Yesterday was a big day. It is hard to describe the feeling of delivering my maiden speech in Parliament. I felt humbled to stand in Parliament, and so grateful to the people of Wellington Central for the opportunity. It was fantastic to see so many family and friends in the gallery as well. Here is my speech and here is the Dominion Post’s story on it.
Archive for the 'Sustainability' Category
Maiden Speech
December 12th, 2008Sustainability Forum
October 28th, 2008One of the issues that I have been banging on about everywhere on the campaign trail is sustainability. This is an issue I have been passionate about for many years. When I was a diplomat at the UN it was the issue that took up most of my time, including a spell supporting Simon Upton as Chair of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. While I think it is a great framework for looking at how we make decisions about development it can be a little amorphous. Getting past that was the genesis of a forum that my team organised this evening on what a sustainable Wellington would look like. Philippa Howden-Chapman from the Centre for Sustainable Cities spoke and an interested group of residents, mainly from the Aro Valley attended. Philippa focused on a transport as being the key to making progress in Wellington, in particular changing the way we think about how we use inner city roads, with more attention given to pedestrians and cyclists, improving affordability and reliability of public transport and focusing urban growth around transport nodes. It was a great discussion, and I strongly believe these are the kinds of issues we are going to have to work on if Wellington is to ecome a truly sustainable city.
Getting our greens
October 28th, 2008
Today at lunchtime Sue Kedgley and I worked on the Kapai salad bar in the BNZ Centre. This is the second session I have done with the Kapai crew. This is a great example of a locally owned business that has gone from strength to strength in recent years. The food is fresh, healthy and delicious. The conversations I have had with the workers at both sites indicate it is a happy place to work as well.
It was good to catch up with Sue as well. She is clear that she is focusing on the Party vote in Wellington Central. The Greens have a policy of not endorsing other candidates that I can understand. In terms of Green Party voters in Wellington Central, they might like to check out this Facebook group set up by one supporter. I look forward to working with Sue to see Wellington develop in a sustainable manner.
Investing in Kiwi Ingenuity
October 22nd, 2008A great story on the wires today about how NZ Steel was able to find a local solution when their water cooling system shut down. They were unable to immediately source parts from their supplier in Norway, and faced a very expensive six week delay in production.
Up to the mark stepped 30 New Zealand companies, to design, manufacture and install the parts required. Skellerup got the big job of manufacturing the rubber components. They were able to do this, and the plant was back in action within nine days.
This is a real tribute to the expertise in New Zealand, and yet another example of why we must continue to invest in our research and development capability. Pete Hodgson outlined Labour’s science and innovation policy yesterday. The highlights are
- the NZ Fast Forward Fund of $700 million to leverage support from industry for innovation in the pastoral sector
- the continuation of the 15% R and D Tax Credit to drive innovation
- increasing funding for Marsden Fund, Health Research Council and transformational R and D in next three Budgets
- increasing the Performance Based Research Fund for universities to $250 million by 2010.
- Increasing the amount of stable funding relative to contestable funding in the science system.
This stands in contrast to the remarkable short-term thinking of the National Party who have not committed to NZ Fast Forward, despite all the major industry players being behind it, and who have said they will scrap the R and D Tax Credit, for the sake of a few extra dollars in tax cuts.
On R and D and investing in New Zealand’s future innovation, the choice on November 8th is clear.
The Key Doctrine: Short Termism
October 9th, 2008It is uncommon for a major economic policy release to miss the mark on both social and economic grounds, but that is what I believe National have succeeded in doing with yesterday’s tax package.
Others have dealt well with the groups of New Zealanders who will miss out or be worse off as a result, but I want to look at what I find an astounding aspect of how National is planning to pay for their tax package. Continue reading ‘The Key Doctrine: Short Termism’