Act irresponsible in walking out too quickly
He has led two smaller coalition partners in government. He says Rodney Hide is threatening to flounce out of government if he doesn’t get his way.
“It’s counter-productive as a means to get the policy you want, and it is a bad way to govern. When two parties cannot handle their differences without one walking out, it says either there is bad faith at the heart of government, or one party is not up to the challenges of government.
“It is inevitable when there is more than one party in government that there will be some issues on which the parties feel passionate and have different views. If one party stomped out every time it couldn’t get what it wanted, then cooperation and coalition could never happen.
“Mr Hide thinks Act will win some support over the Maori seats issue, but it will lose more credibility than it gains. The public will see Mr Hide as irresponsible - and that is a larger problem for Mr Hide than the policy at stake.
“Larger parties will never be seen to be allowing the tail to wag the dog. All Act can do by walking out is make itself irrelevant. For small parties, there are a lot of bitter pills to swallow. If your ideas are popular, the larger party will adopt them as their own anyway, but at least you get your policy adopted.
“The way to get what you want is by constructive argument and dealing with the objections of your partner, not by making threats. If they couldn’t agree and believe the issue is so important, Act should have reached an agreement that another minister would take over the relevant bill, allowing Act to vote against it.
“Making every important issue a make or break one means that eventually the relationship will break or at least be less effective.
“I would be pleased to see someone else than Mr Hide as Minister for Local Government, however. He clearly doesn’t like local bodies or the constructive role they play in the development of their communities and that is hardly a good qualification for being their minister.”
Time has come for Kiwibank critics to admit they were wrong
Loans grew by 52 per cent. Retail deposits grew by 39 per cent.
“The decision to set up a New Zealand-owned bank was the right one.
“Kiwibank has been an overwhelming success.
“It’s great that we have our own bank performing so well at a time of international financial crisis. We don’t have to be dependent on overseas financial markets. Those markets right now look like the dog that critics claimed that Kiwibank would be.
“Kiwibank’s success results from its commitment to the New Zealand community that other banks don’t have: Its profits stay here and help New Zealand. It doesn’t get involved in large tax avoidance schemes. Kiwibank opened a larger branch network than the other banks, and as a result those banks have stopped closing their branches. And Kiwibank charges lower interest rates and fees than its overseas competitors.
“When Kiwibank was set up, National and Act – and their cheerleaders – said New Zealanders couldn’t run our own bank. They were wrong. Today would be a graceful day to admit it.”
Comment on agriculture, August 2009
When new targets for reducing our carbon emissions were released, Federated Farmers said they remain concerned about the impact on farming and the wider economy.
It’s not hard to see why, considering the importance of farming to our economy.
If an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is reached, it is likely to require that emissions targets are stricter for rich countries than for poor ones. Alone among developed countries, agriculture makes up a huge share of our total greenhouse gas emissions. Other economies that are dominated by agriculture are poor.
If our farmers have to pay for emissions while, their competitors in poor countries don’t, the hit on our economy will be substantial.
But there are other factors we need to consider.
Greenhouse gas emissions cause climate changes, and if no global agreement is reached to do something, climate change is likely to damage our agriculture.
Getting an agreement on climate change suits us, because no other developed country is as dependent on climate as we are. Just ask farmers who had to cope with long, crushing droughts in recent years whether climate change was good for their businesses.
I think this point is avoided by critics who talk about other developed countries leaving agriculture out of agreements, or who question climate change altogether. Their approach is not prudent - careful management requires that we manage risks, and climate change represents a big risk to New Zealand agriculture and therefore to our economy.
We have to do our bit if we are going to get the rest of the world to do theirs.
I heard our trade negotiations minister, Mr Groser, say that the government will be very cautious in climate change talks. We will follow other countries and we won’t try to set an example of best practice.
Mr Groser used to be one of our trade negotiators, and he argued exactly the opposite approach - when he talks about global free trade he talks about leading the world, setting a good example and being the purest of the pure. Now he wants a change of approach when it comes to climate change.
The inconsistency will cost us credibility.
Maybe Mr Groser doesn’t believe in climate change. But even if he doesn’t believe the science, it’s still bad for farming to hold out against the world.
We won’t get our competitors in India, China and Brazil to sign up to emissions agreements if we don’t pull our weight, and we won’t get consumers in rich countries to pay a premium for pure New Zealand food if they perceive us as dirty.
So on business grounds alone, we need to do our bit.
