A Green New Deal for New Zealand: three challenges, one solution

A Green New Deal takes on three of New Zealand's biggest problems at once. It tackles the economic crisis, the environmental crisis and the climate crisis at the same time.

The Green New Deal at a glance

It's a plan to stimulate the economy and create the jobs we need, while putting in place the infrastructure to build a fairer and more sustainable country.

So far the Greens have put out two packages of "shovel-ready" stimulus initiatives. Each has been costed, including the number of jobs it could create. Our idea is that communities and government work together to create jobs where people need work, and doing the type of work that will make our economy more sustainable, robust and fair for the future.

First pack of Green New Deal initiatives:

In May 2009 we released a green stimulus package to save or create almost 18,000 jobs (FTE for 1 year) directly and almost 43,000 in all, by investing $1B per year over the next 3 years in:

• Energy efficiency (insulating homes, upgrading schools and businesses)

• Transport efficiency (more choice, more affordable, better for health)

• Protecting waterways (improve water quality and biodiversity, protect 100% Pure brand, reduce flooding)

• Building more homes (build 6,000 new state houses, lower energy costs, improved asset value and healthier people)

• Community sector initiatives (waste minimisation, community housing and more)

Download the first package of Green New Deal initiatives

Second pack of Green New Deal Initiatives:

In December 2009 we announced three more proposals to save and create jobs while addressing crucial environmental challenges. This second pack could create over 25,000 FTE jobs directly and a total of more than 50,000 FTE jobs altogether by investing $474.5 million over ten years in:

• Forestry (jobs in rural areas, export industry, improved water quality)

• Animal pest control (biodiversity gains, jobs in rural areas, expanded fur industry)

• Wilding conifer control (Retains economic base to keep rural communities viable, protect biodiversity)

Download the second package of Green New Deal initiatives

These two packs create a menu of initiatives for the Government to choose from.

A Green New Deal for New Zealand: A Warm Home and a Cool Planet

A Green New Deal takes on three of New Zealand's biggest problems at once. It tackles the economic crisis, the environmental crisis and the climate crisis at the same time.

The original New Deal

America was in deep economic trouble in 1933: closed banks, high unemployment, falling commodity prices. President Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a new social contract between the Government and the people. The programme was designed to give relief to the unemployed, reform business and financial practices, and promote economic recovery.

The New Deal is best remembered for its major spending by the Government. Capital works and infrastructure programmes provided work, stimulated economic activity and provide a socially fair basis for the future economy.

The New Deal also reformed banking and finance regulations, supported trade unions, provided for social welfare programmes, stimulated education and creative endeavours, and supported many industries. President Roosevelt's integrated programme of activity addressed a myriad of problems simultaneously.

New Zealand today

New Zealand in 2009 faces a similar situation.

Financial crisis

The developed world is in the grip of a financial crisis, brought on by the collapse of the speculative economy. Asset bubbles have burst and left debt levels hugely out of kilter with the real value of assets. The supply of credit has dried up as a result. The underlying assumptions of the banking and financial sectors have been proved wrong, and ordinary people are paying the price as sales and then jobs fall as a consequence.

New Zealand and the world also face crises in the way we interact with our natural environment and in the energy that we use.

Climate change

At the most urgent level, we face the imminent prospect of climate change. Unless we urgently reduce our net emission of greenhouse gases, we face unstoppable catastrophic effects.

New Scientist recently speculated on the likely effects of a 4 degree rise in global temperatures, expected this century on current trends. They suggested this will leave most of the earth's landmass uninhabitable. Most land will either become desert or suffer from extreme flooding and other weather events. Remaining land, including New Zealand, will be needed for intensive food production and human habitation.

Other critical problems

Critical problems also include:

• freshwater availability and pollution
• over-fishing, leading to fisheries depletion
• food supply shortages

End of cheap oil

The other massive challenge facing us in the foreseeable future is the end of cheap oil. Even the oil companies now concede that ‘peak oil', at least for conventional oil, is imminent.

Our consumption of oil is much greater than the discovery of new supply. We use oil for virtually all transportation, plus many other uses from plastics to food production. Oil will rapidly become much more expensive, causing us to rethink many of the ways we currently live.

Related crises: environment and economy

In contrast to the 1930s, the environmental crisis directly contributes to the economic crisis. We are hitting the ecological limits of oil availability, climate, freshwater and the productivity of the oceans. Unless we address those issues the economic crisis will not go away.

Enter the Green New Deal

The Green Party says that New Zealand needs to approach these inter-linked crises in an integrated way, just as Roosevelt did in the US in the 1930s.

When we create infrastructure, we need to make sure that the future economy

• will be sustainable,
• minimises climate change, and
• doesn't count on a plentiful supply of cheap oil.

The jobs created and economic activity stimulated need to build in this direction.

The Green Party is working on a programme of legislative, environmental, economic and social actions that could respond to the multiple challenges that we face at the same time. It would also redefine the relationships between Government, people and environment.

We hope, together with interested New Zealanders, we can persuade the Government to adopt these measures, in the interests of all Kiwis, both now and in the future. We're also ready to work across Party lines to support a Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal stimulus package

The measures suggested in this stimulus package are a first bite at the Green New Deal apple.

