I can't think of a better place to hold a peace festival than Riverside. This community's very existence is due to good people's passion for peace.
I am humbled to be asked to give this speech. I also feel like I am bringing coals to Newcastle. Any pearls of wisdom I have to offer are eclipsed by what Riverside stands for and has already achieved.
I would like to acknowledge those who founded Riverside as a Christian Pacifist Community in 1941 and those early members of the community who were put in detention camps during the Second World War because they were conscientious objectors.
They had amazing foresight, tremendous determination and, most of all, the courage of their convictions. What we enjoy here today is because of their hard fought struggle - not just the physical deprivations and exhausting work of the early years but also the social ostracisation they suffered.
Our generation owes the conscientious objectors to both world wars a particular debt of gratitude. Without their sacrifice it would not so easy for us to campaign for peace today. They certainly gave me the strength to speak out in parliament on Armistice Day last year.
While other politicians eulogised the Unknown Warrior I said I hoped all New Zealanders will also spare a moment to remember the real lessons from the bloodiest century in our history. Lessons that many leaders around the world today have either forgotten or never learned: there is no glory in death-in-battle and no victory in war.
I went on to quote from Archibald Baxter's book "We will not cease". As I'm sure most of you know, Baxter was one of 14 conscientious objectors who were forcibly transported to the front line in France in WW1 where they were subjected to a variety of disciplinary measures including the barbaric No 1 field punishment.
I am proud to have read the following words from Baxter's preface to the 1968 edition of his book into parliament's Hansard: "a greater barbarism than any the human race has known in the past has risen among the nation. In the First World War multitudes of conscript soldiers were buried alive in the mud of France. Villages were also annihilated. But the greatest number of casualties were among the conscript troops. In the Second World War the wholesale slaughter of civilians - by high explosives, by fire-bombing, and finally by atomic weapons became a matter of course. Reports from the present Vietnam War indicate that 80% of the casualties are occurring among civilians. War has at last become wholly indiscriminate. The Military machine has turned against that communal life that is the seedbed of future generations of mankind. The only apparent justification that war ever had was that by destroying some lives it might clumsily preserve others. But now even that apparent justification is being stripped away. We make war chiefly on civilians and respect for human life seems to have become a thing of the past….. all wars are equally atrocious and no war can be called just." The same can be said of Iraq today.
I concluded my speech by saying "I hope the tomb of the Unknown Warrior will become a powerful symbol for peace. It is not enough to acknowledge the futility and obscenity of war. For the sake of all those who died and all those families and friends who lost their loved ones we must all strive to overcome the causes of conflict and build a peaceful world".
Which is exactly what the founders of Riverside set about doing and their successors continue to do.
This community is living proof that anthropologist, Margaret Mead got it right when she said: "Never under estimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
That is the essence of my speech today. If you remember nothing else I hope you never forget that all of you, everyone one of you, can make a positive difference in this world. What's more, if you act collectively with other people, your influence will be that much greater.
We need to make a difference. Because we face real and serious threats to our very survival. We know there is only one earth yet human beings refuse to respect that fact. We continually abuse the ecology of the planet to the point that it is collapsing.
At ground level the earth seems huge, indestructible but, as my co-leader, Jeanette Fitzsimons said recently in her state of the planet speech: "Beneath the surface of that beautiful blue ocean is devastation. Tonnes of fertilisers, pesticides, other chemicals and silt are poisoning and smothering marine creatures. In many places, the ocean floor is barren, where bottom trawling has clear felled ancient coral forests and unique marine communities still unknown to science. Many species of fish and marine mammals and birds are gone or rare. Ecologists worldwide are warning that we face ecological collapse in the oceans, and that means the collapse of our fishing industry too.
"There are other changes too. Coral reefs have been bleached white as the coral dies. Antarctic ice shelves are calving off into the sea. Arctic sea ice is cracking and melting, revealing more ocean. These are just the most visible signs of the greatest threat to our planet: global climate change."