The best approach to reduce our total emissions would be more forestry planting, more research into technology that can help farmers reduce emissions, more renewable energy generation and energy conservation, better pubic transport and more use of biofuels.
That would take some pressure off farming businesses.
Unfortunately, farmers are being hung out to dry by decisions that have scaled back progress on all these fronts.
My worry is that the result will be that farmers eventually get dumped with all the costs of climate change, and none of the help they should have to deal with the costs.
Farmers to pay for Auckland roads
“The roads are still regional, but now the bill is national.
“There aren’t many farms in Auckland. But farmers will be getting the bill for Auckland roads.
“When we had a regional tax, a tunnel under Auckland would have been paid by Auckland motorists. Now they have axed the tunnel, and sent the bill to farmers and others outside Auckland. Everyone loses.
“Fuel costs are an important input cost for farmers. When petrol tax goes up, their input costs go up.
“It can be fair to charge someone more when they get more of the benefit. But farmers and others in rural communities get less benefit from new Auckland roads than Aucklanders do,” Jim Anderton said.
Sending NZ SAS to Afghanistan
The Progressive Party was established only after a policy disagreement over intervention in Afghanistan. So we have passionate views about this issue.
And today we believe we must continue to support stability in Afghanistan, but the days when we should have combat troops there are over.
In 2002 Progressive supported New Zealand involvement in Afghanistan because the situation there at the time represented a clear and present threat to the civilised world.
Al qaeda had just committed a terrorist atrocity in the United States.
I was acting prime minister the day it happened.
One of those killed in the US attacks was a New Zealand citizen.
I sent a message to the US President saying New Zealand saw the attack as an attack on not only the United States, but on all civilised society. And I promised New Zealand would stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in resisting the terrorist attacks, and we kept that promise.
The al qaeda threat was a global threat.
The Taleban responded to those attacks by giving al qaeda shelter.
In the football stadiums where election rallies are being held today, the Taleban were then carrying out mass executions for their perverted political ends.
The world could not stand by and ignore what was being done to civilisation.
The Secretary General of the UN at the time said: “The only way to win against terrorism is to organise a common international action. The main point is that the fight be led within the framework of the United Nations on the basis of the two Security Council resolutions and the General Assembly resolutions.”
That UN agreement to intervene is crucial.
International law makes it clear that the only grounds for military intervention are self-defence or UN-sanction. And so UN authority for the Afghanistan intervention was vital to ensure it complied with international law.
Once that was decided, our involvement was to send provincial reconstruction teams.
We also sent the SAS.
Their work is not soft. Willie Apiata’s Victoria Cross is proof of that.
But you cannot send children to school and sick people to hospital, and you cannot develop economies and end poverty, when terrorists are doing their best to kill and to threaten entire communities.
So I supported SAS involvement in Afghanistan to help reconstruction. My party exists because of it.
But it’s not an open-ended commitment. What we cannot support is involvement that tries to take sides in the feudal infighting in Afghanistan today. There are layers of sides in Afghanistan. We can’t pick one over the other.
We can help the country to clear itself of al qaeda, however. We must have United Nations authority to do so. We must have a firm base in international law.
But we cannot just walk away.
That would give not only Afghanistan, but northern Pakistan to the Taleban and to other ideological extremists.
Pakistan is a nuclear state. I don’t like that it is - but it is. And it is teetering dangerously. The consequences of a nuclear state like Pakistan becoming even more unstable are too dangerous to tolerate. The whole world has a strong interest in making sure that doesn’t happen.
The best contribution we can make is to support stability in Afghanistan. Therefore we should offer to be there and to help.
But I do not support doing so through a continued combat role for the SAS in Afghanistan.
We have pulled our weight there. We have spent over $180 million on military assistance and aid there.
This is a debate about the kind of assistance we offer. Our contribution today has to be towards rebuilding, and helping strengthen the Afghan National Army under democratic control following the elections later this week.
Families in energy poverty while Brownlee looks for magic pudding solution
households facing huge power bills this year, Progressive Wigram MP Jim
Anderton says.
"Gerry Brownlee is relying on a magic pudding solution that reduces
costs but no one's going to pay.
"Finding a new structure in energy could take years, while there is a
crisis of electricity poverty this winter," Jim Anderton says.
His Wigram electorate office has been inundated with record numbers of
people who can't afford their winter power bills.
For example, a solo mother with an eleven month old baby got a power
bill for $369 for a four-week period. A low income young working couple
in a Housing NZ flat got a power bill for $400 for four weeks, and a
superannuitant living alone in his own home got a power bill for $205.
