Chloe Swarbrick and Chris Bishop head to head. Composite photo / NZME
Chloe Swarbrick and Chris Bishop head to head. Composite photo / NZME
Opinion by Simon Wilson
Simon Wilson is an award-winning senior writer covering politics, the climate crisis, transport, housing, urban design and social issues. He joined the Herald in 2018.
The Greens'Chlöe Swarbrick and National’s Chris Bishop have been arguing about the value of “growth”.
Feeling excited about the future? Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says she is. Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop says he is too.
Swarbrick made her “State of the Planet” address in Auckland last month: her theme was the politics of hope. Bishop is the lead minister forthe Government’s Infrastructure Investment Summit, in Auckland later this week. His theme, which is the central theme of the Government’s programme, is “the benefits of growth”.
Are they worlds apart? They’re certainly on different trajectories.
Green Party Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. Photo / Joe Allison
Speaking about the summit last week, Bishop said, “New Zealanders can be proud that some of the world’s biggest investment and infrastructure entities are keen to learn about the opportunities New Zealand has to offer.”
He added: “This Government is serious about growing New Zealand’s economy and creating more opportunities for Kiwis to get ahead. The summit is just one part of our ambitious agenda to ... make life better for Kiwis.”
In her speech, Swarbrick said that when she asks audiences who’s feeling excited about the future, “fewer than half a dozen people in a sea of hundreds put their hand up”.
The problem, she said, is this: “Trickle-down politicians and their donors have spent at least 40 years coming after our public services, our media and our democracy, but it’s clear now more than ever that their real target has been our hope.
“These guys want you exhausted and angry and disillusioned. It means you’re disempowered.” And when that happens, it’s hard to see that “if we all spent a moment to find our common problems and common solutions, everything could change”.
Bishop also made a big speech in Auckland last month, setting out his vision for the city. He spoke enthusiastically about transit-oriented density, in a way Swarbrick would probably have found heart-warming.
Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop. Photo / Mark Mitchell
But in the middle of it, he departed from the written speech to attack her. “Basically, Chlöe Swarbrick spent all this week in the House arguing for de-growth,” he said. “The Greens want us to go backwards.”
In her own speech, however, Swarbrick said she had accused the Government of “banging the ‘growth’ drum while intentionally being silent on what kind of growth, and for whom”.
“I asked the Prime Minister why after decades of this ‘growth’ he’s so fixated on, 10% of the people in this country own 60% of our nation’s wealth. It will shock you to learn Christopher Luxon didn’t answer the question. Instead, he went on and on about celebrating successful people.”
Iwi will have an important role at the summit. The business arms of 13 iwi will be there, with a key session on the first day. This is not an accident: the Government knows they are a powerful force in the economy.
“Iwi representatives will highlight the strength of the Māori economy and their own upcoming opportunities for these investors,” said Bishop.
I’ve said it before, but it would be great if the Prime Minister and his Cabinet colleagues could talk more about the value of iwi partnerships to this country, instead of allowing fears about co-governance to fester.
There’s another problem. BusinessDesk has reported that only four projects might be available now, or soon, for PPP investment: construction projects at an army camp, a prison, two court buildings and 24km of the Northland expressway.
“We’d all better hope BusinessDesk somehow has this terribly wrong” wrote Herald columnist Matthew Hooton, “because if that’s all New Zealand has to offer major allocators of global capital after 16-hour flights from New York or Dubai, our country will forever be blacklisted as a destination for their funds.”
Here’s the question the summit should be addressing: How do we fast-track the doubling of energy generation, which is the Government’s own target, based on a pivot to renewables?
Planning for that, in my view, could be the single biggest thing any New Zealand Government could do to ensure our long-term economic health.
Several of the summit attendees list are well placed to help. Renewable energy is described as a focus for Aurecon from Australia, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and the giant Brookfield Asset Management from Canada, among others.
But pivoting to renewables is explicitly not the purpose of the summit. Many of the attendees are involved in oil, gas and mining, and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts won’t even get to speak until the last session of the last day.
Another problem: it’s a partisan summit. Although potential investors will know their money is unsafe without a bipartisan commitment to progress, it doesn’t exist.
Bishop says his Government wants a cross-party infrastructure accord. But in the same breath he insists that Opposition parties must accept National’s own priorities.
The political line-up at the summit is: 12 National ministers, three MPs from Act, one from NZ First and just one from Labour.
NZ Inc it is not. Do they think attendees won’t notice?
None of this is an accident. Around the world, countries and companies are backing away from their climate commitments. The Paris Accord, an attempt to limit global warming to 1.5C degrees above pre-industrial levels, is at risk of collapsing.
Agreements made in Glasgow, when investment bankers produced a great flowering of enthusiasm for transition financing, have been abandoned. BP has scrapped its emissions-reduction goals and other oil companies have followed suit.
Greenpeace was right. Corporates are not riding in to save the world.
Actor and Greenpeace activist Lucy Lawless. Photo / Will Rose/Greenpeace
Most governments, including our own, and many companies, still say they want to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. Often, it’s a delaying tactic, which in 2021 led the International Energy Agency to call their bluff.
The IEA calculated that for the world to have even a 50:50 chance of achieving the 1.5C target by 2050, there could be no new oil or gas fields and no new coal mines. The 2050 target required drastic action there and then.
What happened? In the two years that followed, more than 400 new oil and gas developments were approved in 50 countries.
This is why our Government has overturned the Labour-Greens 2018 ban on offshore oil and gas exploration. Everyone else is doing it, so why shouldn’t we?
Abandoning the climate goals that will keep the planet liveable is not inevitable. We do have a choice.
As Swarbrick said last month, the Greens have an emissions reduction plan, called He Ara Anamata, which they say would get the job done five times faster than the Government’s plan, while also reducing the cost of living and improving the quality of life.
They also plan to introduce a fully costed alternative budget, ahead of the Government’s Budget in May.
It’s clear the Greens are not following James Carville’s advice. Last month the former Bill Clinton staffer wrote in the New York Times that the best way for the Democrats to deal with Donald Trump was to “roll over and play dead”.
The response was swift and vociferous: Trump is trampling all over his own democracy and threatening world peace, people are in desperate need, ecosystems are collapsing and you think we should just sit it out? And then expect people will vote for us later on?
Why would that happen?
Does Donald Trump worry the global investors coming to the summit? Many will believe that although the world is in a perilous place, they are powerful enough to immunise themselves. Maybe even profit from the peril.
Perhaps Bishop and the Government think we can do that too. It’s a complete fantasy.
Green Party co-leaders Chlöe Swarbrick (left) and Marama Davidson delivered their State of the Planet addresses in Auckland last month. Photo / Michael Craig
Swarbrick’s “politics of hope” rests on a deeply anti-Carvillean idea. “What if we realised our shared power in working together, instead of fighting each other? We don’t live in a game of Monopoly. We can and should change the rules when they don’t work for the majority of people.
“In the last year alone, we have seen tens of thousands of people turn up in the streets to prove our country’s values of care for each other and the planet we live on. For Te Tiriti.
“2024 was the year of activism. 2025 must be the year of organising. Of channelling that energy into a shared goal: to change this Government, to uproot the trickle-down nightmare and to build an economy that supports life, instead of exhausting it.”
They might not like it, but the challenge for Bishop and the Investment Summit – and for every Government and every corporate endeavour – is to show they can build that kind of economy too.
