Address in Reply

It is a true pleasure to speak in this Address in Reply debate. The Government was elected in the general election with a mandate to get on with the business of making New Zealand a successful place to live, work, and bring up our children. New Zealand is better placed than most countries. The debt crisis in Europe, in countries like Greece, demonstrates what happens when you do not act on debt. The National-led Government believes that as a country we must get our debt under control and balance our books. This is crucial to allow us to grow our economy, create local jobs, and enjoy higher wages. The National-led Government is determined to keep on top of debt, keeping it below 30 percent of GDP. We have been and will continue to be responsible managers by restricting debt. We are determined to get back into surplus, and we have a plan over the next 3 years to build solid foundations for growth and more jobs.

We have made a great start. Across the board income tax has more than compensated the vast majority of income earners for the rise in GST, meaning they have more money in their pockets to spend. Around three-quarters of earners now pay a top tax rate of no more than 17.5 percent on their income. The average wage has increased 10 percent in the past 3 years, and that is taking into account tax and inflation. Superannuation payments have gone up 19 percent over the past 3 years, around double the rate of inflation. The married couple rate for superannuation, for example, has gone up $166 a fortnight in 3 years. We are working hard to lift the long-term performance of the economy, create jobs, and create an environment that encourages economic growth.

We are focused on protecting jobs while ensuring a fair wage. I am particularly pleased with the 90-day trial period introduced by our Government. In 2008 we introduced the 90-day trial period for employers with fewer than 20 employees. Research by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research showed that 13,000 New Zealanders got jobs through the 90-day trial periods. The Government has now extended that 90-day trial period to all employers to enable New Zealanders to benefit from it, and they will I am quite sure. It is good for people returning to the workforce or those without a work history. It is good for youth, migrants, and women. Quite simply, it is a win-win.

New Zealand is well placed to succeed and create more jobs for New Zealanders, but we must back business. After all, it is businesses that create jobs. The Minister for Economic Development, Steven Joyce, recently wrote an excellent opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald, and I would like to touch on this. He wrote that for New Zealand to be successful we need more jobs and more higher-paying jobs. Jobs provide the incomes that people use to help their families get ahead. Jobs give people the income to pay taxes for the public services, like health and education, that we value, and well-paying jobs are what keep more of our people in New Zealand, contributing to our country. And, of course, keeping families together means our communities are stronger.

But, critically, meaningful, sustainable jobs will depend on businesses that provide services or products that people need or want. The Minister went on to say in the article that businesses depend on six key things: ideas and innovation to create the business—that is, entrepreneurs and ideas people—money to build the business; access to raw materials; skilled people to work in the business; the public infrastructure that businesses depend on, such as power, broadband, and transport; and, most important, customers who want to buy the product. Essentially, if we want more and better jobs for New Zealanders, we need to encourage more businesses to be based here. To do that we need to make sure those six key drivers are there and easier for businesses to access. It is all about encouraging an environment that is encouraging to entrepreneurs and ideas people. We need to ensure that we make resources available for businesses to use. We need stronger and more internationally integrated capital markets that provide money for investment. We need to ensure that our people have the right skills. And we need to remember that we have a small domestic market, so our businesses will need to access world markets a lot earlier than similar businesses in countries located in larger world populations.

The Minister wrote in the article that we need to start a “we can” culture and move away from the “we can’t” culture. We need to reframe the argument to “why we should” from “why we shouldn’t”. It is about removing roadblocks and obstacles. The Minister went on to elaborate that this “can’t do” attitude was the prevailing attitude in the 2000s. Over that decade we progressively boxed ourselves in more and more, so we depended on fewer and fewer industries based on what the “can’t” group said. At the end of the day, the Government of the day was pretty much down to talking about only two of the key ingredients—that is, skill training and subsidising entrepreneurs who do not use resources.

The Minister summed it up by saying that we “need to stop the endless debate about which industry will save us and focus on all industries where New Zealand has a natural advantage. That’s why the Government is implementing and further developing its 120-point action plan that will help build a stronger, more competitive economy.” We need to encourage and develop all the opportunities if we are to prosper. The article by the Minister was extremely well written and thoughtful, and I encourage all my colleagues to read it.

Another win-win for New Zealanders is the mixed-ownership model, which we told New Zealanders about a year ahead of the election. The Government owns about $220 billion of assets, and we are expecting to invest another $34 billion over the next 5 years. Rather than borrow more money to pay for this, we are extending the mixed-ownership model to the four State-owned energy companies—that is, Mighty River Power, Meridian, Genesis, and Solid Energy. We are reducing the Government’s majority shareholding in Air New Zealand, which is already under a mixed-ownership model, and has proven to be very successful. The public-private partnership model will bring sharper commercial discipline and better-performing companies, as has happened with Air New Zealand.

We have guaranteed to the New Zealand public that the Government will be the majority shareholder and will maintain a minimum of a 51 percent shareholding stake. There will be priority for Kiwi investors, which will allow individual shareholders to hold around 10 percent, further ensuring Kiwi control. It frees up between $5 billion and $7 billion to invest directly into the Future Investment Fund for schools and hospitals, and other productive assets. The mixed-ownership model will help balance the books by 2014-15 without extra borrowing. And it does put Kiwis at the front of the queue for shares and investments other than finance companies. We are confident that these companies will remain overwhelmingly in New Zealand control. We expect New Zealanders will own at least 85 to 90 percent of these companies. That is because the Government will keep 51 percent majority control. It is a good investment opportunity. New Zealand investors have about $100 billion sitting in term deposits, and there are tens of billions of dollars invested by other New Zealand investors, such as KiwiSaver, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund, ACC, the Government Superannuation Fund, and iwi.

We will be able to fund new assets such as broadband, schools, and hospitals without borrowing more. We told New Zealanders about our plan a year ahead. There was no subterfuge. We were upfront and clearly spelt out our plan. It is a smart policy that will strengthen New Zealand’s economy, and a stronger economy is the only way we will create jobs, boost incomes, and provide high-quality public services that New Zealand needs. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch. Tēnā tātou katoa. In the Speech from the Throne there was one simple statement that revealed the next steps in progressing our transformation agenda. As agreed with the Māori Party, a separate appropriation and governance structure will be established for Whānau Ora. This statement was a signal to us all that Government has confidence in Whānau Ora as an approach that is premised on delivering better results for w’ānau. In the relationship accord that confidence is articulated further: “to support the evolving focus and ongoing implementation of Whānau Ora.”

Today I want to share some of our learning and our successes in the journey of w’ānau transformation. The sheer numbers of w’ānau engaged is one tangible measure of the enthusiasm with which New Zealand families are taking up these opportunities. We have 25 provider collectives representing 160 provider organisations currently delivering to, and engaging, w’ānau and families. At least 2,000 w’ānau plans, representing more than 15,000 family members, have set their w’ānau planning activities in motion through involvement in the Whānau Integration, Innovation and Engagement Fund. In addition, 1,000 w’ānau are actively navigated to access existing services through our 25 provider collectives.

But although the numbers are important, the overriding interest for me has been the outcomes. Are we seeing successful w’ānau across a broad range of situations? Let us be clear: this is high-risk business with a potential for a high return. There is no quick-fix solution to achieve the well-being of families.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. In accordance with numerous Speakers’ rulings and Standing Orders, I ask that the member table the speech instead of reading it.

