Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Thank you, Mr President.
In 2018, as we increasingly live with the impacts of climate change, achieving truly sustainable development is the challenge of our times. The space to pursue parallel economic, social and environmental goals has disappeared; the agenda has converged. This convergence requires that we work and innovate across boundaries and borders with new partners and expertise.
Working in this way requires new tools:
- to better understand complexity;
- to make good decisions that recognise and manage synergy and trade-offs; and
- to measure progress in terms of human and environmental well-being.
At home and internationally, New Zealand is committed to a deep and transformative sustainable development agenda that directly reflects the SDGs. In this respect my Government has introduced five major initiatives that I want to highlight:
- Firstly, we have introduced legislation to create an enduring commitment to reducing child poverty and set specific targets, including for a ten year reduction in child poverty to 5% on the OECD income measure (from around 14% currently).
- Secondly, we have introduced a families package and lifted the minimum wage, boosting incomes of low and middle income families.
- Thirdly, we opened domestic consultations on legislation that will commit New Zealand to zero carbon emissions by 2050 and provide certainty and impetus to the economic and energy transition under way
- Fourthly, we have opened consultations on a Trade for All agenda to ensure trade policy delivers for all New Zealand and contributes to addressing global and regional issues of concern.
- And fifth, we have announced a reset of our contribution to the sustainable development priorities of Pacific countries, including a substantial lift in our aid budget.
New Zealand is also developing two systemic tools for sustainable development that represent a step change for our country. The first tool is a Living Standards Framework. The Framework will enable policy and resource decisions to be considered for their impact on overall well-being – current and future.
The framework moves beyond economic measures to consider the health and sustainability of four types of capital critical to intergenerational well-being.
They include:
- Natural Capital – all aspects of the natural environment needed to support life and human activity;
- Human Capital – people’s skills, knowledge and physical and mental health;
- Social Capital – the norms, values and connections that underpin society; and
- Financial/Physical Capital – the country’s physical and financial assets.
This framework will inform New Zealand’s first ever national ‘Well-being Budget’ in 2019.
A second, closely linked, tool is a statistical framework of indicators that will track the well-being of New Zealanders. It will consider indicators for well-being now and in the future across their economic, social and environmental, and transboundary dimensions. New Zealand is a relatively small country and we know the importance of focusing on what matters most and doing it well.
The indicators framework will not attempt to measure every SDG target or global indicator. Instead, following an open and inclusive consultation, it aims to measure what matters most to New Zealanders. It will however be the means by which New Zealand tracks our progress against the SDGs and provides well-being data for our own Living Standards Framework. It will provide the backdrop of data for New Zealand’s first Voluntary National Report which we look forward to presenting in the coming year, 2019.
Mr President, New Zealand is profoundly committed to the sustainable development agenda reflected in the SDGs - at home, in our region and internationally. Our commitment sits alongside that of all other countries – for this is a global agenda requiring global cooperation.
There has never been a more important agenda for humanity and the planet we share, or a more compelling one for us to come together around.