Dr Russel Norman: Speech to the 2009 Green Party Annual Conference - Grand Theft Auckland

Summary

* Analysis of how SuperCity and RMA legislation amounts to 'Grand Theft Auckland'.

"…the select few who make a whole lot of money from the Growth Machine - the property developers, the motorway builders, the speculators, the mates of and donors to the Act Party and the National Party - are unhappy, very unhappy.

They have found themselves constrained by local communities with too much power under the Resource Management Act. The RMA has given local community groups the right to take them to the Environment Court...They will shut up the community groups...They will lock in the sprawl.

Melissa Lee was right when she said people are coming along the motorway to steal our stuff. But they don't come from South Auckland, they come from Auckland Airport; they don't wear balaclavas, they wear suits; and they don't drive beat up Subarus, they are driven in Crown limousines.

Grand Theft Auckland is heading our way."

*Questions on how Labour's campaign in the Mt Albert by-election relates to Labour's record in Government

"It is a real challenge to have a sensible political argument with Labour in Mt Albert. This is no criticism of the Labour candidate – who seems like a nice bloke.

"...Labour in Mt Albert supports the poor, but Labour in Government instituted 'Working for Families' that discriminated against those on benefits, the very poorest, by not giving them tax credits, which is why the very poorest did very poorly under Labour.

"...Labour is bereft of ideas. Their poor candidate in Mt Albert is left saying whatever seems to work at any particular moment regardless of what Labour actually did when it had power."

Full Text

Conference 2009 – Russel Norman Speech

Introduction
Kia ora tatou.
I give greetings to this land - the mountains and harbours that were created from the earth’s crust millions of years ago.

I give greetings to the mana whenua of this place, Ngai Tahu, Waitaha and te Whanau o Araiteuru. Tena koutou. I acknowledge te Tiriti o Waitangi as the foundation for our nation.

I give greetings to those who have come before us.
I give greetings to this house – this assembly hall in Balmacewen Intermediate – and celebrate public education that gives opportunities to so many

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

To our Dunedin crew – our Green whänau from the South, who’ve put together this fine conference. Thank you for hosting us here this weekend so that we can meet as a family at this time of change. We will remember this weekend as a time of love, renewal and hope for our movement. And that same love that we offer each other this weekend, we extend to all members of the human family and to our beautiful homeland our planet earth.

Together we can change the world.

We are here this weekend to make a decision about our leadership. I want to acknowledge the passion, the work and the love that both our candidates put into this competition. No other party can claim to have such an open, democratic and honest leadership contest. I want to acknowledge Sue Bradford and Metiria Turei for their total commitment to this party’s future and to the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.

It has been a great honour and a joy to serve alongside Jeanette Fitzsimons as Co-leader of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand for the last three years. And it’s my privilege today to serve alongside Metiria Turei as Co-leader of our Party. It also is my privilege to serve alongside Sue Bradford as a Green member of parliament. It is my pleasure to work alongside all the Green MPs.

On my own behalf I want to thank you for returning me as Co-leader.

As Co-leader of this party I’m not going to tell you that your work is done. I won’t tell you that you can elect Co-leaders, have MPs and leave them to do the work. In fact the strength of the Green Party is that it is a grassroots movement of change. We are thousands of people committed to changing the world and it will require all of you to continue to put your shoulder to the wheel of change. If the wheel of history is to turn forward, to embrace a world where sustainability, fairness, peace and democracy rule, then it will only be because of the efforts of the non-professionals, the amateurs, the no. 8 wire kiwis who stand up and are counted not just on election day but everyday.

Together we can change the world.

We didn’t cross the Auckland Harbour Bridge last weekend on foot and on bike because a couple of politicians turned up. We crossed the harbour bridge because thousands of regular courageous New Zealanders – with kids and dogs and bikes and prams – said enough is enough. They had the temerity to tell the NZ transport agency that the bridge is for the people, that we don’t live in the 50s anymore; that we need to move our thinking beyond the private motor car. They had the insight to know that the future of transport is buses, trains, walking and cycling not more motorways. Their strength came from their courage and from acting together. Each one of us alone could never have crossed that bridge, each one of us could have had the same thought and aspiration but been powerless alone to do anything about it, but by acting together, by sharing our dream we turned it into a reality. It was a great day.

