Category: Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

“I can’t believe that in 2024 we’re still dealing with climate deniers when there is so much overwhelming evidence that burning fossil fuels and other human activities are warming our world,” Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said.

“To imply to Pacific leaders that changes to the climate we’re experiencing are no cause for alarm, is an insult to those fighting to save their islands from rising seas.

“It serves his pro-pollution agenda to distance himself from the reality of the human-induced climate crisis.

“Pacific nations have repeatedly said that the biggest threat to their security and survival is climate change, which has brought an increasing number of hurricanes and extreme weather, rising seas, ocean acidification and other impacts that threaten lives, homes and food sources.

“The best way to build resilience to the climate crisis is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause the problem. We cannot adapt our way out of the crisis without reducing emissions.  

“There is no seawall high enough to save small low-lying nations from runaway climate change,” Chris Hipkins said.

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Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Te Rangi e tu nei

Te Papa e takoto nei

Tatou Katoa te hunga ora

Tena koutou katoa

Te whare e tu nei, Takina, tena koe

Katahi te whare miharo!

CEO Susan Freeman-Greene tena koe

Tumuaki Sam Broughton tena koe

E nga mana, e nga reo, e rau rangatira ma

Tena koutou

Tena koutou

Tena koutou katoa

I’d like to start by acknowledging all our local government leaders from across Aoteaora and thank you for the work that you do on behalf of your local communities.

Elected with your own mandates to deliver on the priorities of your local communities, you deserve a respectful partnership with central government and I’m sorry you didn’t get that this week.

I was reflecting on the important role local government plays while parliament was debating a motion to congratulate New Zealand’s successful Olympians earlier this week.

I was considering how many of those athletes would have started their sporting careers at a local swimming pool, on a local sports field, riding on a cycleway or in a local clubrooms.

That lead me to wonder how many of the stars in our film and television sector made their first appearance in in a local council provided theatre, how many of our tech entrepreneurs spent time after school in a computer clubhouse, how many of our top scholars first discovered their love of books in a community library, or how many of our local hospitality businesses rely on foot traffic from local community facilities for their income?

Passionate people chase their dreams and we should celebrate their successes, but the support they receive from their local communities should be celebrated too.

Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari he toa takitini.

My success is not mine alone, it is the success of many.

Local councils will always have at their core of their work the provision of the infrastructure we all rely on everyday like roads, water, and waste disposal. But their role, your role, in building thriving communities and providing social infrastructure is also vital to our quality of life as a nation.

It’s all very well to describe a community swimming pool as a nice to have when you have your own pool in the backyard, but the majority of our local residents aren’t that privileged.

You might not value the local playground if you can afford to buy your kids whatever experiences they want, but most hard-working parents can’t do that.

You might not think a Library is a core service when you can afford to buy whatever books you want, but not all of our local residents can do that.

Given the difficulty the Prime Minister seems to have understanding the significance of our own history as a nation, he might like to visit his local Library and they could lend him a few books on the Treaty of Waitangi.

If he did that, he might conclude that when local communities decide whether or not to have a Maori ward, central government should respect that decision, just as we do a decision to establish or abolish a general ward, a rural ward, a community board or a ward committee.

In my introductory remarks I acknowledged Takina – this amazing convention centre that is helping to boost our local economy here in Wellington, creating jobs and supporting local businesses. And unlike the convention centre the previous National government bequeathed Auckland – we didn’t need to increase gambling to make it happen.

Like most politicians I love the opportunity to engage with our ethnic communities at the many festivals and celebrations held across the country every year. I’ve yet to hear any of the politicians who take to the stage criticise the council for helping to provide the means for those events to take place.

So let’s be clear about what the Prime Minister’s speech earlier this week was really all about – politics.

After decades of being told by central government to keep rates low, local governments are now facing the reality of a burgeoning infrastructure investment backlog and that’s flowing through in higher rates bills.

Rather than look for solutions to that challenge, the current government are instead focussed on apportioning blame.

They cancelled the work of the previous government to limit rates increases by delivering water infrastructure more efficiently and now they are trying to distance themselves from the rates increases that flow from that decision.

Let’s face facts. Many councils across the country simply don’t have access to the kind of funding they need to get on top of an infrastructure deficit that has been decades in the making.

Lambasting today’s local government leaders, who by and large are working really hard to grapple with challenges they themselves have inherited, is cheap and petty politics.

Slogans aren’t solutions, and apportioning blame seldom moves things forward in a positive way.

We need an honest conversation between central and local government about how we are going to pay to fix up our infrastructure, and central government walking away from that conversation is an abandonment of their responsibilities.

An honest conversation would force all of us to face up to some inconvenient truths. For four or five decades now we’ve run down our assets and underinvested in growth. Blaming today’s local government leaders for that conveniently ignores the role central government has played in setting the rules of the game.

In the two decades I’ve been in politics I’ve lost count of the number of politicians on the centre-right of the spectrum who have chastised councils for increasing rates, while offering no alternative solutions for how to fund the work that needs to be done.

The result is the work we can’t see – the pipes and water treatment plans, have often end up deferred, delayed, or just not contemplated at all.