Let us be clear: this is high-risk business with a potential for high return. There is no quick-fix solution to achieve the well-being of families, but we have to invest time, energy, and resources in family to be self-managing.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We have a point of order from the Hon Trevor Mallard. I ask the member to resume her seat, please. The decision of the Standing Orders Committee late last year, which is now to be commonplace within the House, is that speeches are not to be read. That is why the Hon Trevor Mallard asked that the speech be tabled. We can refer to speeches but we cannot read them verbatim. So I ask the member in her remaining time to use it as guidance for her speech rather than reading it verbatim. She can just refer to it in the context of which she wishes to speak this afternoon.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. We were not advised of the change to the Standing Orders to say that speeches could not be written and spoken to in the House, and—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I ask the member to resume her seat. Last year, the last thing before the House adjourned was that the new Standing Orders of Parliament were actually adopted by the House. So from this year on, this is what is going to be the accepted practice. If you are hearing this for the first time, I say to all members that in future they must only refer to their speech notes, as opposed to a Minister who may be speaking directly to a bill in their name. The exception also was for new members who are making their maiden speeches. That is the ruling, and I ask the member to just use the notes that she has as reference points for the balance of her speech.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. One other point is that it was a decision of the Standing Orders Committee, on which Mr Flavell was her representative.

💬 Hon Tau Henare: I am wondering whether we can get around this, because it is obviously a new Standing Order. It has obviously passed some of us by, and maybe, with the good grace of the House, now that we do know we could start tomorrow afresh.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: In order to join my friend in his suggestion, rather than start tomorrow, maybe it could be from the end of this speech. I seek leave for the Minister currently reading her speech to be allowed to complete her speech reading it.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, and thank you to the House.

I would dare anyone in this Chamber to declare raising families to be a walk in the park, because we all know the challenges that come with raising children in today’s world. The circumstances of daily life can at times be very stressful, even for the best of families, and for some families their circumstances become overwhelming. There are so many compounding factors, with poverty underpinning most factors. Successive administrations have attempted to intervene in circumstances of crisis, but too many times the intervention itself has simply created another obstacle in the path of the family in need. A brave Government would admit that the State is not the ultimate solution; a bold Government would be prepared to put its trust in the people, to acknowledge their potential, and to enable w’ānau to set their own direction to make change happen.

This, indeed, is the hub of the political challenge: to find the point of equilibrium between prudent accountability of public funds, and an environment to support the diversity of w’ānau aspirations. I want to remind those who have spoken out in anger against what they see as a one-man crusade to undermine Whānau Ora that Whānau Ora has always been about more than politicians and political parties. Indeed, it has never relied on Parliament as a moral guarantor, and nor should it, for essentially the success of Whānau Ora has been due to a rising tide of confidence in local solutions that we trace back over many, many decades. It has emerged from the momentum of w’ānau to create a secure foundation for our mokopuna to benefit from, and the majority of our w’ānau do this without State intervention.

Whānau Ora did not just come along in 2012. We saw the genesis of the approach in Pūao-te-ata-tū, in Tū Tangata, in the kōhanga reo movement, and in the Hui Taumata of 1984. The call was broad for w’ānau, hapū, and iwi to determine, run, and control their own initiatives. The funding for these moves would come from the so-called negative spending that went into picking up the pieces.

A fundamental premise in this journey was to encourage the State to place faith in the capacity of families to achieve outcomes that could lead to their full participation within society. This has not changed, a generation on, in our current environment, where there has been significant change in our economic, social, and cultural environment.

This journey is predicated on an investment in an indigenous approach, an approach based on Māori cultural foundations, built round a communal approach to well-being. Indeed, it has been available to all who want to participate in this approach, and we have been there before. Indeed, in this House 21 years ago, in April 1991, a politician rose in the appropriation debate to give voice to a view that might well have come out of Whānau Ora. The Minister of Maori Affairs at that time said that “It was not for central government to determine for tribes their shape, their character, or their form—and that policy was supported by Māoridom. The Government would work in a voluntary way with every tribe, with every subtribe, even with family, but it would be oppressive and culturally offensive to hold out the taxpayers’ cheque-book and say, ‘Either you conform or we don’t deal with you.’.” That politician was Winston Peters, and I hope he can appreciate the contribution that Ka Awatea also made to a journey that we are now seeing the fruits of through the success of Whānau Ora.

I said before that Whānau Ora is a high-risk business. Why would it not be, when we know the impact that circumstances can have on already fragile lives? But if it is high risk it is also high return, and that return has been evidenced in three ways. We have seen strategic leadership and regional championing, bringing together knowledge, expertise, and experience of community members and Government processes to benefit the well-being of w’ānau. We are observing systemic change, progressive and incremental success, demonstrated by integrated contracts, multi-year funding, multi-year planning, and the accompanying action research to inform quality improvement and to evidence outcomes. Most importantly, we are seeing the value, benefit, and success of w’ānau transformation as they build their capability and become the vehicle for their own change.

Whānau Ora is about transforming our futures. It is being realised in outcomes across social, cultural, and economic dimensions. One of the most significant aspects is the planning to create intergenerational transfers of knowledge and values, to put an end to cycles of despair, and to pave a way in which w’ānau aspirations are able to be fostered. Our next steps are in extending Whānau Ora to the Kaipara, Hauraki, South Waikato, Taupō, Tūrangi, Palmerston North, Wairarapa, Levin, the Kāpiti Coast, and Murihiku. We are championing an inclusive approach—an approach that is driven by a focus on outcomes—and that approach, although fundamental to the opportunities and gains for w’ānau, also comes back to Government.

And so I conclude my contribution today with an assurance to the House that we can have every confidence in the Whānau Ora approach, and that it will continue to evolve. Despite the amount of resourcing distributed across Government departments and to a range of agencies, there is an unfair expectation that Whānau Ora is the panacea for everything. We all have the responsibility to be responsive, and to practise whānau ora. It can begin with us all modelling hope, and placing value in a vision for tomorrow—the translation of our highest hopes into strong w’ānau who will lead communities throughout Aotearoa. Thank you.

I suppose that I am the first member of the House to follow and operationalise this new ruling. I can assure you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, and the House that I will not be reading from a speech, but I will be referring to a document that I think will become quite important in New Zealand’s economic history over the next few years, which is the National Government’s 2011 national Economic Development Action Plan.

One of the things that I have found very amusing coming from the other side of politics—and I would say that perhaps the word “bemused” rather than “amused” is a more appropriate word—is the accusation that National does not have a plan to fix New Zealand. This is wrong on multiple levels, although one is rather interested that the problem that we are trying to fix is the problem we inherited from three terms of the previous Labour Government. But I will put that aside, try to deconstruct the criticism, and ask what would constitute a plan.

I mean, is it some sort of hairy-chested 1950s version of it, with “Commissar Cunliffe” or “Commissar Parker” working long into the night with Leontief input-output tables, allocating resources in the so-called public interest? I do not suppose that is what they have in mind when they talk about an economic plan. So we would have to assume that, on the basis that it is better to listen—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to the fact that members of this side of the House were referred to as commissars. I think that although the member himself has acknowledged once being a Stalinist, it is out of order in this House to call people on the opposite benches commissars.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I thank the member. I just ask the member to withdraw that comment.

It will be the last time that I will use—even obviously in jest—the word “commissar”.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! The member has been asked to withdraw the comment. That is all the member is required to do, with no further comment.

I withdraw and apologise.