"Many families are wondering how they will pay their bills. Power bills
have been driven up by a combination of an early start to winter, with
very cold months early this year, and power bills that have risen faster
than inflation.
"There are alternatives. The state of Victoria, for example, provides
low-income households with more than $1 billion a year in concessions
for essential services. It pays a rebate to some households that reduces
the cost of LPG heating gas. In the United Kingdom, the government
provides a winter fuel payment of NZ$750 for pensioners over 60, and it
pays NZ$1200 for the over-80s.
"Today's review shows energy companies are charging too much for power
and some of those profits should be used to help very poor New Zealand
households," Jim Anderton said.
Matt Robson speech: Towards an Arctic Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
Towards an Arctic Nuclear Weapons
Free Zone
Towards a Nuclear Weapons’ Free World
Hon Matt Robson
Address at
Copenhagen Pugwash Conference
10-11 August 2009
We live in an unbalanced world in terms of what humanity needs and what humanity gets. That means we live in a world of contradictions.
Billions of our fellow citizens live without adequate, shelter, food or clothing. Over 2.5 billion human beings, 40% of the world’s population, have to try and live on less than US$2 per day. They lack adequate health care, if they get it all, and have little quality education. The great majority in this situation live in the so-called developing world. But a sizeable number who go without also live in the richest countries.
The world’s richest individuals have a combined income greater than that of the poorest 416 million.
Yet those whom Bob Dylan called ‘the masters of war’ have determined that rather than meeting these basic needs of humanity ,that military spending will take priority and that that spending needs indeed to increase.
The internationally respected Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported in June 2008 as follows:
World military spending grew 45 percent in the past decade with the United States accounting for nearly half of all expenditure. Military spending grew 6 per cent in 2007. And that growth continues.
In 2007 $1.338 trillion was spent on arms and other military expenditure, corresponding to 2.5 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product, or GDP – or $202 for each of the world’s 6.6 billion people.
The United States spends by far the most toward military aims, officially dishing out $547 billion last year, or 45 percent of global expenditure. Britain, China, France and Japan, their next group of big military spenders, lag far behind at just 4 to 5 percent of world military costs each.
In 2008, eight nuclear weapon states possessed almost 10,200 operational nuclear weapons. Several thousand of these nuclear weapons are kept on high alert. When all nuclear warheads are counted – operational warheads, spares, those in both active and inactive storage, and intact warheads to be dismantled, the nuclear armed states have 25,000 warheads.
So we know where the weapons of mass destruction that George Bush went looking for in Iraq are located. Those WMD's were right under the noses of George and Tony. Not with rogue states and terrorist groups but in the military installations of the largest and most powerful states and a number of them in the fragile ecosystem of the Arctic region.
SIPRI concludes that the 5 nuclear states defined by the NPT in 1968 - China, France, Russia, the UK the USA - are all in the process of deploying new nuclear weapons or have announced their intention to do so.
The de facto nuclear weapon states of Israel, India and Pakistan, and probably North Korea, are proceeding apace to develop missile systems that can deliver nuclear weapons.
In the decade to 2008 military spending in Eastern Europe went up 62 per cent. North America 65 per cent, the Middle East by 62 per cent, South Asia by 57 per cent and Africa and East Asia by 51 per cent each.
This escalation has of course been a bonanza for the Merchants of Death. Sixty-three of the hundred top weapons firms are in the USA and Western Europe. In 2006 their sales were reported as $292.3 billion. In the economic recession, they are not reported as having any great financial problems.
Joseph Stieglitz and Linda Bilmes in their wonderful research for the “Three Trillion Dollar War”, published in 2008, estimated that the USA had spent three trillion dollars on George Bush and Tony Blair’s war against Iraq. They asked how this enormous sum could have been used beneficially in the USA and the wider world.
For the USA alone, they say:
A trillion dollars could have built 8 million additional housing units, could have hired some 15 million additional public school teachers for one year; could have paid for 120 million children to attend a year of head start; or insured 530 million children for health care for one year; or provided 43 million students with four – year scholarships at public universities. Now multiply those numbers by three.
They then go on to calculate the effect if the money or even a fraction of it, for the war had been devoted to development goals for the poorest countries:
For sums less than the direct expenditures on the war, we could have fulfilled our commitment to provide 7 per cent of our gross domestic product to help developing countries – money that could have made an enormous difference to the well-being of billions living in poverty today ... two trillion dollars would enable us to meet our commitments to the poorest countries for the next third of a century.
