The NT economy must be equitable, serve the needs of everyone, and provide the best chance to meet the challenges of the future. We can transform and grow our economy to ensure that we meet the needs of all current and future Territorians, while protecting our unique environment.
Principles
The NT Greens believe:
- The NT economy must prioritise ecological health and community wellbeing rather than the production and consumption of material goods. This requires a transformation of institutions and measures of economic value.
- Ending poverty and reducing inequality is essential to social wellbeing, ecological sustainability and a strong democracy.
- Economic justice depends upon democratic participation in economic decision making. Territorians, particular First Nations Territorians, must be able to contribute to decision making about issues that affect the lives of First Nations people.
- Preventing and tackling future issues must be central to economic planning. Deliberate and targeted government intervention and leadership is necessary to encourage a diverse, productive, and future-proof economy.
- A prosperous and sustainable economy relies upon a healthy natural environment. Economies exist within, and are dependent upon, natural systems. Environmental stewardship is therefore central to economic management.
- The NT economy has benefited from the ongoing dispossession of First Nations peoples from Country. The cultural, social and environmental costs of this are not reflected in economic outcomes. Economic justice requires paying reparations and supporting the Sovereignty of First Nations Peoples.
- First Nations people must be the beneficiaries of commercial projects on Country, or that draw on First Nations cultural knowledge. First Nations people must have a direct say in how these projects are undertaken throughout the project lifecycle.
- It is the role of government to ensure that the economy develops in a way that distributes wealth evenly, and where effort, responsibility and innovation are rewarded fairly and adequately. Governments must regulate markets in a way to ensure that the costs of externalities are reflected in the market prices of goods and services.
- A secure and expanded revenue base is required to address economic and social inequality and the climate crisis. Revenue required should be raised by greater taxation of polluting industries, resource extraction, economic rents, and private wealth accumulation.
- Tax revenue from the extraction of finite resources should be invested for the future or focused on providing public infrastructure.
- Adequate, needs-based funding for social services is a core tenet of economic justice. Funding for early intervention and prevention reduces the economic impact of those issues, while appropriately funded safety nets ensure that nobody is left behind.
- Strong support for local and regional economies is important as they contribute to a sustainable and resilient economy.
- Inadequate social services payments have a direct impact on recipients’ ability to live good and meaningful lives. Coercive mutual obligations and restrictions on spending negatively impact the lives of Territorians.
- Funding for services and community organisations in the NT must reflect the demand for and complexity of the service provided, particularly for delivery of services in remote communities.
- Natural monopolies and essential public services should generally be in public ownership. They should be subject to a regime of transparency, accountability and environmental sustainability and stewardship that ensures maximum benefit to the public.
- Unpaid work in households and communities, including the fulfillment of caring responsibilities, makes an immeasurable contribution to the wellbeing of our society and should receive greater recognition and appreciation.
Aims:
The NT Greens want:
- A net negative carbon economy that is consistent with a safe climate.
- Progress in the Territory economy to be measured using a broader variety of indicators including wellbeing, economic justice, and ecological sustainability.
- The NT government to provide adequate, needs-based, secure and long-term funding for social services, including those directly provided by government and those provided by government-funded organisations.
- A shift in taxation that helps transition the economy by rewarding productive activity that does not result in pollution, degradation of natural resources, or derive profits from its rent seeking.
- To develop a renewable energy economy in which fossil fuels are phased out as soon as possible and replaced with affordable, reliable and clean power to support economic activity and job creation.
- To provide a guarantee of delivery of essential services to all consumers in a way that is reliable, accessible and affordable.
- The NT Government to pay reparations as part of the Treaty process with First Nations people, in recognition of First Nations’ sovereignty and the ongoing social and economic legacy effects of colonisation and dispossession in the NT.
- Support for community-led, self-determined enterprises to ensure that First Nations communities can benefit from the natural assets and economic opportunities on Country.
- Government industry assistance to be subject to rigorous assessment of environmental, social and economic impacts.
- An end to subsidies and tax concessions to environmentally harmful industries. Instead, subsidies should be provided to aid the development of alternative subsidies and training to assist in re-employment.
- Strong economies all across the Territory, not just in the main regional centres.