The Greens’ Fiscal Plan was announced yesterday. In Chloe Swarbrick’s speech to media, it was bookmarked by what government is supposed to be, and a challenge to National’s finance spokesperson.
She starts by speaking to the character of New Zealand, and the Green’s vision of what government should be,
There is no shortage of talent, creativity, innovation and hard work in this beautiful country. Truly, I have spent the last few weeks since parliament has risen with New Zealanders out there in the real world and I am constantly reminded that we are thoroughly decent, good people who just want to get along and sort things out.
The problem for the longest time it would seem is the way that we currently allow politics to be done. There is a cutthroat fixation on high level numbers divorced from the real world. There’s a focus on petty personal attacks and the most inflammatory sound bite.
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Meanwhile, the real world crumbles around us. We are not winning as a country if the government can declare a surplus while children are having cancer treatment delayed and emergency departments are in crisis. It is not responsible economic management when 47,000 more children are living in poverty today than were 3 years ago. When more New Zealanders are sleeping rough on the street than has ever been recorded. And we are more exposed to imported fossil fuel inflation than we’ve ever been.
That is not sustainable fiscal management. That is a rigged system which is not serving people or the planet. We feel that not only in our healthcare crisis or every time a climate change charge extreme weather event ravages our regions.
We feel it in the chipping away of our democracy when regular people are forced to fight over scraps and don’t have the energy to look up. But it is the job of government to look up. Look up at our opportunities and honestly assess the challenges that we are facing in the cool light of day. Because government is not merely a sector of society. Government is a rule setter and the referee. Government is the borrower of least cost. Government does things not for profit but to build a country.
Government is supposed to hold the plan and coordinate our economy to achieve our shared goals as New Zealanders.
Full transcript and video below.
Swarbrick outlines the fiscal plan, with its focus on a fence at the top of the cliff approach to the health system, comprehensive climate action, independence from the oil and the cost of living crises, and providing 64,000 jobs on top of what the market will provide.
At the end Swarbrick laid out this challenge for Nicola Willis,
In just the past week alone, I have personally featured 13 times on the National Party’s Instagram page, while their own current Minister of Finance features just twice.
Given this clear obsession with talking about the Green Party and our plans, I am officially formally inviting the National Finance spokesperson to a public debate to compare our fiscal plans and our economic strategies side by side for the benefit of New Zealanders.
So come on, Nicola, let’s get our credentials and credibility and put them to the test. If you’ve got anything to say about our plan, which I’m sure you will, come and say it’s my face in front of a live audience of New Zealanders in which you will have to talk about your plan or lack thereof.
Willis won’t of course, because she’d have to defend the indefensible past three years. But the Greens’ new voice is getting out there and the vote is holding strong. A voice we can amplify in the coming two weeks.
There is no shortage of talent, creativity, innovation and hard work in this beautiful country. Truly, I have spent the last few weeks since parliament has risen with New Zealanders out there in the real world and I am constantly reminded that we are thoroughly decent, good people who just want to get along and sort things out.
The problem for the longest time it would seem is the way that we currently allow politics to be done. There is a cutthroat fixation on high level numbers divorced from the real world. There’s a focus on petty personal attacks and the most inflammatory sound bite.
Meanwhile, the real world crumbles around us. We are not winning as a country if the government can declare a surplus while children are having cancer treatment delayed and emergency departments are in crisis. It is not responsible economic management when 47,000 more children are living in poverty today than were 3 years ago. When more New Zealanders are sleeping rough on the street than has ever been recorded. And we are more exposed to imported fossil fuel inflation than we’ve ever been.
That is not sustainable fiscal management. That is a rigged system which is not serving people or the planet. We feel that not only in our healthcare crisis or every time a climate change charge extreme weather event ravages our regions. We feel it in the chipping away of our democracy when regular people are forced to fight over scraps and don’t have the energy to look up.
But it is the job of government to look up. Look up at our opportunities and honestly assess the challenges that we are facing in the cool light of day. Because government is not merely a sector of society. Government is a rule setter and the referee. Government is the borrower of least cost. Government does things not for profit but to build a country.
Government is supposed to hold the plan and coordinate our economy to achieve our shared goals as New Zealanders. A green government will live up to this responsibility. Over the last 30 years, the Greens have shown what it would look like to have an economy that is organized around the well-being of people and planet instead of corporate greed. And in the last three years, we have very intentionally not only held Luxon’s government to account as they have taken a shredder to everything that New Zealanders care about, but released carefully considered solutions to paint a picture of the real alternative.
That’s looked like He Ara Anamata, a green emissions reduction plan, which showed what it would mean to integrate sustainability into everything that we do and stop pollution at the source.
Our industrial strategy showing how to protect our manufacturing capacity and revitalise the regions while building resilience. Our alternative budget can contrasting this government’s cuts with the prosperity possible through investing in our people and our infrastructure. Last year’s fiscal strategy, outlining what it would look like to have a government manage the real world economy, not just numbers on a page.
The Greens have been comprehensive and consistent, and today we release our fiscal plan, the final of our key election announcements. The Greens will genuinely fix the basics and build the future. We will meet the cries of frontline nurses and health care professionals and communities and parents and patients. And we will invest an extra $3 billion into health care every year for the next four years at least.
We will firstly and immediately stabilise hospitals and emergency care addressing the urgent crisis.
Secondly, we will properly fund primary preventative and community care, making the investment necessary to reduce demand on the hospital system over time and ensure New Zealanders baseline are healthier and happier. If government were instead to continue to refuse to build the fence at the top of the cliff, we will always be chasing ambulances at the bottom.
Thirdly, we have committed to developing and properly funding a long-term workforce plan for the whole workforce in health. This sizeable investment will mean just a one-year delay to the much lorded return to surplus. We will do that not by tearing our country apart, but by building it back up. We will create an additional 64,000 good jobs doing the work that is so clearly needs to be done on top of the 220,000 jobs Treasury projects the market will provide.
We will address the climate crisis through investment in domestic action, which reduces the cost of living for New Zealanders, revives our biodiversity, and means we all breathe healthier air, cleaner water is drunk, and we protect our food growing capacity, our farmers and our growers.
We will not just sit back and hope that Donald Trump doesn’t make any more unpredictable decisions impacting the cost of fuel. We will electrify and decarbonise this economy, protecting us from imported fossil fuel inflation, supporting local jobs and manufacturing.
Now, I’m sure the National Party will have a lot to say about this. Almost their entire election campaign seems to be run on talking about us, clipping our statements and our actions out of context.
In just the past week alone, I have personally featured 13 times on the National Party’s Instagram page, while their own current Minister of Finance features just twice.
Given this clear obsession with talking about the Green Party and our plans, I am officially formally inviting the National Finance spokesperson to a public debate to compare our fiscal plans and our economic strategies side by side for the benefit of New Zealanders.
So come on, Nicola, let’s get our credentials and credibility and put them to the test. If you’ve got anything to say about our plan, which I’m sure you will, come and say it’s my face in front of a live audience of New Zealanders in which you will have to talk about your plan or lack thereof.
Now, to those in the media, we have just two weeks and two days left in this election. So, I implore us all to please focus on what really matters to New Zealanders and what they deserve from their next government. We can have affordable bills. We can have healthy nature. We can have honest politics. We can have a health care system that is there to look after all of us when we need it. We can have good, well-paid jobs. We can have prosperity and productivity. We can have an economy that works for all of us. And that of course is why we are asking New Zealanders to vote green.