How to redress this imbalance of expenditure?
If a referendum was held of the world’s peoples on whether military expenditure should be greatly decreased and for the abolition of all nuclear weapons in favour of the goals set out by Stieglitz and Bilmes my money would be on the bet that a thumping majority would vote yes.
Our task at this conference is to be part of a movement to mobilise humanity so that that referendum becomes a reality and a movement of solidarity across the globe grows and its voice becomes one that cannot be ignored.
Nuclear weapon free zones are a vital tool in developing that voice so that that voice becomes a powerful political force.
Creating an Arctic nuclear-free zone will be an important part of building that political force will redress the imbalance with the Antarctic and will provide an important impetus to the goal of the total abolition of all nuclear weapons.
The Southern Hemisphere
When all the countries of Africa below the equator are committed to the Treaty of Pelindaba, and that is almost complete, then every country in the southern hemisphere will be free of nuclear weapons.
This means the Pacific countries, those in Asia, Latin America and now Africa have committed themselves to rid not only their own territories of nuclear weapons but also to being part of the overwhelming number of countries committed to their total abolition.
We in New Zealand, at government level, and among the people, have long supported the call not just for a southern hemisphere nuclear weapons free zone but one that incorporates adjacent areas as well.
We are well aware that the indigenous peoples of the Pacific, in the north and south, have led the way in our region to be nuclear-free. Their territories and waters were the testing ground for the nuclear powers and they suffered terribly and continue to suffer from the effects of radiation and forced relocation.
All of Latin America, Central and South, and the Caribbean are nuclear weapons free zones.
And at the Antarctic, that area so important for the whole planet, a nuclear weapons free zone, a military free zone, has been in place since the Treaty of Antarctica of 1959. It is unimaginable now that humanity would accept nuclear weapons or any military activity in this precious heritage area for the earth.
The Madrid Protocol of 1991 to the Treaty of Antarctica has reinforced the Antarctic’s peaceful status by proclaiming that it is a natural reserve and the only activities permitted under international law are those devoted to peaceful purposes, scientific research and protection of the environment. Mining exploration is prohibited.
It is more than time, 50 years later that Antarctica is balanced by its polar opposite at the Arctic, equally important for the survival of life on this planet. The Arctic must be declared a nuclear weapons free zone for the sake of humanity for the sake of the world’s ecosystem. The wheel does not have to be reinvented. The model to achieve this goal exists in the Treaty of Antarctica and over 50 years of adherence by the whole world to its provisions.
And that NWFZ for the Arctic is what this conference will set its sights on
Checking in all nuclear weapons at the Equator
Earlier this year I had an enforced stay in a hotel in Hong Kong. To pass the time I watched a John Wayne special – 5 westerns. In one of the B-grade (or possibly C-grade) films, John Wayne, as sheriff, and Dean Martin as his deputy, battled lawlessness in a frontier town. One of their key methods was to ensure that all and sundry at the precincts of the town handed in their guns. They could pick them up on the way out.
This reminded me of my suggestion as a Minister to the, inaptly named, Conference on Disarmament at Geneva in early 2000.
Remembering the westerns I had seen on so many Saturday afternoons as a child, where they practised the John Wayne method, I suggested to the nuclear powers represented at the conference that it would be a big step forward for disarmament if they committed to check in their nuclear weapons at the Equator before entering the Southern Hemisphere.
Exactly how this would work in practice, and how the weapons would be stored and safeguarded, I had not worked out at that stage. But I am sure that those mere details could have been prescribed.
Needless to say my proposal did not receive a warm welcome from the five declared nuclear powers of the NPT, in particular the United States. One representative accused me of trying to undermine NATO with my proposal. I replied that I hadn’t had that intention but now that he mentioned it i thought that was probably a good idea.
I can advise however, that in talks with the representative of China he did state that China would commit to such a policy and that China would respect the NWFZ status of the Southern Hemisphere if all other countries did.
How do we get to our goal for the Arctic?
First of all we should remember what a step forward it would be to the goal of the NPT of abolishing all nuclear weapons if the Arctic gained the status of Antarctica.
Then we should remember the patient building and mobilising of public opinion that went into creating the NWFZ that now exist, including the most recent one in 2006 in the central Asian States.
The key is mobilising public opinion, by committed parliamentarians, peace groups, environmental groups and the mass organisations. Support can then be built nationally, regionally and internationally.
Modern technology, as events in Iran have demonstrated once again, can give the wings of Mercury to this movement. To say that someone was twittering was once an insult. Now it makes the most powerful politician quake to hear the word.