Together we can change the world.

I stand here in beautiful Dunedin. Fantastic Dunedin. Freezing Dunedin. Home of the student. Home of the student flat. Home of some of the coldest student flats I’ve ever been in. I’m told there are parts of this town where it is warmer outside people’s homes than it is inside. One ex Dunedin-ite told me that she was so cold, she slept in woolen hats, scarves and multiple layers of polyprop, and dreamed of climbing into a pie warmer. It is a fitting place to celebrate home insulation and heating. It is a fitting place to acknowledge the passionate and fastidious work of Jeanette Fitzsimons in helping to deliver a massive funding boost to make 180,000 of our homes warm, dry and healthy over the next four years. 180,000 now that’s something to celebrate.

This is a spectacular achievement for Jeanette and for everyone in the Green Party. 180 000 Kiwi families will be healthier, use less energy, use less health services, their kids will learn better as they take fewer days off school. And at the same time we will create jobs during a recession. This is only happening because the Green Party made it happen. This is only happening because we used our negotiating power with Labour originally and because we won the public over to an idea whose time had come. This is only happening because we campaigned and acted together. You made this happen.

Together we are changing the world.

But we have some much more to do.

Grand Theft Auckland

Now let me tell you, there is something awry in the state of Auckland - The Growth Machine is feeling constrained. That great Machine is feeling restricted.

And the select few who make a whole lot of money from the Growth Machine - the property developers, the motorway builders, the speculators, the mates of and donors to the Act Party and the National Party - are unhappy, very unhappy.

And the RMA is pissing them off.

They have found themselves constrained by a metropolitan urban limit that says they can't keep putting new sprawling subdivisions on greenfield sites serviced by motorways.

And the metropolitan urban limit is angering them.

They have found themselves constrained by elected councillors who are under the influence of the community that elected them; councillors who are influenced by communities that don't want to sacrifice green space to development.

And they are railing against all these elected councillors.

And they have found themselves constrained by a regional land transport strategy that says that better buses and trains, walking, and cycling should be the priority ahead of new motorway developments that bulldoze their way through the 'burbs.

And they are furious that 50 years of road wisdom is being ignored.

And they have run up against laws that block privatisation of assets, and a timid central government that won't sell them cheap public assets like the 80s and 90s.

And they can almost taste the money they made last time around.

So, they are going to do something about it. They are going to use their connections with the new government and the new Minister of Local Government to get some changes.

They're going to start by giving those pesky community groups the bash, by changing the RMA so they can't get into the Environment Court without coming up with a bond before they walk through the door and then bankrupt them if they persist.

They will shut up the community groups.

Then they're going to abolish the constraint of the metropolitan urban limit so those paddocks they own on the far side of that infuriating line will now be worth millions as they can be used for urban sprawl.

They will lock in the sprawl.

They're going to conduct a forced amalgamation of the Auckland councils so they will be left with just 20 councillors for 1.4million people - 20 councillors who will have even larger electorates than MPs and even less connection with their communities, and who will be less under the sway of the park-loving, library-loving, community hall-loving unwashed masses.

They will shut up the local councillors concerned about being re-elected.

They're going to use central government funding of motorways to subvert regional land transport strategies so that Fulton Hogan and all the rest can get on with building motorways and making money; regardless of whether there is a net positive economic benefit let alone social or environmental benefit.

They will take the wheel clamps off the bulldozers.

And they will hand over $28billion in assets to a 20 member über Council they aim to control who won't have legislative or political constraints on privatisation.

They will liberate these assets from the clutches of the public sector.

They have a plan and they are going to push it through, because they remember that blitzkrieg worked well in 1939 and 1984 and 1990 and it can work again.

Grand Theft Auckland is heading our way.

It’s time for Auckland to get up off the couch and fight for democracy and fight the limos steamrolling their way through the suburbs.