So if that is not the concept of an economic plan, what would be the plan that Labour has in mind? One would have to assume—on the basis of the well-known principle that people should be judged by the actions they take rather than on their words—that we would look at the three terms that the New Zealand public did give to Labour the confidence of the Treasury benches, in order to work out what a Labour-planned “fix New Zealand” would look like.

So what would that really add up to? Well, fundamentally, the plan that Labour unleashed on New Zealand after 3 years in the late 1990s—when growth averaged 4 percent, unemployment was rattling down, and the deficit was coming down at the same time—resulted after 8 or 9 years in the following basic economic facts. First of all, the last 3 years of that Government resulted in economic growth under 1 percent, finally achieving the remarkable distinction of putting New Zealand as the only developed country in the world to be in recession before the Lehman Brothers collapse provoked the global financial crisis.

It was an economic plan that gave us mortgage interest rates of over 10 percent, costing households on a typical average mortgage $200 a week more than they are typically paying today on a structured mortgage of that nature. It was a plan that led us, as we discovered in question time today, to an explosion of private sector debt from around $70 billion in 1999 to around $177 billion by December 2008, causing a huge spike in New Zealand’s net international liabilities, which, as the Minister for Economic Development pointed out today, has come down very remarkably, considering how difficult it is to turn around a supertanker like that, from 85 percent of GDP to 69 percent of GDP. And it led to a tanking of productivity. So if that is the plan in Labour’s mind, could it please find another country to experiment on than ours.

What we have given is a real plan, which is working with New Zealanders and working with the market to try to fix some of the immediate macroeconomic imbalances facing New Zealand, and to make serious progress on long-term structural reform, against the background of very difficult domestic conditions caused by the Canterbury earthquake, which is the second-largest insurance disaster in the history of the planet, according to what I read—unbelievably—and, secondly, the global financial crisis. And that is exactly what this Government has done in the previous 3 years and will continue with relentlessly over the next 3 years while we have the confidence of the Treasury benches. It will address those serious structural imbalances and, yes, it will indeed try to lay the structural foundations for a brighter long-term outlook for our economy and for the people of New Zealand.

First of all, we have addressed many of the structural economic imbalances, though I will be the first to admit there is a long way to go. We have stopped what was intended to be an endless spray of deficits and have got a plan that will have us just crossing the line into surplus by 2014-15. We have initiated on the structural side very long-overdue tax reform, which involved a very much-needed shift on higher consumption—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I am loath to interrupt the member who has just returned to his seat, but I do seek the opportunity to table a copy of the Government’s Economic Development Action Plan, noting that it contains no mention—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sit down. That is not a point of order. You are interrupting the member speaking, and we are going to hear the Minister out. If you wish to seek leave to table after the Minister has spoken, you may. That was a straight-out interruption of a member speaking.

In addition to moving on the macroeconomic front, the economic plan that the member has just referred to advances a whole set of propositions under more than 30 different headings of structural reforms, which piece by piece will indeed create the foundations for improved economic performance in this country.

This is not the first time we have moved in this direction. If one looks at our record in the previous Government one could pick many examples. One, at random, would be the work that we have done on aquaculture. After 8 or 9 years of not a single square metre of fresh open water space being allocated to what should be a far more vibrant export industry for New Zealand, finally we have advanced the frontier of reform in this area. It is just one small example of the structural reforms that this National-led Government has advanced and intends to advance in the future. We have got the deficits under control, though we have some way to go, and it will be a very difficult task to continue to keep fiscal discipline at the point where we have got restoration of New Zealand into a prudent situation.

The one thing that is very clear is that the era of beer and skittles is over. It is time now to get serious with public finances. There is any number of signals around the world telling New Zealanders, telling people of all nationalities, that that is the nature of the game. This Government is serious. This is a vital component of our economic plan for New Zealand. In addition to this, we have got a plan for advancing structural reform under many of those headings in that document. They cover numerous different issues, such as science and innovation, such as broadband and communications.

Rebuilding Canterbury is still a central preoccupation in terms of our economic plan for New Zealand, as it must be, given that Christchurch is the second-largest city in New Zealand and absolutely central to our export effort. I want to give credit to the people of Canterbury for maintaining an astonishing performance in terms of getting their world-class goods and services out of Lyttelton Port and out of Christchurch International Airport, under the most stressful conditions. I think they have done just an absolutely outstanding job and I think it is extraordinary, when I listen to the people responsible for Lyttelton telling us that actually they are almost at record levels.

But we have a whole series of economic plans that we will be implementing, including trying to move our time limits on consenting medium-term projects, and freshwater reform. We are going to try to address better the planning process around assessing natural hazards. I predict that the Labour Party will oppose probably every single one of those reforms. This, by the way—let me make it clear—is a prediction I would love to be proven wrong on. But I am not counting on it; I am not counting on it.

Fundamentally, to conclude, this is about advancing the frontier of a wealth creation economic plan for this country and trying to capture what I think is not just a necessity but a mood shift that is there inside our community and inside communities around the world, as this process of financial deleveraging should be reaching every single responsible political party in this country. Finally, to put it in the metaphor that our Prime Minister put it, we have indeed proven over the first 10 years of the 21st century that we can spend like a First World country. Now is the time to prove we can earn like one. Thank you.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Drawing upon Speakers’ rulings 38/2-3 I note that a member claiming to be misrepresented might seek an opportunity to explain that. The member who has just resumed his seat claimed that the economic development action plan of the Government contained numerous fiscal targets, including a return to surplus. When I attempted to table—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): What is the point of order?

The point is that it does not. It contains no targets whatsoever.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): What is the member—[Interruption]

This is a separate point of order. A separate point is coming up.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): What is the point of order?

The first point of order is to explain that misrepresentation, because this is not a fiscal plan—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is a debating point. If the member wishes to seek leave to table a document he should do so.

I seek leave to table the Government’s economic development action plan, which contains no fiscal targets, no—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): That is all you need to do; that is all you need to do. Order! Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection.

The member who has just resumed his seat, Mr Groser, claimed to have a plan. Well, he and I attended, in November, a meeting of Business New Zealand where two-thirds of those present, New Zealand businessmen, condemned the Government for having no plan. Although I waited with much anticipation for the Speech from the Throne following the election, I have to concur with the media verdict that this Speech from the Throne told us very little. It told us nothing about where the Government wanted to go. There was no vision, no sense of direction, and no plan—and that is rather sad.

I want to correct the member on one other thing. He claimed that National had inherited a poor legacy. That is not what Bill English said on becoming Minister of Finance. He said we were in good shape because a Labour Government had prepared for the rainy day, which was the global financial crisis. The fact is we had paid off our debt. We had zero net Government debt. Now National is borrowing to the tune of $300 million a week. We had the lowest rate of unemployment in the OECD, and we had a credit rating that the agencies put up, not down, which was their verdict on the adequacy of the National Government’s response.

Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, can I acknowledge your election to your position as Assistant Speaker and also welcome new members to the House. I congratulate them on their election. Can I particularly congratulate the four maiden speakers for Labour, who gave, I believe, great speeches last night. They talked of their vision, of where they had come from, and about why they were in this House and where they wanted our country to go in order to be a fairer and more effective country for all New Zealanders—and I emphasise “all”.