They represent a range of measures totalling $3.3 billion over 3 years, along with a shift in the direction of committed transport funding. This is about 0.5% of GDP and small compared with the stimulus packages of other countries.

The measures are balanced between urban and rural areas, are "shovel-ready", and will move New Zealand towards the sustainable economy that future generations need. In contrast, the solutions proposed by National and Labour will, for the most part continue the kinds of economic activity that will simultaneously move the country away from sustainability and stoke the fires of the next great financial collapse.

The Green Party is not against all of the Government's stimulus actions. We've supported the small and medium sized enterprise relief measures, for example. We have also pointed out that there are other steps that Government could have taken. We've offered our enthusiastic support for the national cycle network, which has been longstanding Green Party policy. We also welcome the Government's funding of the home insulation programme.

There are many aspects of the Green New Deal that are not included in this limited stimulus package; this is just what we would do right now. While the Government's "rolling maul" of measures seems to have collapsed, the Green Party will continue to develop and announce policy to add to the Green New Deal.

Download the Green New Deal Stimulus Package [144KB, PDF] or view it online.

Benefits

Our conservative calculations are that this package would save or create almost 18,000 jobs (FTE for 1 year) directly and almost 43,000 in all. These calculations exclude the 40% extra jobs from investing in transport efficiency instead of motorways.

Other benefits are indicated here, but we have not included the very substantial saving on unemployment benefit - almost half a billion dollars in relation to 42,602 jobs.

Summary

This package of measures would first and foremost provide new jobs (or help retain existing ones) and stimulate the economy in a helpful way. It will also meaningfully address some of the pressing environmental problems that we face, including climate change, and reduce social inequalities. the package exemplifies classic ‘green thinking' in that it provides win-win solutions.

This package includes measures in:

• Energy efficiency
• Transport efficiency
• Waterways protection
• State housing
• Community sector initiatives

Where possible we have costed measures and indicated their likely benefits for jobs and the economy, as well as their contribution to the environment and social goals. In other areas this degree of analysis is not yet possible, but we have indicated directions for future analysis and investigation.

Except where otherwise stated, the projects set out in this Green Stimulus Package are ready to implement immediately.

Limitations of the stimulus package

When preparing its budget and costing policy, the Government has access to a range of economic planning tools to which the Green Party does not.

We have used all means at our disposal to estimate the cost of the measures that we propose, and the number of jobs that we expect them to create. These are approximations, as are any estimates of flow-on effects for the economy from these projects.

We hope that if Government agrees to take up any of these measures, the Green Party will gain access to officials and other economic analysis resources to enable us to more accurately assess the costs and benefits of these ideas.

The data used in this package is drawn or derived from various sources, and work is continuing to ensure its integrity.

The Second Green New Deal

This package would first and foremost provide new jobs (or help retain existing ones) and stimulate the economy in a helpful way. It would also start to address some of the pressing environmental problems that we face, including climate change, and would also reduce social inequalities. It exemplifies classic ‘green thinking' in that it provides win-win solutions.

This package includes measures in:

• Forestry

• Animal pest control

• Wilding conifer eradication

This package proposes spending $474.5 million over a ten year period. This spending would produce 25,385 FTE direct job-years and a total of 50,445 FTE job-years altogether. This spending would also sequester almost 34 million tonnes of carbon, and bring many other substantial environmental benefits.

This package is even more "jobs-rich" than our initial stimulus package.

Some of the greatest benefits, both in employment and in carbon storage would be realised further into the future than ten years, at little marginal cost. No attempt has been made to count these benefits and costs.

Read the second installment of the Green New Deal online or download it as a PDF file. 

Where possible we have costed measures and indicated their likely impacts for jobs and the economy, as well as their contribution to the environment and to social goals, including the reduction of inequalities. In other areas this degree of analysis is not yet possible, but we have indicated directions for further analysis and investigation.

Except where otherwise stated, the projects set out in this package are ready for immediate implementation.

Unemployment is higher than average in the Gisborne/Hawke's Bay, Northland and Bay of Plenty regions, including a very high 10% in Gisborne/Hawke's Bay. Pockets of significant unemployment also exist in other rural areas. The proposals in this package have potential for significant employment in forestry and pest control in these regions, which contain a lot of eroding farmland suitable for forest, as well as native forests with both accessible pest populations and good hut and track networks to aid control work. In general, while the numbers of people out of work in rural areas are smaller than those in urban settings, the effect of unemployment in rural areas can undermine whole communities, by reducing the customer base of other businesses and forcing people to leave to seek work. In our original Green Stimulus Package most of the measures we proposed were suitable mainly for urban areas. The measures in this package, along with the waterway fencing and riparian planting initiatives in the first Green Stimulus Package, show that it is possible to apply Green New Deal thinking in rural areas too.

What are the limitations of this package?

When preparing its budget and costing policy the Government has access to a range of economic planning tools by virtue of being Government. The Green Party does not have this access. While we have used all means at our disposal to estimate the cost of the measures that we propose, and the number of jobs that we expect to create, these are approximations, as are any estimates of flow-on effects for the economy. We would expect that, if Government agreed to take up any of these measures, the Green Party would gain access to officials and other economic analysis resources to arrive at even more accurate assessments of the costs and benefits of these initiatives.

The data used in this package is drawn or derived from various sources, and work continues to ensure its integrity.