#69: Budget 2023

On economics that support a safer climate

Mōrena, and happy Tuesday!

Last Thursday, Budget 2023 was released, featuring some climate-related policies. While these are a step in the right direction they fall short of the transformative changes and urgency required. Key highlights include:

• Free public transport for under 13 year olds, and half price fares for under 25 year olds.

• Funding for community renewable energy on the Chatham Islands.

• Extending healthy homes subsidies for heat pumps, home insulation and efficient lights, but only covers homeowners.

• One (small) step closer to fair tax by closing a tax loophole that allowed people to put wealth into trusts, to avoid the top personal income tax rate.

• A small investment in maintaining passenger rail and a big change in tune, talking about future expansion of low-carbon modes of long-distance travel.

For more, read the exec director of 350 Aotearoa’s summary, or this coverage by Stuff on how the Budget’s climate policies might actually be more of a bid to save cash than emissions. 

To be blunt, it’s just a bit meh… which means it’s more important than ever that we keep climate policies (which includes fair tax policies) in the public discourse right up until the October election. On that note, last week a Newshub-Reid poll showed that 53.1% of NZers support a wealth tax! 

This highlights to me that opinions take time to shift, but when they do, it can create transformative change. We can propel this momentum along, by taking visible actions like the Global Climate Strike this Friday. Protests can be really fun - for example, the first time we attended a protest, we saw people walking out of shops on Queen St and joining in the march! It is a huge energy boost, gets heaps of media attention, and signals to our representatives that there is broad public support for urgent change. See you there!

What can we do today?

The most-clicked link from last week’s issue was the open letter on tax. Don’t let fair tax be last week’s news, share with friends & whānau!

🐝 If you have 5 minutes: Why did the chicken cross the road? To avoid the ETS

• Agriculture, responsible for 50% of GHGs, contributes just 5% to our GDP? Almost every other sector is included in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), but agriculture has avoided being included for decades through a variety of delay tactics. This means the dairy and meat industries are not paying the price for their emissions. Collaborative efforts like He Waka Eke Noa have proven unsuccessful in reducing emissions, wasting valuable time.

  Action: Use this email template to ask Chris Hipkins to bring ag into the ETS

• Christchurch City Council have a small consultation on a super popular, super dangerous intersection. Lots of primary school and university students cross this busy road every day. The proposed changes will make for a safer, accessible route for walkers and cyclists.
  Action: Use Gen Zero’s quick form to support the changes to this Christchurch intersection

🐇 If you have 15 minutes: Put sea mining to bed  

• A couple of weeks ago, Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s bill to ban seabed mining was refused Government support. Instead, Labour have put an inquiry into seabed mining to Select Committee. This means further delay on a practice which accelerates biodiversity loss and also subscribes to an infinite-economic-growth assumption on a finite planet - which has caused the climate crisis.
  Edit: Apologies, our original email implied that MP Debbie Ngarewa-Packer’s bill was the one that was now at Select Committee. It is a separate inquiry.
  Action: Use these key points as inspiration for a submission to the Select Committee on seabed mining before 23 June
  Quick action: Sign Te Pāti Māori’s petition on seabed mining

• Feeling crafty? Write a hand-written letter this week as part of a Letters to the Future campaign to urge Minister for Climate Change James Shaw to keep prioritising the climate crisis when entering election season.
  Action: Use the letter template on page 3 to write a hand-written letter to James Shaw (Facebook, Instagram)

💃🏽 If you have 30 minutes or more: Budge the Budget

• The government has proposed changes to the existing RMA to speed up renewable energy generation. It includes options for faster renewable energy development, community energy projects, and includes an exciting “use it or lose it” clause that will mean companies can no longer sit on renewable energy consents without developing them.
  Action: Read some of these two policy proposals (electricity transmission, electricity generation) and answer what you can in MBIE’s survey before 5pm 1 June (1 one week 🤯how is it halfway through the year already?) This is a long one - you don’t have to answer all the questions!

• Online, 6pm Thurs 25 May: Budget, inflation, cost of living? Now, more than ever, it’s important that we understand how our economy works so we can have a say in the decisions that get made about our lives. Join ActionStation for a free webinar that breaks down how we got here, and what we need to know about our economy, especially during an election year.
  Action: Join ActionStation’s webinar, “Economics for the People” (Facebook event)

• Online, 7pm tonight: 350 Aotearoa are hosting a contact-our-councillors Zoom party, to urge them to rethink the budget cuts that would gut Auckland’s arts, community, environmental and climate change initiatives. The councillors have heard the public pushback against the cuts, and are currently debating what they might change from their initial proposal.
  Action: Sign up to join the Zoom party urging Auckland councillors to stop the budget cuts

In case you missed it!

• Everywhere, this Friday 26 May: The Global Climate Strike is this Friday! If you’re working, ask your company to support the strike either by encouraging staff to take a longer lunch to attend, donating money, or helping out with things like sound systems. See y’all there!
  Action: Attend the Global Climate Strike this Friday (there’s one in almost every town and city!) - remember, we need adults supporting the strike by showing up!

Wins!

• Community advocacy win for better biking and walking in Wellington! Wellington City Council approved two projects which will make it easier for more than 5000 young people to get to school independently. Patrick Morgan from Cycle Wellington says that the 70% support from public submissions (all you folks!) swayed Councillors to give the go-ahead!

• Following massive pushback from the public (like yourselves), Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown has announced that he won’t cut funding as much for services including regional grants (that fund community environmental projects, and many others!). But councillors are still debating what to keep and what to cut, so all eyes are still on the council!

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That’s all for today, folks 👋🏽 Thanks for taking action. Enjoy this 7-min video on how to understand power. I used it recently for our Civic Engagement 101 workshops at the Climate Action Conference, and everyone from 13-year-olds to the conference organisers got something out of it! My favourite quote is:

You’re either taking action, or being acted upon.

See you next week, 

Jenny & the Climate Club team