But today I want to focus on a momentous decision made in the High Court by Justice Miller. What Justice Miller did, just 2 hours ago, was set aside a decision made by Ministers Coleman and Williamson to sell 8,000 hectares of some of New Zealand’s best dairy land to foreign investors. He set it aside, and thank God that we have got a High Court judge with the guts, under law, to stand up and act in New Zealand’s interests when weak and incompetent National Party Ministers had failed to do so. The judge was absolutely clear in his conclusion that the Ministers’ decision was thoroughly inadequate. He said that the Overseas Investment Act requires the benefits of foreign investment to be identifiable and substantial, but that the Ministers had failed—had failed—to ensure that the Shanghai Pengxin Group application met that test. In fact, he was scathing about the Ministers’ decisions. He said that the Ministers had “misdirected themselves”. That was his learned legal opinion. He said they had ignored the clear evidence that benefit would accrue if the land remained in New Zealand’s ownership. There was no need to sell it, he said. The Ministers ignored the benefit that would accrue if it remained in New Zealand’s ownership, and he said that they had accepted evidence about the economic benefit of the Shanghai Pengxin Group sale that was materially overstated. In other words, the judge was very clear that the Ministers failed to do their job. They let New Zealand down, and in that they were aided and abetted by Prime Minister John Key.

Mr Key argued this: “The law would not have allowed us to reverse the decision made by the Overseas Investment Office.” Not only was he wrong but he was proven wrong in law. Far from the law not allowing the Overseas Investment Office to not accept the application, he said the law required it to look at criteria that should have led it to reject that application. Mr Key was absolutely wrong, but he will not accept responsibility. I have been in this House for a fair long time. The last person who exhibited the characteristics of Mr Key was one Sir Robert Muldoon. He was wrong, was proven wrong, but he was never prepared to accept responsibility for wrong decisions and misstatements of fact that he had made.

In fact, the obligation on the Ministers was to ensure that they exercised their judgment over this purchase bid, not to be the puppets of the Overseas Investment Office, which Mr Key implied when he said that they were simply following the Overseas Investment Office’s advice. They do not get paid a quarter of a million dollars a year to rubber-stamp what the Overseas Investment Office says; they are paid money and given the responsibility to make decisions that are correct according to law and to apply their judgment, and they failed absolutely to do that.

Then Mr Key claimed that the China free-trade agreement required that this decision be approved. The judge’s decision explicitly rejects that and says that the Ministers were advised that that was not correct. The Overseas Investment Act is an agreed exception to the agreement in the free-trade agreement that foreign and domestic investors will be treated alike. It is specifically set aside, and Mr Key is wrong and misleads New Zealanders in claiming that the free-trade agreement required us to sell out our heritage and pass ownership of that land to this Shanghai-based company. Has Mr Key—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: How many pieces of farmland did you sell when you were the Minister of Foreign Affairs?

—or Mr Henare—ignored the fact that no New Zealand company can go to China and buy land in China? No New Zealand company can buy land in China. I congratulate the Chinese on that, because the Chinese Government at least can recognise that it needs to act in the interests of its own people—something that the National Government in this affair has failed to recognise altogether.

Labour says that now is the time to draw a line in the sand. At the end of last year we sold $100 million of prime land in Southland, around where Mr English lives, to German investors. Then the Government was intending to approve $200 million in the sale of land to Chinese investors. I do not care whether they are Chinese, German, American, or whatever—

💬 Hon Tau Henare: Oh yes, you do.

—what I care about is whether that decision was going to be in the interests of New Zealand, and that is where the High Court judge—I say to Mr Henare—said absolutely that it was not in our interests. How can it be in our interests to become tenants in our own land? John Key stood up and said that we will not become tenants in our own land. What does he think happens when we sell off those 8,000 hectares of land, and the Shanghai Pengxin Group becomes the landlord and Landcorp becomes the tenant? Is that not becoming tenants in our own land?

The fact is that that sale would not have increased our productivity and wealth, and it would not have improved the way in which the animals or pasture are managed; all it would have done is push up the price for Kiwi farmers. It would have risked the value added being transferred overseas, it would have risked transfer pricing where taxes were paid not to our Government for activity in our country but to overseas Governments, and it would have guaranteed that the money profits from our land flowed out of our country to the benefit of foreign investors.

I want to say one other thing. It is about the sale of the State assets. Mr Key said that the reason to do this was that he had a mandate to sell and that this would improve the performance of the companies. Again, neither is true. Massey University did a properly organised scientific survey. It found that 75 percent of Kiwis were against the sale of our energy companies.

💬 Hon Parekura Horomia: How many? How many?

Seventy-five percent were against it, and 9 percent were for it. DigiPoll on Television New Zealand last night found that 88 percent of the people surveyed were opposed, and 8 percent were for it. There is no mandate, and if this Government had the courage of its convictions, it would take this decision to a public referendum to see whether or not it had its mandate. But it will not do that, because it knows that at least three out of every four New Zealanders do not want to sell.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koe. Me tuku whakapāha ki a Hōnore Anne Tolley mō taku whakararuraru i tana kōrero. Mr Speaker, e hiahia ana ki te kōrero mō tētahi kōrero i kōrerohia e koe inā tata nei i a au e ngaro ana. Ko te tikanga o taku tū ake, ko te āhuatanga o te kōrero o te Hōnore Trevor Mallard ko tana i kī mai, kāore i te tika kia pānui mai tētahi kōrero ki roto i te Whare, ki konei kōrero ai i taua take. Nā, me pēnei rawa te kōrero, kai te whakaae au ki te hiahia ki te kōrero i runga i te ngākau ā tēnā, ā tēnā ēngari, i roto i te Standing Orders, kei reira tonu ētahi tikanga hai whai mā tātou. Ka huri ki te reo Pākehā i tēnei wā.

[Thank you. I need to apologise to the Minister the Hon Anne Tolley for the problems I caused her during her address. Mr Speaker, I want to follow up a recent ruling you made in my absence. The reason for rising and making this point of order relates to the circumstances around what the Hon Trevor Mallard said when he stated that a member cannot read his or her address in the House but should deliver it in an impromptu manner. I agree with that. Each member should speak from the heart, but there are procedures in the Standing Orders for us to follow. At this point I switch to English.]

I just wanted to take up a matter raised earlier by the Hon Trevor Mallard and other speakers coming in the debate, and I appreciate that I have come down from my office to address this. It is to do with the issue about the reading of speeches. Immediately after that issue was raised, our office made an investigation and found that there is actually, from our understanding, no mention of anything about not reading speeches, in the Standing Orders. That is the first point. The second point is to raise, however, that in the Speakers’ rulings—and I refer specifically to Speaker’s ruling 47/1, from September 2011—there is a phrase that states: “Where possible, members should not read speeches … However, no member, other than the Speaker, may interrupt a member who is speaking to suggest a breach of this convention, and the Speaker may allow speeches to be read in some circumstances. Such circumstances may relate to the technical nature of the material under discussion, or the relative experience of the member concerned.” That was part of the Review of Standing Orders: Report of the Standing Orders Committee, September 2011, on page 28.

So there are two points I wanted to raise, with respect. The first one is, to correct Mr Mallard’s discussion in Parliament, that there is in fact no ruling, from our understanding, from the Standing Orders Committee about that convention. Secondly, the onus is actually on the Speaker to make a decision, as opposed to a member of this House. I raise that because Mr Henare and others have spoken about the fact that that may set a precedent for the rest of our time over the next 3 years. I leave that for your consideration.