But it’s not like central government’s record is any better.

Just look at our schools and hospitals, which are run down, over-crowded and in many cases, well past their use by date.

Or look at our electricity infrastructure, where paying out billions of dollars in dividends has been prioritised over investment in new generation and new infrastructure.

Or look at state houses, where central governments, usually National ones, have prioritised dividends over investment in maintenance and the building of new homes.

The last Labour Government was determined to be bolder than that. We made big investments in schools, hospitals and housing. And did put in place a longer-term pipeline of work.

Big investments take time to show results. I stand by the investments made and the ones we were yet to make in the future of our country. I wasn’t interested in prioritising investments that I could be guaranteed to cut the ribbon on. We need to think longer term when it comes to investing in our future as a country.

It’s ironic that the current government are now talking about wanting bipartisan consensus after axing, often with little justification, so many of the investments that were underway when they took office. 

Things like one in six public homes being built by our Labour Government. By next year, in less than 18 months, this government will have taken us from a position where we were building record numbers of new state houses to a position where we are once again building none.

We made commitment to new hospitals for Dunedin, Whangarei, Hawkes Bay and Nelson. Projects that will take years to complete, but are vital nonetheless.

We delivered thousands of new and upgraded classrooms, with a full pipeline of work ahead. The new government have cut over $2billion of work from that pipeline. 

When we left office, funding was earmarked for future investments of $71 billion. That’s on top of the $45 billion we had already invested.

We had set aside over $6billion to assist local communities address the resilience challenges they are now facing due to climate change and the increasing prevalence of extreme weather events. Sadly that was one of the first things to be cut by the incoming National government.

The central government can’t keep loading more and more onto local councils and then attack you because you don’t have the means to pay for all of these additional responsibilities.

When floods, cyclones and other natural disasters hit communities, I’ve yet to hear anyone complain the local council was too prepared and that investments they had made in mitigation and adaptation were nice to haves.

We need to end the cycle of apportioning blame, thinking only short term, and avoiding the tough calls we need to make now if we want a better future for this amazing country.

We need to make some big calls, and these big calls need to be backed by proper investment. That simply won’t happen if we continue to constrain Government spending to such a narrow percentage of GDP.

It also won’t happen if the government continues to run down our construction sector. This week I asked the Prime Minister about how in a year, he’s overseen the monthly number of new building consents drop by 26 percent, 6,000 jobs go from the building and construction sector, and 57 percent of construction businesses are now reporting difficulties with procurement and work consent conditions, up from 36 percent last year.

Of course, Christopher Luxon did his best job of not answering the question and deflect blame – a common theme with this government.

Yet Civil Contractors New Zealand CEO Alan Pollard recently said, “We have this strange situation where there’s a mountain of infrastructure work that the country needs, and it’s coming”— then goes on to say—”but since the election, everything has stopped effectively.”

The new government has been more interested in scoring points against the last one than it has been in maintaining momentum and fixing things up.

We must have the realistic and adult conversation about borrowing.

Borrowing for day-to-day consumption isn’t something we should do, if avoidable. Particularly not for tax cuts. An exception perhaps being a global and deadly pandemic.

But borrowing to fund investment in infrastructure and assets for the future is something a government shouldn’t be so afraid to do.

We should boldly get behind projects we don’t see ourselves cutting the ribbon on. We should invest properly, instead of deferring or delaying and never beginning.

Public Private Partnerships and other private sector equity still doesn’t side-step the fact that someone still has to pay – that ultimate bill usually either falling on central or local government or the kiwi consumer.

The Future of Local Government review rightly found that there needs to be changes to our outdated rating system that gives councils more tools in the toolkit to fund the investments they need to make.

This is a conversation Labour was having with the sector. The new government came in and called it woke nonsense.

A sustainable future model with councils to build the infrastructure needed, invest in placemaking and operate local services without burdening so heavily on rates is something we should all be working towards.

City and regional deals are a great idea, but we need to be upfront about how we will fund them. If the financial burden once again falls back to ratepayers, they are doomed to fail.

Looking to the future, the reality is New Zealanders voted for change last year. But I don’t think what Kiwis are getting, is what they thought they voted for.

There is no thought and no care in the decisions this Government is making.

Labour has a lot of work to do to develop our policies, and make sure that the manifesto we do put forward at the next election is realistic, achievable, and affordable. So we need your help finding solutions to the problems the local government sector faces.

The current government may have walked away from the future of local government review, but we’re still very much at the table.

I will commit us right now to no unfunded mandates in local government. If central government wants something done then we must back you to do it.

But if you want something from us, you must bring a solution along with the problem.

Now is the time for creative thinking, new ideas, and a bold vision for the future and that is what Labour will provide in 2026.

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Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

Source: New Zealand Labour Party

New Zealand committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions gradually so that by 2050, we’re at net-zero, meaning the minimal emissions we do make are offset by things like planting trees. 

Labour had a workable, long-term plan to manage the way we got to net-zero. But under National’s new Emissions Reductions Plan, we’ll miss this target. National are unwinding important progress, leaving future generations to pick up the tab. If New Zealand misses its own targets, we will need to pay even more for expensive offshore mitigation projects.