Enormous support is also building for such zones in Central Europe, East Asia and the Middle East.
In regard to the Arctic, the only Arctic states that are not already nuclear-free are the United States and Russia. That of course presents a huge obstacle. These two super powers are expanding both their military, commercial and exploratory activity as global warming relentlessly frees up large areas that were previously frozen and made access difficult or impossible.
Norway’s Foreign Minister was reported in the Guardian newspaper recently as saying that:
“The rise in temperature across the Arctic is twice the world average. Soon there will be no summer ice – that will open up new routes and new strategic issues for the world...”
And those strategic issues include the greater military presence in the Arctic, including a nuclear armed presence on submarines, aircraft and bases, as countries position themselves to take advantage of newly accessible mineral resources and a new sea route at the top of the world.
Fortunately we do no have to start from zero to try and make the call of the 2007 Canadian Pugwash group for an Arctic NWFZ a reality.
Already a Seabed Treaty forbids the stationing of nuclear weapons on the Arctic Ocean floor. The majority of Arctic states are nuclear weapon free. The majority of states are trying to work cooperatively on the key environmental questions.
But as international lawyer Donald Rothwell has pointed out:
“The current Arctic environmental protection regime is based around a collection of customary international law, fragmented multilateral and bilateral legal instruments dealing with some arctic issues, and global international instruments that have an impact in the arctic. Currently there is no unifying connector for these various components of international law which have specific and general application in the arctic. Unlike Antarctica, there is no regional infrastructure based on international law to facilitate or promote cooperation and the development of new international law.”
Our job is to work towards getting that unifying connector and to develop that new international law.
We need to work closely with all the ecological activists , as so many of us do, who are highlighting the fragility of the Arctic, the disaster that is global warming and the need to give the Arctic the type of protection that Antarctica already has.
The declaration that comes from this Conference needs to be a mobilising document that goes out by every conceivable means so that the twitter becomes a clarion call for action.
Our parliaments across the world, our mass organisations, our scientists and youth leaders and the organisations of indigenous people can take up this demand to add the Arctic, which is the heritage for all humanity and pivotal to the survival of life on the planet, to the existing and growing zones which are free of that blight on humanity – nuclear weapons.
Electricity poverty crisis
There is a crisis of electricity poverty underway in New Zealand this winter, Progressive Wigram MP Jim Anderton says.
His electorate office has been inundated with record numbers of people who can’t afford their winter power bills.
Examples include:
- A solo mother with an eleven month old baby got a power bill for $369 for a four-week period. She has a wood burner but can’t afford wood. She has a medical certificate from her GP about the respiratory condition of her baby. She lives in a Housing New Zealand home, but can’t get a heat pump or carpet to help keep the house warm. How is she supposed to pay that bill?
- A young couple in another Housing NZ home have one source of power – a wall heater. They got a power bill for $400 for four weeks. These are working people on a very low income, already struggling to pay their rent. There is paint peeling off the walls because of mould. They are on the waiting list for a heat pump, but won’t be getting it before the winter is over.
- A young solo mother with four children came to my office with a power account of $400 for four weeks. They are in a Housing New Zealand home with a log burner, and on the urgent waiting list for a heat pump.
- I had a superannuitant who came to see me, living in his own home, alone. He got a power bill for $205. If you are living on a fixed income and you get a power bill of $205 for four weeks, what are you supposed to do?
“What is a solo mum with four kids meant to do with a power bill of $400 for four weeks? All four children have recurrent upper and lower respiratory tract infections. That is what happens when you have electricity poverty. Health problems that cost much more than the power bill.
“I understand that Housing New Zealand is not even allowing energy community action to enter homes to undertake a report on insulation and heating options.
“There is no other expense that is similar to electricity bills - a seasonal spike that is an unavoidable expense, unpredictable and sometimes quite extreme in the context of a family budget;
“There are alternatives. The state of Victoria, for example, provides low-income households with more than $1 billion a year in concessions for essential services. It pays a rebate to some households that reduces the cost of LPG heating gas.
“In the United Kingdom, the government provides a winter fuel payment of NZ$750 for pensioners over 60, and it pays NZ$1200 for the over-80s.
“I believe we need some urgent intervention to help New Zealand homes. Energy prices have been rising steadily for around fifteen years. That has now combined with a very cold couple of months.
“The result is electricity poverty and real hardship for thousands of New Zealanders,” Jim Anderton said.