This policy outlines the role of the Government in transforming the economy. In Government, the Green Party will tackle inequality through a fairer tax system, providing everyone with public services and infrastructure to meet their material, social, and cultural needs. We will limit our use of resources to live within planetary boundaries and urgently address the climate crisis. We will support Māori understandings and expectations of economic justice. We will retain and expand public investment in direct service provision and assets.
Vision
An economy that equitably serves both present and future generations and cares for the natural world.
Values and Principles
Policy decisions must be consistent with the following values and principles:
- Honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi: Economic activity must support equity and self-determination for Māori while protecting all taonga.
- Ecological Wisdom: Our economy must urgently adjust to operate within environmental limits to ensure the natural world can continue to support human life.
- Social Responsibility: Economic benefits and burdens must be fairly distributed to enable all New Zealanders to participate fully in society and have their collective material needs met.
- Appropriate Decision-Making: The economy must be democratically managed. Communities and tangata whenua must have meaningful influence over decisions about economic activities that affect them.
- Non-Violence: Economic activity must not exploit or oppress peoples or environments. Any activity that negatively affects communities or environments must be minimised and mitigated.
- Fiscal and economic transparency: Economic reporting must be comprehensive, clear, reliable, and timely.
- Creativity: Creativity and innovation help us to reduce resource use and support collective wellbeing.
Strategic Priorities
The Green Party’s strategic goals include:
“We want to transform our economy, replacing consumerism, consumption and growth with a non-polluting, regenerative economy that enables all people to thrive within nature’s bounty.”
Actions in this policy that will help achieve this include:
- Enabling the economy to respond urgently to the climate crisis and work within ecological limits, including by incorporating the true cost of environmental damage into the cost of doing business in Aotearoa New Zealand. (2.4.2)
- Substantially increasing government revenue and expenditure as a proportion of GDP to fully fund high-quality and universal health, education, accessibility, transport, and other social services, and to ensure everyone has access to adequate energy, housing, and food. (3.1.2)
- Enabling greater government borrowing for investing in infrastructure. (4.2.2.1)
- Expanding the progressive tax system to equitably tax wealth and all forms of income, such as through capital gains, land, wealth, and inheritance taxes, and eliminating tax on low incomes. (3.3.3)
- Developing Tiriti-based Public-Commons Partnerships that provide for collective management of, and equitable access to, shared resources. (1.2.2)
- Broadening the Reserve Bank’s focus to ensure that it supports the economy and full employment while controlling inflation. (4.2.1)
Connected Policies
The big-picture approach of this policy is designed to enable more specific policy outcomes such as:
- Ensuring that the private sector can provide products and services that support wellbeing within environmental limits (Sustainable Business Policy; Climate Change Policy; Housing and Sustainable Communities Policy);
- Supporting resilient local economies (Community and the Economy Policy; Local Government Policy);
- Ensuring that everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand has a sufficient income to meet their needs and participate fully in society (Household Livelihoods Policy; Workforce Policy);
- Growing the regenerative and circular economies through business tax incentives, support for local authority waste reduction initiatives and other measures (Waste and Hazardous Substances Policy);
- Ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality, universal public services such as education, healthcare, accessibility assistance and public transport (Education, Health, Transport, Household Livelihoods and Disability Policies);
- Ensuring that everyone has access to adequate food, energy, and housing (Food, Energy, and Housing and Sustainable Communities Policies);
- Ensuring that economic decision-making is responsive and evidence-based through independent evaluation, to manage the complexity and interconnectedness of the economy with almost every aspect of our lives (Governance Policy);
- Ensuring that trade and investment frameworks specifically recognise ecological limits and the priority to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions (Global Affairs Policy; Trade and Foreign Investment Policy).
Specific economic sectors are also considered in separate policies, including Energy, Agriculture, Tourism, Forestry, and Research, Science and Technology Policies.