The Government is offering almost no policy to reduce pollution from livestock and is failing to maintain the electric vehicle uptake rates achieved under Labour. They’re also repealing the oil and gas exploration ban and prioritising undemocratic and destructive fast-track legislation.

These choices show the National Government is out of touch with New Zealanders, who want to see our environment protected and climate targets reached. We need to be taking bold action to transform our economy and ensure our people, homes and livelihoods are secure into the future.

• What can we do? Consultation is currently open on the Emissions Reduction Plan for communities to have their say. We have created a guide with suggestions for submitting on the Plan, which is open for consultation until Sunday August 25.
• How do I submit? There are options to take a shorter (four question) or longer survey. You can fill in as many questions as you like.

Below, we have provided suggested answers to the four ‘General Consultation Questions’. Feel free to edit our guide based on your own knowledge and local priorities, to make sure your voice is heard.

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Suggestions for submitting on New Zealand’s second emissions reduction plan

Consultation Question 1: What do you think is working well in New Zealand to reduce our emissions and achieve the 2050 net zero target?

The previous Labour Government had a workable, long-term plan to meet our emissions targets.

National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods.

Under the Government’s plan, we are going to blow our carbon budget by 17 million tonnes – the equivalent of 153 million car trips from Wellington to Auckland.

Banning offshore oil and gas was also an important part of achieving net zero by 2050. The reversal of the offshore oil and gas exploration ban will see an additional 51 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions pumped into the atmosphere by 2050.

We urge the reconsideration and the return to these forward-thinking climate policies, which were generating a substantial reduction in emissions and keeping us on track to meet our climate targets.

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Consultation Question 2. The Government is taking a ‘net-based approach’ that uses both emissions reductions and removals to reduce overall emissions in the atmosphere (rather than an approach that focuses only on reducing emissions at the source). A net-based approach is helpful for managing emissions in a cost-effective way that helps grow the economy and increase productivity in New Zealand.

A) What do you see as the key advantages of taking a net-based approach?

We need to ensure a transition is a just transition; a net-based approach can be used as a tool to help us get there.

B) What do you see as the key challenges to taking a net-based approach?

A net-based approach, including planting trees, is an important aspect of our climate response. However, it should not be used instead of focusing on climate mitigation. If New Zealand misses its own targets, we could end up paying billions extra to other countries for climate projects, to make up the shortfall.

The Climate Change Commission has previously warned against relying too heavily on trees, because of the risk of carbon offsets driving planting on all the country’s available land – while polluters fail to tackle the root causes of emissions, such as burning fossil fuels in vehicles and factories.

The Climate Change Commission and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment both advise offsetting emissions in permanent ways, whereas commercial forests stop sequestering carbon once they are logged. Wilding pine forests also pose a risk to native flora and fauna and can cause immense damage in extreme weather.

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Consultation Question 3. What, if any, other sectors or areas do you think have significant opportunities for cost-effective emissions reduction?

The National Government has cut $3 billion in climate-related work in Budget 2024, which will undo progress across many successful projects, including key research.

It has cut programmes such as the Clean Car Discount that encouraged sustainable transport, and the Government Investment in Decarbonisation Industry that helped large emitters transition to renewable energy.  GIDI is expected to deliver projects that would account for 17% of total emissions reductions planned in the first emissions budget and 35% of emissions reductions planned in the second emissions budget.

The Government also scrapped He Waka Eke Noa, the government-farming partnership set up by Labour to come up with a non-ETS pricing system for agriculture.

It is a huge missed opportunity to cut these projects. Figures in the draft plan reveal the climate impact of ditching Labour’s policies including EV subsidies (1.4 million tonnes more emissions from 2026-2030), grants to replace big industrial boilers (4.3 million tonnes more from 2026-2030), and relaxing standards on tailpipe emissions for cars imported into the country (a million tonnes, between now and 2035).

Delaying putting a price on emissions from farming from the original date of 2025 added another 1.9 million tonnes of emissions from 2026-2030. Carbon prices falling from what was expected (partly a result of the Government’s approach to allowing forestry to offset emissions) added another 0.7 tonnes.

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Consultation Question 4. What Māori- and iwi-led action to reduce emissions could benefit from government support?

There are additional questions about Māori- and iwi-led action to reduce emissions and impacts of proposed ERP2 policies on Māori and iwi in chapters 1 and 12.

Cuts made in Budget ‘24 will directly reduce Māori- and iwi-led action to reduce emissions. $37 million has been cut altogether by returning uncommitted funding for developing mātauranga Māori-based approaches to accelerate new emissions mitigations.

Some communities, including Māori, are disproportionately impacted and are particularly vulnerable – for example, because of existing socio-economic inequities or where they live.

We need to ensure an equitable transition for Māori, led by Māori, to uphold their rights and interests under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That will require building Crown–Māori relationships and capability to work together as equal partners on our climate response.

Labour had a plan for this under ‘Fit for a better world: Biological Emissions Reduction Science and Mātauranga Plan’. Developed with industry partners, this plan was to help get farmers utilise new technologies and practices to reduce biological emissions from agriculture.

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Source: New Zealand Labour Party