Joyce attacks green business report

Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce’s attack today on the Pure Advantage green business report, New Zealand’s Position in the Green Race, was scathing and unwarranted, says Labour’s economic development and clean-tech spokesperson David Cunliffe.

“Mr Joyce’s testimony to the Commerce Select Committee was nothing but a broadside,” David Cunliffe said.

“Mr Joyce claimed the Pure Advantage report was ‘arguing for a highly dislocating shift that would leave us poorer for an extended period of time’, and said he ‘fundamentally’ disagreed with this approach, which is ‘far too value destroying’.”

David Cunliffe said the Pure Advantage report described the Government’s own Green Growth Advisory Group (GGAG) as a ‘missed opportunity’, saying there was ‘little evidence of serious consideration by government of alternative economic growth options’.

“The GGAG report has also been criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE), who said it was ‘neither consistent nor equitable to encourage only small and medium-sized enterprises to focus on green growth’ while excluding large-scale lignite extraction and other carbon-intensive businesses from doing their bit to cut pollution.

“The PCE noted the OECD 2011 Economic Survey of New Zealand had provided a whole chapter of green growth opportunities, and urged the government develop a ‘credible, explicit plan for a low carbon future’,” David Cunliffe said.

“Steven Joyce is clearly on the back foot, having failed to deliver a credible green-growth strategy.

“At a time when the evidence of dangerous climate change and pollution are all around us, Mr Joyce’s savage attack on business leaders who do have a credible plan for sustainable growth does nothing to build consensus around needed change.”