I thank the member for his comments. If we go back and look at the review of the Standing Orders, which was tabled in the House and adopted by the House, the point that the member makes, on page 28, is correct, but the convention has been that we do not read speeches. If you look at the opening statement there: “We also wish to reiterate that, where possible, members should not read speeches. The reading of speeches was precluded until 1996, and we wish to reassert this rule as a convention,”. So this was what was adopted by this House on the review, and the member was a member of the Standing Orders review—as I was—and understood the reasons behind that. So what the tabling of this document, the report of the Standing Orders Committee, and the accepting of it in the House is actually doing is reasserting the convention that speeches should not be read.

Many members bring up points of order. It is at the Speaker’s discretion whether a speech should be read. I said to the member who was speaking, the Hon Tariana Turia, that she should refer to her notes, so it was not as if I was saying—I think I used the word “verbatim”; it came up a couple of times. But then the House sought leave for her to read it, and we were in the hands of the House at that stage, and the House decided that the Minister could read her speech. The points that the member has made are taken on board, but I want to make it very clear that the reading of speeches as pertained in the report of the review of the Standing Orders—the convention that we do not read speeches—is something that Speakers in the future, and the Chairman of the Committee, will be looking at very closely. I thank the member for bringing that matter to our attention.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Sorry, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, not to trivialise your response, but can I just check with you, though, the issue about—not being a lawyer—the difference between a convention and a rule as set out by the Standing Orders. I ask that seriously, because I understand the desire of the House at that time and in the discussions to have open, free debate, and I have got no problem with that. But the inference that Mr Mallard gave—I thought; that I took from the discussion—was that it was required, a set rule, a Standing Order, and I am trying to make the point that that was not the case. But if you could define “convention”, that would be helpful.

Well, I cannot; I am not a lawyer, either. We need to get some advice on that. Can you just wait while I just ask the Clerk for some advice on that matter.

The practice was part of the Standing Orders review. In the report it says that it is a convention that speeches should not be read. This was adopted by the House, and I mentioned that earlier on. There is no specific Standing Order, I think that is a point for the member—there is no Standing Order. But when the House adopted the report of the Standing Orders Committee, which talks about speeches being read, what it does is re-enforces the convention or the practice that speeches will not be read in the future. So that is the position that this House adopted in this report and that is what is going to be the convention, which is going to be the protocol, as it were, from here on in. It does, of course, allow for some flexibility. I mentioned, when we discussed this earlier on, on a point of order, that there will be Ministers who maybe can read a speech on a bill in their name. It could be, and I mentioned this also specifically, that new members making their maiden statements will be able to read their speeches. There could well be some technical aspects within a bill that require some explanation and that it would be desirable that the person or the Minister actually read. I hope that clarifies the position. It is a convention. We want to move back to an accepted practice that speeches in future will not be read.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Is this on this point?

It is on this point. It is pursuant to this and I am not arguing with your ruling. A second point of that new Standing Order then goes on to say that no member other than the Speaker may interrupt a member who is speaking, to suggest a breach of this convention, and that is something that clearly has been broken. It is your discretion and I would just hate to see that there is a precedent set in this House whereby we start down this track, as we have taken action on it.

I thank the member. Yes, and I acknowledged that earlier on that it is at the Speaker’s discretion. I had made the decision earlier on, and how it was resolved, finally, was that leave was sought. We are in the hands of the House when leave is sought for a particular course of action and I think that was a resolution, a favourable resolution, for the Minister. I hope that ends the matter.

This National-led Government, of course, has four key priorities for our second term as outlined by our Prime Minister: first, to responsibly manage the Government’s finances; second, to build a competitive and productive economy and lift, of course, the standard of living of all New Zealanders; third, the rebuild of Christchurch; and fourth, to deliver better public services—and it is that last point that I, as Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, want to talk about today and to expand on the Prime Minister’s address to this House. Under National over the last 3 years, crime rates have fallen. My predecessor, the Hon Judith Collins, oversaw immense improvements in corrections and I want to confirm in the House today that we remain firmly—firmly—focused on preventing crime, reducing reoffending, and, most important of all, keeping our communities safe.

We are all aware that we are in very difficult economic times, so this is not just about throwing money at problems; we do not have the money to throw at problems. It is about working smarter, and one of the most important and exciting initiatives to be introduced by this National-led Government is Policing Excellence. This involves about eight different streams of work that will see the police, and have seen the police, focusing more on crime prevention, making our communities safer, reducing offending, and all of that, of course, leads to fewer victims. That means fewer families grieving for lost loved ones or being affected by white collar crime, which can, of course, have long-term implications for people, as well as things as minor as burglaries, which are a very difficult emotional invasion for people no matter how small the issues are.

So Policing Excellence will increase the productivity and efficiency of our police, and they have set themselves targets of a 13 percent reduction in reported crime. They want to see more crime prevented before it happens, so are looking for a decrease in the amount of crime that happens, and, as a result of that, a 13 percent decrease in the amount of crime that is recorded, and a 19 percent decrease in non-traffic apprehensions resolved by prosecutions over the next 3 to 5 years. They are big targets for the police, but they are determined to achieve those.

Amongst their work streams is Prevention First. This is where we are going to give our police staff many more opportunities to be out there in communities, working in areas where they know there are high risks, and looking to prevent crime before it happens. When I talk to some of those front-line policemen out there, they say this is the stuff that they joined the police to do. They do not want to be arresting people; they want to be making sure that they are stopping crime from happening. Neighbourhood policing teams—32 of which have now been deployed across the country—are again working in areas where the intelligence tells them the most crime is committed, where young people are most likely to be congregating and getting into trouble. They are out there working with those communities, coming up with all sorts of ways of preventing crimes and making those communities safer.

Working on alternative resolutions, as an alternative to taking someone through the court process, is really important with our young people, because the evidence is quite clear that once we get those young people into that cycle of turning up at court, it is very hard to get them out of it.

We are also looking at keeping our front-line police far more mobile. One of the worst parts of their job is having to go back to the office and write everything up. So we are looking at trialling technology so that they can actually be recording their actions at the time. They do not have to stop what they are doing and go back into an office and fill in forms. We are keeping them out there on the streets. So we are looking to increase the number of hours that police are out there working on our streets.

And one of the last work streams is the crime reporting line. This is under way currently in Auckland City, Counties Manukau, and Bay of Plenty and it is due to be expanded this year. I have to say I had reason to use this myself. The police are just a phone call away. You do not have to go down to the station and fill in forms; you can talk to someone over the telephone, report the crime, give all the details, and get your police number. It saves an awful lot of effort on behalf of the victims, particularly in my area where rustling is a huge issue that has grown over the last couple of years. Farmers say to me: “Gosh, to report the crime, we’ve got to stop what we are doing, and we are working, drive down the coast—it could be an hour and a half or so to report the crime—fill in the forms, and drive back.” Actually, they do not want to do that and soon they will be able to pick up a telephone and report the crime.

So, in summary, Policing Excellence is putting more effort into crime prevention and more hours into front-line policing, and that is leading to lower rates of offending and that, of course, means that fewer people in our communities are the victims of crime—and that is what we want. That is what we are focused on: reducing offending.

