free-to-air real time television broadcasting of the major sporting codes which are central to our national culture and the New Zealand way of life.
Rural Affairs
We strongly support high quality essential social services in rural areas.
High quality schools, hospitals, banking and postal services, among others, are essential to make the rural lifestyle attractive to skilled professional people who are needed in the backbone of our economy.
We won’t sell Kiwibank.
Before Kiwibank, many isolated areas of New Zealand had no banking services at all. Not even an ATM. Since Kiwibank opened, not a single branch of the big overseas banks have closed either. It’s made life easier for local businesses as well as rural residents. And it’s strengthened NZ Post. Without a banking service, the long-term future for NZ Post would threaten rural services.
Investment in broadband
The government is s pending $75 million to accelerate the rollout of high-speed internet to rural areas – that is twice as much on a population basis as is being spent in urban areas.
Progressives support this expenditure and we would accelerate it as fiscal conditions permit.
Strengthening our primary sector.
This year, Progressive leader Jim Anderton announced the largest ever investment in science and innovation in our rural sector – the $700 million Fast Forward fund. It is aimed at achieving a step change in the performance of our primary sector. It offers young graduates a long term career path in the rural-based primary sector. It strengthens the long term future of rural-based primary industries.
High quality schools, hospitals, banking and postal services, among others, are essential to make the rural lifestyle attractive to skilled professional people who are needed in the backbone of our economy.
We won’t sell Kiwibank.
Before Kiwibank, many isolated areas of New Zealand had no banking services at all. Not even an ATM. Since Kiwibank opened, not a single branch of the big overseas banks have closed either. It’s made life easier for local businesses as well as rural residents. And it’s strengthened NZ Post. Without a banking service, the long-term future for NZ Post would threaten rural services.
Investment in broadband
The government is s pending $75 million to accelerate the rollout of high-speed internet to rural areas – that is twice as much on a population basis as is being spent in urban areas.
Progressives support this expenditure and we would accelerate it as fiscal conditions permit.
Strengthening our primary sector.
This year, Progressive leader Jim Anderton announced the largest ever investment in science and innovation in our rural sector – the $700 million Fast Forward fund. It is aimed at achieving a step change in the performance of our primary sector. It offers young graduates a long term career path in the rural-based primary sector. It strengthens the long term future of rural-based primary industries.
Senior Citizens
The Progressive Party has long held the view that one of the measures of any society is the way it treats its older citizens.
All of those who have contributed throughout their lives to our society deserve the opportunity to live in decent comfort, and should be able to fully participate in their communities, in the later years of their life.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
All of those who have contributed throughout their lives to our society deserve the opportunity to live in decent comfort, and should be able to fully participate in their communities, in the later years of their life.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
- Guaranteed the value of national superannuation which now stands at 66% of the after tax average wage for a married couple. We have guaranteed annual adjustments to ensure that the rate does not fall below this level or that of movement in the consumer price index.
- Invested in elder health care. Our 2007 Budget allocated $150 million over four years in residential care and support of the elderly and a further $81.2 million to enable those who wished to do so to remain in their own homes.
- Provided additional health funding for 7,500 new cataract operations and 10,000 new hip and knee replacements.
- Phased out asset testing by raising the threshold to $170,000 with annual increases of $10,000 until asset testing is a thing of the past.
- Set up the Superannuation Fund to ensure that as the ‘baby boomers’ pass through the system the level and value of pensions can be maintained. This Fund has now topped $13 billion, and earned a return in 06/07 of 14.6% and an average return since its inception in excess of 10%.
- Significantly reduced the cost of prescriptions and visits to your GP.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Advocate as a priority a $200 winter energy rebate.
- Press for the availability of interest free loans against assets to enable repairs and maintenance to homes.
- Continue with the current review of anomalies in pension entitlements in relation to overseas pensions.
Workplace
The Progressive Party is committed to a ‘fair go’ society in which all citizens are able to live at a reasonable standard of comfort and can support their families at a level which allows them to take full advantage of the life of their communities.
A key factor in achieving this objective is the ability to find suitable work at fair wages in an economy committed to the goal of full employment. We believe in a balanced relationship between work and life so that the former does not overshadow the latter.
The Progressive Party recognises, and welcomes, the importance of the union movement as an integral partner in the development of the key economic and social policies of New Zealand.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
A key factor in achieving this objective is the ability to find suitable work at fair wages in an economy committed to the goal of full employment. We believe in a balanced relationship between work and life so that the former does not overshadow the latter.
The Progressive Party recognises, and welcomes, the importance of the union movement as an integral partner in the development of the key economic and social policies of New Zealand.
IN GOVERNMENT WE:
- Repealed the unfair and punitive employment legislation passed by a previous National government and replaced it with the more balanced Employment Relations Act which encourages collective bargaining.
- Reduced unemployment to the lowest levels enjoyed by our workforce for over two decades at a time when we have one of the highest workforce participation rates in the OECD.
- Introduced paid parental leave – a first for New Zealand – and in subsequently extending it to self employed parents.
- Fought for and won four weeks minimum annual leave for all workers through a Members’ Bill in the name of Progressive MP Matt Robson.
- Increased the minimum wage for all workers nine times in eight years so that it is now 70% higher than it was in 1999.
- Made work fairer for young workers by replacing the youth minimum wage with a new entrants minimum wage.
- Gave those with child and other care responsibilities the right to request working arrangements which better meet the needs of their families.
- Introduced subsidies for pre-school care so that parents have the option of re-entering the workforce secure in the knowledge that they can afford to have their children safely and professionally cared for during their working day.
IF RETURNED TO GOVERNMENT WE WILL:
- Pursue policies that develop further on-the-job training and apprenticeship schemes under fair conditions, and particularly ensure that the participation rates of women, Maori and Pacific people in these schemes are dramatically increased.
- Press for a statutory minimum code of conditions to be introduced for all workers covering such matters as sick leave, bereavement leave, redundancy, protection of casual and temporary employees, and workers' rights in the event of the transfer of ownership of enterprises. This code will be adopted following consultation with employers and unions.
- Advocate for legislation to ensure that women receive equal pay for work of equal value. Begin phasing in the recommendations of the Pay and Employment Equity Taskforce.
- Conduct discussions with employers, unions and other affected groups on the feasibility of the progressive reduction of the ordinary hours of work, leading to a shorter working week, but without take-home pay reductions.
- Press to amend health and safety legislation to require the establishment of workplace health and safety committees in larger workplaces. For smaller workplaces there will be requirements for worker representation regarding health and safety issues.
- Increase the resources of the Labour and OSH inspectorates to ensure that the minimum requirements of workplace conditions are honoured, that workplace health and safety are maintained, and that breaches are prosecuted. Establish a national tripartite OSH Commission with responsibility for national standard setting, enforcement and advice to the Government on OSH matters.