Together we must fight for democracy in Auckland. Together we must fight for fair representation for tangata whenua and all Aucklanders. Together we must stand up for the right of communities to have a say over their neighbourhood. Together we must stand up for the right of kids to be able to ride safely to school, to keep their parks and their libraries.

Mt Albert By-election

Auckland is today the frontline of a battle which is coming to all of us. This hostile takeover of Auckland is but a teaser.

Those of you on the hïkoi the other day will know how we should respond – stand up fight back; stand up fight back. The hïkoi was just a taste of our power and determination.

The other place this struggle is being fought is on the streets of Mt Albert. In this by-election the people of Mt Albert need to represent all of us. Let me bring back a few stories from the streets of Mt Albert.

The National candidate has come to represent the incompetence and prejudice of the National Party. The ridiculous statements about south Aucklanders, the motorway bulldozed through a neighbourhood, the forced amalgamation of councils. The National candidate, with a bit of help from Rodney Hide and Steven Joyce, seems to be trying to knock herself out of the race. If National persists down their current path they may knock themselves out of government by alienating all of Auckland.

Meanwhile the Labour machine is grinding out their “say anything” “say nothing” campaign. You’d think, that in what should be a safe Labour seat, the Labour Party would be prepared to run a slightly more adventurous campaign. Instead their strategy is that by showing the colour red often enough the people of Mt Albert will sign up to more of the same. More of the same as we’ve had for nine years.

It is a real challenge to have a sensible political argument with Labour in Mt Albert. This is no criticism of the Labour candidate – who seems like a nice bloke. The point where the rubber really hits the road is where Labour in Mt Albert will say anything to get elected but Labour in Government did the opposite. After all, we’ve just had nine years of a Labour Government, it’s not like we don’t know what they really stand for.

Labour in Mt Albert is backing rapidly away from Labour’s record in Government.

Labour in Mt Albert apparently opposes factory farming even though Labour in Government supported sow crates and factory chickens and factory farming. Of course the Greens have always campaigned against factory farming. National in Mt Albert don’t seem to know where they stand.

Labour in Mt Albert supports public transport but Labour in Government opposed electrification of Auckland rail network and only did it when we forced them to after Field and Copeland threatened their majority in Parliament and gave us the bargaining power to extract electrification. National say they support electrification but won’t say how they’ll fund it.

Labour in Mt Albert supports a balance between roads and public transport but Labour in Government, at the high point of public transport funding, spent $5 on roads for every $1 on buses and trains, walking and cycling. The Green Party campaigns proudly for money to go into getting people around our cities and towns on affordable, efficient trains and buses. National in Mt Albert also supports balance which means 7 dollars on roads for every dollar on the alternatives. I guess the word “balance” is the new word for “motorway” – I’m off to work dear I’ll be in a traffic jam on the balance for the next hour.

Labour in Mt Albert supports the UN but Labour in Government never came close to meeting the UN's 0.7% of GNP aid target; and Labour in Mt Albert apparently supports refugees but Labour in government persecuted Ahmed Zaoui, an Algerian democracy campaigner and asylum seeker, and locked him up for years on secret evidence that turned out to be false.

The Greens campaigned proudly alongside others to free Ahmed Zaoui from the shackles of the Labour Government; and we won.

George Orwell told us in his dystopian novel “1984” that “war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength”, but I guess Labour figures most people haven’t read their George Orwell. So after they lost the Zaoui case they changed the law so asylum seekers and their lawyers can’t see the secret evidence being used against them – ignorance is indeed strength.

Labour in Mt Albert supports the poor, but Labour in Government instituted 'Working for Families' that discriminated against those on benefits, the very poorest, by not giving them tax credits, which is why the very poorest did very poorly under Labour. National is doing nothing to improve the position of the poorest. The Greens believe that it is totally unacceptable that there are half a million Kiwis living in poverty – one in seven households living in poverty right here right now.