And, of course, we are interested in reducing reoffending, because prisoner rehabilitation is extremely important. When you look at the figures for our prisoners, you see that within a 12-month period, 45 percent of prisoners released from prison are reconvicted and 27 percent of them are re-imprisoned within 12 months of release. After 24 months—after 2 years—62 percent of them are reconvicted, and 39 percent are re-imprisoned. So there is a cycle that these people get on, and we are determined to make sure that we can get more and more of them out of that cycle, back into their families and their communities, and contributing to society. So what have we done? Well, over the last 3 years we have doubled the drug and alcohol treatment places for prisoners—we have doubled them—and we will continue to roll out more treatment places for prisoners. We have boosted literacy and numeracy education in prisoners, which languished under the previous Labour Government, and we have increased dramatically the number of prisoners who are receiving work skills training. It is so important that they have those skills so that when they leave prison, they are able to take their place in the work force, and, of course, we are determined to work with them to make sure that that happens.

Just last week, while I was visiting the Auckland Region Women’s Corrections Facility, I spoke to offenders who were involved in the distribution of food to other prisons around New Zealand. They not only have huge pride in the work that they are doing but are using that opportunity to gain their National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) qualifications. The women I spoke to were aiming for their NCEA level 2. They were pushing me to ensure that they could sit NCEA level 3—there were some minor technicalities around the use of computers that we need to resolve in order for them to achieve that. In fact, this week one prisoner in Christchurch, I understand, has achieved the National Certificate in Distribution (Level 3). That means that these women, when they leave prison, will have a skill that they can take with them into the workplace. That gives them the opportunity then, using our 90-day trial period legislation, to get that first job, to get that next step on the ladder that gets them back into the community and out of this cycle of reoffending and re-imprisonment.

We believe we have made enormous strides in corrections over the last 3 years, and for that the management deserves credit. They have done an outstanding job improving the performance of our prisons and focusing on those reoffending rates—all part of making our communities safer. Finally, can I refer to a report that was released a couple of days ago showing that New Zealanders’ confidence in the New Zealand police force has soared and that is simply a reflection of all the good work that this National-led Government has done to support both the police and corrections to make our communities safer.

May I begin by acknowledging the re-election of the Speaker to his role. I have new portfolio responsibilities: Canterbury earthquake recovery, civil defence and emergency management, and consumer rights and standards. I just want to say how grateful I am for David Shearer’s confidence, because, with his background in disaster recovery, it speaks a lot to me about what he has to offer the city of Christchurch, and, indeed, the country in terms of taking the lessons learnt from Christchurch and making them our own as a country.

We all know about disaster recovery. It requires four particular things: quality communication, community engagement, building resilience, but, most of all, leadership. When I talk about leadership, there is a difference between the leadership that is required in a response effort, which, of course, is command and control—people need to do what they are told, they need to know that they can rely on the decision maker—but in recovery it is different. It is inclusive, it is engaging, it is a really important way of ensuring that the community is able to go with those decision makers. The Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery has mocked the well-established principles of recovery by saying that all we are asking for is to sit around in groups and sing “Kumbaya”. He says that he is rewriting international best practice on a day-by-day basis, and that is actually what deeply disturbs me. International best practice is based on the evidence—the evidence that is gained from both successes and disasters. So when there has been a failure of recovery, those lessons have been learnt and they are available to us. This Government is placing a great risk on a Minister who wants to rewrite history and rewrite our future.

When the Prime Minister spoke on 23 February, the day after our dreadful earthquake, of which we acknowledge the anniversary next week, he said “On behalf of the Government, let me be clear that no one will be left to walk this journey alone. New Zealand will walk this journey with you. We will be there every step of the way. Christchurch; this is not your test, this is New Zealand’s test. I promise we will meet this test.” Today I am asking the Prime Minister and the Minister for Canterbury Earthquake Recovery to meet the challenge that he quite rightly set the Government the day after the disastrous earthquake. It is one week away from that first anniversary, so I know that I am going to be criticised for making this statement, but I think it is really important because there are people in Christchurch who are extremely worried, not just about the fact that this is the anniversary of the 22 February earthquake and they are still out of their houses or face an uncertain future, but because it is nearly 18 months since the first earthquake and some of them have been out of their houses since the first earthquake, and some of them still do not have the basic services that we would expect in a First World country. A number of them are facing the uncertainty of the land upon which their houses are built, or facing an unpalatable choice between the Government’s offer and the unknown. I want to talk about that, I want to talk about the red zone offer, and I want to talk about the reality that people face about their land.

The first thing I want to mention, though, is how the Government has communicated the land decisions, because I actually, personally, think there is nothing worse than the way the Government has chosen to do it—by briefing the media about the future of the land, and not the people who are affected by the decisions. On 23 June 2011 the media had already been briefed sufficiently to be able to lead the front page of the Press with the decision that was going to be announced at lunchtime that day. As local MPs, we were given a 15-minute heads-up of the detail of the announcement. On 18 August the Kaiapoi decisions were announced. Affected residents were denied admission to the press conference where the future of their land was disclosed. On 19 August the details of the red zone offer were launched immediately following the opening of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s recovery assistance centre. There were a number of things about that announcement, where the Government did not point out that there was no right of appeal on the amount of the offer—it did not mention that at the press conference.

On 28 October most of the remaining orange zones were turned green, but it did not give any warning of these new foundation technical categories, 1, 2, and 3—1 being the grey, 2 being the yellow, and 3 being the blue. Of course, that has caused major concerns for a number of people who do not have the detail to go with that, requiring, as it does, individual geotechnical site investigations to determine foundation types. The interesting thing about that announcement that day is that Brooklands residents who had been on tenterhooks for months went online to find out what was the story with their community, and the system crashed. Guess what? They had not changed colour at all, and no one warned them that no decision had been made about Brooklands. This is playing with people’s minds.

On 17 November a text message from the Minister’s office in the morning said there would be announcements that afternoon. We were briefed at 12 o’clock. At 2 o’clock the people of Brooklands found out that they were subject to the red zone decision, but they did not find out that that was going to happen until the press went out to ask them for their response, how they felt about being red-zoned. A lot of people in Brooklands are very, very upset at that decision. Then on February 10, again we had to contact the Minister’s office to ask for details about the announcement. Again, Southshore was not included, the white zones in my colleague’s electorate in Port Hills were not mentioned, and, again, there was a great deal of uncertainty.

When I tell people this they are appalled at the insensitivity, and that is because, I believe, the Government’s communication strategy is not focused on the affected communities. It is political, and it is very inappropriate on every level. Because the community does not understand the nature of the decisions that are being made, they therefore have no confidence in the quality of the decision making. When you have to dig yourself out of silt on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day, and you have done it for the third time in a row, then you can understand why, in fact, there is no confidence in the decision. This is not just Parklands East. All of the boundary areas that we have been raising with the Government since July last year are all affected in the same way and are asking for more details. Significant numbers want to be red, but there are also significant numbers in Brooklands that want to be green. And in Brooklands they did not dig out tonnes of silt on 22 February, 13 June, or 23 December, because their damage was done on 4 September.

If the Government had agreed to engage with them, as I have repeatedly asked month after month after month, then people would understand what was happening. So many people believe that the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority makes the decision, but it is not the authority; it is the Government. It comes down to “What is the cost of repair?”, and “How much are the sections worth?”. It is about money and it is about insurance. The Government says the red zone offer has winners and losers. Well, it sure does, and there are different shades of losers. I lose out on what the Government has described as an extremely fair deal, but I am not losing as much as many of the people I am privileged to represent. I sat next to someone on the plane a while ago, and he asked how my property was. I said I was in the red zone, and he said: “Oh, well, that’s lucky for you.” I said: “Actually, I do not get enough out of the Government offer to buy what I have got now”, and I also said that my insurance company had told me that it could repair my house. But the point is, and the person sitting next to me said this: “But how can they repair your house? You’re in the red zone.”

