Gary Taylor: Green New Deal the best way to bring the economy out of recession

Opinion

The Green Party's plan for stimulating the economy out of recession has considerable merit. It proposes a Green New Deal, building on President F.D. Roosevelt's response to the last great global recession in the 1930s - but with a modern tweak.

The Greens argue for high-quality job creation within a responsible cap. They propose spending $3.3 billion over three years on energy efficiency, public transport and home and school insulation - all job-rich areas with multiple community benefits including improved health, reduced energy costs, higher educational performance and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government picked up on just one element from the Greens - the housing insulation package which the Prime Minister says will create 2000 jobs and see 240,000 houses insulated over four years.

The Greens' proposals follow other countries like the United States, where President Barack Obama is putting a massive $150 billion into his green new deal. The US and many European countries are seeing the downturn as an opportunity to reduce dependence on oil and other non-renewable resources. This is clear acknowledgment that if the global economy is to recover, it can't be on the back of depleting finite resources.

The recession is an opportunity to modernise the world economy and green infrastructure stimulus packages are a means of fast-tracking that process.

The Greens argue that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment and if the parent company fails, then disaster follows. It's a useful analogy and one that should make sense to business, which is increasingly taking environmental issues seriously. It's especially true for a nation so dependent on the environment for its economic welfare.

The Greens owe a lot to the high-quality thinking of Jeanette Fitzsimons. She has been an outstanding performer throughout her career. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority was her creation and a consequence is that mainstream New Zealand now understands the need for energy efficiency clearly.

The $323 million home insulation programme springs from her work.

It will be interesting to see how effectively Metiria Turei and Russel Norman take up the Green baton.

They have started out well, spending time in the general parliamentary debate and out on the road to set out their philosophy and approach with intellectual rigour.

The Green New Deal is in their hands.

* Gary Taylor is chairman of the Environmental Defence Society www.eds.org.nz and of the Climate Change and Business Centre www.climateandbusiness.com