Labour’s big infrastructure announcement last week was undoubtedly a clever political move. With over $5 billion committed to roading, a key plank of National’s election platform became Labour’s in one fell swoop.
However, what it also so clearly demonstrated is that this government has a significant lack of imagination, and an even greater lack of commitment to dealing with the challenge of the climate crisis.
In taking National’s priority of ‘roads, roads, roads’ as its own, Labour is patently ignoring the urgency of taking climate change seriously.
The Greens are placated with an allocation of $1.8 billion towards light rail, cycling and walking infrastructure. While of course this is to be welcomed, the overall picture painted by this package is of the Green Party once again relegated to the dimmest corner of this term’s tripartite arrangement.
For the young people organising in the schools and on the streets out of fear for the very existence of the planet, the pusillanimous nature of the Greens’ position and ability to negotiate bodes ill for the future.
With the countdown to the election now clear both Labour and the Greens (and other parties for that matter) should be going hard out to convince those of us who care deeply about the twin climate and inequality crises in our society that they have the will and the courage to act meaningfully.
As the smoke from the Australian bushfires drifts across our summer skyline, and as increasing numbers of people live in deepening poverty and homelessness, the parties of the so-called ‘left’ need to take a far more fundamental and holistic approach to the future.
Now both Grant Robertson and the Greens have rejected the self-imposed constraints of the Budget Responsibility Rules, it is time for programmes that address these crises with the urgency and on the scale they deserve.
As just one example, the investment in rail announced last week is only a fraction of what it should be. A far more serious commitment would, for example, see the restoration of freight and passenger trains from Auckland to the mid-North at Moerewa or Okaihau. The benefits this would bring both in reducing emissions and in helping to reshape the economy of one of the country’s most deprived regions would be tremendous.
When it comes to implementation of physical infrastructure spend we’ve all got to be a bit suspicious about how much may be wasted on unnecessary consultancy fees and voracious private sector contractors who won’t necessarily supply quality at a fair price. It is way past time to consider fundamental reform of the public sector from its failed corporate model to one where quality, value for money and concepts of the common good (ecological, social and genuinely Tiriti-based) become paramount.
Social infrastructure matters just as much as the physical. In relation to housing, Kainga Ora’s borrowing limit was recently lifted by $4 billion, which could allow it to both build and repair more state houses. No clear announcement has yet been made on this, but how about adding another $4 billion to the pot, both to increase the rate of state house build and to make a major investment in the community and tangata whenua housing sector?
Then of course there are options for changes in priorities and spending right across welfare, housing, education, health, local government, energy, water, conservation, agriculture and all parts of society and the economy. This is essential if we want to get serious about reducing emissions and restoring the natural world around us, while also ensuring that the lives of those who are already having a hard time don’t just keep getting worse.
The Green Party should be raising the flag high on all these issues, starting with an acknowledgement that its much vaunted Zero Carbon Act doesn’t necessarily change anything for either climate or people. It is not a laurel on which to rest.
Labour needs to become a lot braver and more visionary, too. Adopting National’s roading programme is a clever political move, but politics in this era needs to reach beyond such surface ploys to responding to the heart of what’s actually going on.
People and planet are facing an almost unimaginable crisis.
Dealing with this requires levels of wisdom and courage of which all our political parties seem remarkably bereft.