That is the problem. The Government has given in to the insurance industry and let it off the hook for what we are entitled to. We signed up for replacement policies with our insurers, and we expect the Government to stand by our side, as the Prime Minister promised us on 23 February, and enable us to move on with our lives—not to do any better, we do not want to be winners; we just want to break even. That is not an unreasonable thing for people to ask. That is what many people and the people of Christchurch are asking the Government to understand and to reflect on as we head into this time. Maybe we could think about what the word “kumbaya” means. In the song it says: “Someone’s crying Lord, kumbaya.” It means “come by here”, and maybe when the Prime Minister is in Christchurch next week he would like to come by some of the neighbourhoods and talk to them about the issues that are confronting them and think about whether the decision was the right one for Christchurch.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. [In New Zealand Sign Language]

Tōku awa, ko tōku ora. Tōku awa, ko tōku mana. Toku awa, ko tōku kaha. Tōku awa, ko tōku wairua.

[My river is my love, influence, strength, and spirituality.]

My river is my life.

It was the desire to save a very special river, the Waikirikiri, that led directly to my involvement in politics. Twelve years ago I moved out of Christchurch to the village of Coalgate in the foothills of the Canterbury Plains with my former husband and three small children. The location was ideal for us, close to a small country school, with the peaceful Waikirikiri flowing past our doorstep, and amazing views of the mountains. But shortly after moving there we found that there were ambitious plans to build a massive water storage dam for irrigation just upstream of us. If the dam went ahead the beautiful Waikirikiri would become an ugly, fast-flowing canal, too dangerous for kids to go swimming in. The dam would also destroy private land protected by a Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust covenant, including two raised, spring-fed peat bogs, which pollen analysis showed to be thousands of years old. I recall standing with my husband at the bottom of our property, looking upstream towards the Wairiri Valley, wondering what we should do. Should we spend time and energy fighting the proposed scheme or should we resign ourselves to it going ahead?

At that time we had a small business offering forestry management services, mainly to farmers on the Canterbury Plains and foothills. We had witnessed firsthand the devastating impact of prolonged drought. But we also knew that the scheme was not about drought-proofing but about land intensification. It would allow yet more farms to convert to intensive dairying and dairy support—land uses dependent on high inputs of energy, water, and fossil fuels. It was clear to us that our groundwater and our rivers were at risk. So we decided to try to stop the dam and highlight to the wider public the downside of intensive farming. As part of this campaign we networked with other committed people across Canterbury, all of us united by a desire to protect Canterbury’s water. Some of this fight is covered in Sam Mahon’s book The Water Thieves.

It was during this time that I became disillusioned with the politics of both Labour and National. It seemed to me that neither was willing or able to grasp the seriousness of the threats facing our water. So, in part inspired by the late Rod Donald, who was my neighbour prior to his election to Parliament, I joined the Green Party and stood as a candidate for the first time in the 2005 general election.

When I first stood I had no concept of what huge challenges lay ahead of me as a deaf candidate and activist. I just wanted to speak out in defence of our water and our environment and be heard. But I learnt the hard way that passion and knowledge were not enough. I had to find different ways of doing politics, ways of getting around the barriers posed by being deaf, ways that allowed me to participate and engage effectively. I started learning New Zealand Sign Language and using sign language interpreters when I spoke to submissions to the local city and regional councils. I am absolutely thrilled that there are New Zealand Sign Language interpreters in the gallery today, and I note that it is the first time in New Zealand that a maiden speech is being covered this way. I hope that this will be the start of greater recognition by Parliament of the status of New Zealand Sign as our third official language.

I want to thank all those who campaigned to get New Zealand Sign Language Act passed into law, and I acknowledge the role played by the former Minister for Disability Issues the Hon Ruth Dyson in facilitating this process. The effects of this Act have been positive for many, but there is still a long way to go before the Act is implemented as it should be. For example, as a mother of three children I find it unacceptable that some deaf parents are unable to attend parent-teacher interviews to discuss their children’s progress, as is their right, because the school will not provide New Zealand Sign Language interpreters.

I want to acknowledge the dedicated people who campaigned for New Zealand to sign and ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. New Zealand signed the convention on 30 March 2007 under a Labour Government, and ratified it on 26 September 2008 under a National Government. Article 29 of the convention guarantees the right of persons with disabilities to effectively and fully participate in political and public life, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected. My election on the Green Party list under MMP means that hearing impaired, deaf, and people with disabilities have representation in Parliament from someone who shares with them many of the same experiences and challenges that they face.

It is a huge honour to be representing this community in the House, and I take this responsibility seriously. High on my list of goals for this Parliament is to advocate for improved access to information and communication services for deaf, and hearing and vision impaired. Simple things like improving the captioning and audio description of television, DVDs, and the internet would enable access to our culture and to services. Until recently, New Zealand had one of the lowest rates of television captioning in the developed world. Even Uganda had higher rates than us. This situation has improved recently with the introduction of closed captioning by Sky television on many of its channels, a move that I celebrate as it will make a real difference for many of us.

Although access to TV has improved, full access to information around political debates and to democratic participation remain out of reach for many. We need captioning of Parliament TV so that all New Zealanders with a hearing impairment can have full access to political debates, a right that we have under the convention. At the moment, because Parliament TV is not captioned, I am relying on electronic note-takers to follow the debate in the Chamber. Although they do an excellent job, and parliamentary staff have worked very hard in getting around the technical challenges, it is not an ideal solution, in part because they will not always be available when a bill comes up that I need to speak to.

I made the point yesterday that funding for electronic note-takers and equipment should be not be coming out of my support budget, which all members receive, because no MP with a disability should be expected to fund their participation in the House in this way. To put the cost in context, a few years ago Parliament spent nearly $1 million upgrading the audio system in the Chamber so that MPs could hear better. I am hopeful that Parliament will show leadership in this area and move quickly to resolve this, so that I can get on with the work that I was elected to do.

I would now like to acknowledge the love and aroha that I have had over the years from my family, my friends, and my supporters, sustaining me through all the ups and downs of my political journey into Parliament. Many of them, including my three beautiful children, are here in the gallery today. Thank you all; I could not have done it without you. Your love is what gives me the strength to stand here today.

I am also motivated by the knowledge that so much has been invested in me from my earliest years. I was 2½ years old and without speech when teachers at my kindergarten picked up that I was profoundly deaf and I was provided with large aids that I wore in a harness strapped on to my body. Given this very late start in language development, I would never have caught up with my peers had it not been for two key things. Firstly, I am fortunate to have an amazing and totally dedicated mother, who once she knew I could not hear spent many, many hours with me teaching me basic speech and reading skills before I even started school, to ensure that I would not be left behind. Secondly, I have had the benefit of extensive intervention and support throughout my childhood, including 3 years at the Mary Hare School for Deaf in England, where class sizes ranged from six to 10 pupils and the focus was on high academic achievement. I believe that it is the right of every child with a disability to have access to the level of early intervention and quality education that I had, so that every child can reach their potential.