Climate change is a direct consequence of our massive consumption of fossil fuels: coal, gas and oil. Jeanette again: "Ours is the only civilisation ever to be based on oil and it is the only one there ever will be. Oil has enabled us to use unprecedented amounts of other natural resources, mining huge quantities of minerals, vacuuming the oceans of fish thousands of miles away, farming intensively till the soil is just stuff you add chemicals to in order to grow mass-production food, felling vast forests, and transporting all this stuff, and ourselves, around the planet.
"It is oil that has enabled the global population and the ecological footprint of our civilisation to grow so large that it threatens the physical limits of the planet itself: its soils, forests, and fish, its beautiful and unique living creatures, and the chemical and physical cycles on which our lives depend. It is oil, along with coal and gas, that has raised the carbon dioxide content of the whole planet's atmosphere by more than a third since the start of the industrial revolution — a blink in time in the history of the planet.
"It is oil, and other fossil fuels, that is causing glaciers to melt worldwide; and that appears to be associated with a marked increase in freak climatic events such as storms and floods and heat waves. It is oil and coal that risks raising the sea level into your seaside homes; allowing tropical pests and diseases like malaria into New Zealand; and extinguishing our threatened plants and animals because they have nowhere else to go.
It is oil that makes it seem normal for two ships to pass in the Tasman Sea, one carrying Griffins' biscuits and Tip Top ice cream from New Zealand to Australia, the other carrying Arnotts' biscuits and Streets ice cream from Australia to New Zealand. And with a net effect of what, exactly?
"Our oil consumption has been so extravagant that we have used up, in just one century, around half of what the planet has to offer. When that half-way point — known as "peak oil" — is reached, it becomes physically impossible to increase production no matter how hard you pump it.
When we reach that peak, demand will continue to rise, not just from Western societies that have used most of the oil so far, but also from countries, such as China and India, trying to catch up with our level of motorisation and industrialisation. There is no technology on the horizon that can replace our present consumption of oil, though there are many that can make a contribution. We cannot afford to turn to coal without causing run-away climate change. The only answer is to learn to use energy much more effectively."
Peak oil may already be upon us. US department of energy figures show that for the first six weeks of this year world oil demand exceeded world oil production of 84.1 million barrels per day by 400,000 barrels per day. Yes, there is short term supply volatility but even the NZ government now recognises that the growth in global demand is structural, particularly due to China's so-called 'booming' economy.
New Zealanders have a particular responsibility to change our lifestyles. We now have the highest level of car ownership in the world - 578 per 1,000 people. In 10 years we have jumped from 6th place - 436 cars - to 1st. That's not a first place we should be proud of. It is a direct consequence of successive governments' removing tariffs on imported vehicles and allowing in a flood of second hand cars. I might add, without even imposing any exhaust emission or energy efficiency standards on those vehicles.
Our fuel consumption is also one of the highest in the world: at 594 kilograms per person per year we are 5th behind the USA, Luxembourg, Canada and Australia. Let's not try to beat them. Let's go in the opposite direction.
Just imagine if all the money we spent on those extra cars, on the fuel to run them and the roads to run them on had been invested in public transport and on walking and cycling facilities? That's what European countries like Denmark are doing. Their vehicle ownership is 359 per 1,000 people and their fuel consumption is 370 kilograms per person. Is their quality of life worse than ours? I doubt it! Is our quality of life better than it was when we only had 436 cars? I don't think so.
Meanwhile car ownership has risen to 7 per 1,000 in China and to 6 per 1,000 in India, with their fuel consumption now at 28 kilograms and 7 kilograms respectively. Imagine what would happen to the planet if the two billion people in those two countries squandered resources like we do? We can't expect them to contain their consumption if we don't reduce ours.
Global poverty and inequality are another big challenge facing our generation. Despite the magnificent response to the recent tsunami New Zealand's level of official development assistance — at 0.23% of GNI - is one of the meanest in the OECD, and less than half what it was under the Kirk-Rowling Labour Government in 1975.
Paying our fair share would literally be a drop in the bucket but we need to for our own self respect. Right now between 1.1 and 1.4 billion people on this planet do not have access to safe drinking water, including 36% of the population of Africa. Polluted water contributes to the death of 15 million children under 5 each year. In addition to the disease burden, women and children in developing countries are particularly affected by the lack of access to safe water as the task of carting water, often over long distances in rural areas, usually falls to them.