Labour in Mt Albert opposes unpopular shopping centre developments but Labour in Opposition just recently voted in favour of National's changes to the Resource Management Act. These changes to the RMA make it harder and more expensive for community groups to stop these kinds of developments. The Green Party campaigned against the changes to the RMA.

Labour in Mt Albert may or may not support country of origin labelling of food, but Labour in Government vociferously opposed it and stopped it coming into force. The Greens of course supported CoOL.

I could go on but you get the drift. Labour in Mt Albert does not appear to have much of a relationship to Labour in Government except for all that red. And National in Mt Albert does not seem to know what they’re doing, or seem to know what National in Government is doing.

Vision?

Labour and National are pretty directionless and rudderless.

After nine years in government, nine years of housing bubble borrowing and consumption economics, Labour is bereft of ideas. Their poor candidate in Mt Albert is left saying whatever seems to work at any particular moment regardless of what Labour actually did when it had power. Labour just hopes and prays that by deploying the entire Labour machine in the electorate and covering it in red, people won’t notice that they have no ideas and no vision. They hope that by criticizing National people won’t notice that they don’t have a plan.

National’s campaign, for want of a better word, in Mt Albert has shown them to be just as shallow. The National Government’s Budget showed that there was no vision for dealing with the economic and ecological crises facing our country and our planet. You could argue that it was a conservative budget but you couldn’t argue it was a visionary budget. The only bright spot was the Greens home insulation fund.

Now Act does have a clear direction – you didn’t think Roger Douglas came back to Parliament to eat his lunch, did you? They have a party in mind, and the theme is 80s and 90s retro strip party – strip assets, privatise public services. It’s like one of those key parties where everyone puts their car keys and house keys in a jar – but by the end of the night Roger’s taken them all. I might be a bit young to remember how those parties really worked but I’m pretty confident Roger’s got it wrong.

Roger and Rodney have a game plan for Auckland – it’s called Grand Theft Auckland. You steal a city and deliver it to your stolen goods dealers at the Business Round Table before anyone can stop you. Hey it worked last time. The National Party likes the plan but don’t like to own up to it and are hiding behind the need for greater regional coordination meanwhile letting Act get on with the game, hoping to steal Auckland from Aucklanders before anyone calls the cops. But beware the sleeping giant that is Auckland is waking up, thanks in part to the Freudian slips of their Mt Albert candidate telling us which part of Auckland she wants to punish with Grand Theft Auckland.

Green Vision

The Greens are the only party that has put forward a positive vision for Auckland and for Aotearoa New Zealand. Our Green New Deal, and our Green Stimulus Package offer a way forward, something Metiria will talk more about tomorrow. The Greens are the only ones putting forward a plan for the transformation of the New Zealand economy towards one that is much more sustainable and less dependent on imported oil and imported capital. The Greens are the only party embracing new green technology like smart meters, like feed in tariffs, like smart tariffs, and distributed renewable energy generation, electric rapid transport fuelled by renewable energy.

The Greens are the only party who has a plan for dealing with our current account deficit and the resultant overseas indebtedness that left the government scraping and bowing before a failed international rating agency. We must rely more on our own indigenous renewable sources of energy and less on imported energy. We know that the world is crying out for sustainable healthy food that we can produce if only we move towards sustainable humane production methods. We know that the next great wave of innovation is the green wave and that those countries that lead the green economic revolution will be those countries that prosper in decades ahead. Every investment in sustainable technology and science will pay itself back many times over in years to come. We know that a tax system that rewards people for borrowing money to speculate in property, driving up the price of housing, is a tax system in need of green reform. We know that overseas investment rules that encourage the foreign takeover of New Zealand businesses only add to our current deficit as the profits are sent overseas.

We know that a country cannot consume and borrow its way to prosperity and happiness. We know that working longer hours to buy more stuff and pay off a bigger mortgage will not make us happy, healthy or wise.

The Greens stand today strong and united with a vision for Aotearoa New Zealand. This weekend we made history. This weekend we wrote another chapter in the book about how ordinary people came together to save themselves, their neighbours, their children and the planet they love.

Together we are changing the world.

Ends