It is estimated that it would cost US$26 billion a year for the next 11 years to provide safe water to those 1.4 billion people.
How can we afford to do that? It comes down to priorities. The world wasted US$879 billion on military spending in 2003 - the USA spent US$417 billion (3.4% of GDP) alone. (NZ spent 0.6 billion or 1.1% of GDP.)
Pacifism is the antidote to this insanity.
Here in New Zealand we have our own inequality and poverty:
•the gap between the rich and the poor is 50% worse than 20 years ago
•disposable income has actually dropped for 70% of household in that period while the top 10% have 35% more income
•one third of our children are living below the poverty line
•home ownership is dropping
•governments have created the debt generation with student borrowing now over $7 billion
There are many other threats to a sustainable and self reliant future: increased foreign ownership of our land, forests, farms, buildings and businesses; increasing dependence on imported goods; growing foreign debt and current account deficits; intensive farming depleting our environment, our waste ruining our rivers and our rubbish despoiling our countryside.
Nature has its limits and we are testing them to breaking point. We are our own worst enemy. We think that technology can solve everything when in fact many of our technologies, such as GE, are part of the problem. We can't beat nature, but we can work with it to live within its income rather than depleting its capital.
Instead of driving even faster as we get closer to the edge of the cliff its time to slow down. It's time to be green instead of greedy.
We need to change the way we live, change the way we work, change the way we do business and change the rules that governments make. That takes both personal and political will, but, as Jeanette said: "If there is anywhere on the planet that can do it, it is New Zealand. We have a unique set of advantages, and so a unique responsibility.
"However, there is only a narrow window of opportunity and we have to start now. I'm asking you to think this year about what kind of future you want to build, and who you think you can build it with."
Make the most of your power as citizens - make sure you vote this year, but don't stop there. You are agents for change. Get involved in politics - join a political party or a group campaigning for change. Follow your passion, pick an issue that is dear to your heart and make a difference.
Take personal action, use your power as a consumer - shopping is a political act - look at the label - buy locally made goods and services to support your community and don't buy goods made in sweatshops - support Trade Aid instead!
As local Green MP Mike Ward says: "Saving ourselves from ourselves is not about going without. It is about living simply, about making time for the activities that really do delight us, about working less. It is another of those absurdities that in spite of the fact that the stuff we buy has never been so cheap and the fact that we have never had so many machines to do our work for us, we are working more hours per man, woman and child than ever before."
I can't offer a better prescription for how we could model our lives than the Riverside community's 1990 statement of intent. Where it says 'community' think of this world as our 'community':
"We are a group of individuals who have come together in a community to live according to the basic teachings common to all great religions: to do good, to avoid doing harm, in all aspects of our lives, to the best of our ability. This is the responsibility of each community member.
We accept all human beings as our brothers and sisters and choose to behave towards them with love and not violence.
We reject private ownership and private profit.
We choose limitation and equality of personal income.
We choose to share responsibility in policy make, discussion, and planning, to work together in the development and maintenance of the community, and to make the best use of each individual's strengths and talents.
We strive to develop a fruitful, beautiful countryside and to make our living in ways that do not harm the planet: and to study and put intro practice environmentally safe horticulture, farming, and living.
We aim to be self-supporting and to produce goods of the best quality at a fair price.
We do not want to escape from the world but to use our pooled resources to help it through service to others and practical involvement in social, peace, and environmental movements.
We accept the responsibility to hold Riverside and its values in trust for future generations.
We ask each member to contribute to the group according to their ability: the community strives to meet members' needs fairly."
They are good goals to aspire to. Ever since I first visited Riverside in the '70s I have tried to live up to that ethos, through my time with the Avon Loop community, Piko Wholefoods co-operative and Trade Aid. And now in parliament our team of Green MPs do our best to make a difference.
We all have so many opportunities to make a difference. Let's act on them. The future is in our hands! Go lightly on this earth.
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