Although disability issues are obviously high on my agenda, I do have other issues I am keen to progress, particularly in the areas of food and animal welfare. At the moment, far too many animals in New Zealand suffer needless and prolonged pain and suffering, both on intensive farms and in experimentation. I grew up eating meat produced on our own farm, but when I left I became vegetarian because I could not be sure that the meat I ate would come from animals that had been treated well. Likewise, I avoid eggs from battery hens because of the cruelty and suffering involved in their production. I am delighted that the UK has banned cages for hens, and I look forward to the day the last hen is released from her cage in New Zealand.

While staying true to the Green Party kaupapa and to those I represent, I pledge to work constructively and with an open mind with everyone from all sides of the House to advance issues wherever we can find common ground.

He hōnore, he kororia ki te Atua, he maungarongo ki te whenua, he whakaaro pai ki ngā tāngata katoa. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Ko taku pepehā. Ko Wharepūhunga tōku maunga. Ko Waikato tōku awa. Ko Tāinui tōku waka. Ko Ngāti Raukawa tōku iwi. Ko Ngāti Huri tōku hapū. Ko Pikitū tōku marae. Ko Rautī Simmonds tōku tupuna kuia. Ko Bob Roche taku matua. Ko Anne Roche taku whaea. Ko Jim Roche me Andrew Roche, me Ennis McLeod, me Bernie Taylor, me Bridget McBeth, me Judy O’Connor rāua ko Gloria Roche āku tuākana. Ko Robby Roche taku teina. Ko John Stansfield taku hoa rangatira. Ko Joseph rāua ko Matariki ōku tamariki. Nō te motu ātaahua o Waiheke ahau.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koe, Mr Deputy Speaker, ki ngā rangatira o te whenua ō tēnei Whare tēnei, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Honour and glory to God, peace and good will to all mankind. Greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings to you all.

My tribal identity is as follows. Wharepūhunga is my mountain and Waikato is my river. Tainui is my canoe, Ngāti Raukawa is my tribe, Ngāti Huri is my subtribe, and Pikitū is my marae. Rautī Simmonds is my grandmother, Bob Roche is my father, and Anne Roche is my mother. My older siblings are Jim Roche, Andrew Roche, Ennis McLeod, Bernie Taylor, Bridget McBeth, Judy O’Connor, and Gloria Roche. My younger sibling is Robby Roche. John Stansfield is my noble husband, and Matariki and Joseph are my children. I come from the beautiful island of Waiheke.

Greatest of respects to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and acknowledgments to you all, leaders of the nation of this House, greetings to you all.]

We come to this House—all of us—as the individual expression of collective aspiration, collective experience, and collective effort. It has been said before that no one stands on the paepae by themselves. You cannot be a leader if there is no one with you. You cannot stand at the front if there is no one behind you. And, importantly, you are a leader only because others have supported you.

As I take my place in this House, I first thank all the fabulous Green Party supporters and voters who have trusted me with their vision of a richer New Zealand: a country where rivers are clean, where children are safe, healthy, and educated, and where a thriving green economy ensures our children can build satisfying careers in the same country as their families. In particular, I thank the Auckland Greens. I especially acknowledge Katy Watabe, Ron Miller, Rod Galanti, Gwen Shaw, Neil Miller, Nora West, Tim McMains, Jane and Pam, and so many others for their incredible support, encouragement, and sheer hard work.

I am not the first woman of Māori descent to come to this House from the glorious motu of Waiheke. My mentor and inspiration—and my friend—and a former Minister of Local Government, the Hon Sandra Lee, blazed that path for me. And I am not the first woman from our organic island farm to walk these halls; my friend and fellow olive-picker and grape-stomper, the Hon Laila Harré, a former Minister of Women’s Affairs, holds that baton. And I am not the first organic grower from our farm to represent the great green family in this House. My colleague Greens co-leader Russel Norman beat me to the post.

But I am the first descendant of Rautī Simmonds, the first daughter of Ngāti Huri to enter this House as a member. I acknowledge Ockie Simmonds from our hapū up there in the gallery. And I am the first in the Roche family—a huge family, blessed as it was by the combination of natural Māori fertility and Catholic contraception—to enter this House. I am the eighth child and the youngest daughter in a family of nine children. My mother was one of three, but from a large extended family, and part of the clan McLeod of Waipū. I still have a horror of bagpipes being played indoors. My father was one of 16 children, and I am one of about 84 first cousins on that side.

I am sad that my parents, Anne and Bob Roche, have both passed away and do not get to see their daughter take her place in this House. However, I am grateful for the support that I have received from my family. I acknowledge my whanāu, my children, and my friends up there in the gallery, who have travelled from far and wide to witness this day.

It was my large family that prepared me for a political career. I learnt early that numbers count—and the importance of organising the numbers in the house to offset the power at the top. And I certainly learnt the skills in arguing. I had a lot of practice, and I particularly thank my brother-in-law Pat Taylor for honing those skills over very many years.

I grew up with my family in a railway house in the Frankton railway settlement. Mum worked for the post office and my dad was on the railways—good secure Government jobs, which no longer exist today. In fact, just this week the Prime Minister has announced more job losses to come in the State sector.

I am not of the 1 percent who are so grossly overrepresented in every part of New Zealand political life. I was one of those kids who left high school with no qualification, but I returned as an adult student some years later. I studied by day and, among other jobs, I sang telegrams at night to support myself. I was blessed to be challenged and supported by one of New Zealand’s greatest educators while at Auckland Girls’ Grammar School. Thank you, Charmaine Pountney—I am here to pay it back.

Emboldened by education and enraged by the injustice that delivered, by an accident of birth, to one class the jewels and another the crumbs, I set out on a journey that began as a union organiser, initially with the theatrical workers union, hitching rides on trains in the guards’ van with my dad’s union mates, and fighting for the rights of cinema workers around the northern part of our country. I have protested and picketed with the best. I can attest that love and politics can mix: my first date with my life partner, John, was at a union picket at the Devonport docks.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: So romantic.

Romance! I have scrapped my way through disputes, represented workers in courts and tribunals, and had a solid education in the misery that is greed, the blight that grew inequality across our land. I moved to the hotbed of activism known as Ōrapiu Grove Farm on Waiheke Island to be with my partner when our kids were small. I am grateful to that island. It is where I learnt to walk the talk as a Green.

Waiheke is a great place to raise your kids and it is an even better place to learn the craft of political representation. It is a place where opinions are strongly held, and freely given too—at all hours of the day—on the ferry, at the supermarket, at the library.

I started my political career in 2007 by defeating a sitting Auckland City Councillor by just 11 votes, and I put up with being called “Landslide Roche” for the next 3 years. That election catapulted me into the final term of the Auckland City Council and the debates on the future governance of Auckland.

We do political debates a bit differently where I come from. We do them like they matter, as if political decisions were the preserve of those affected by them. For this reason in Auckland Council Waiheke and Great Barrier Island have a rate of voter engagement that is the envy of much of the country. There is something in this that this House needs to learn from—how to make politics meaningful and relevant to our citizens. And I am sorry to say it is something that this House has been failing at.

The 2011 election marked a historic low in political engagement: the lowest rate of voter turnout since 1877, which was before women got the vote. The biggest threat to democracy in this country is not the community of Ruātoki, it is not the Taliban, it is not the Exclusive Brethren and their abortive campaign to wipe out the Green Party. It is disengaged citizens. You will note that I do not call this “voter apathy”, because as a Green member of Parliament I do not believe in blaming the victim. If our time in this House is to serve the interests of democracy, then we need to urgently address and arrest this decline in voter participation.

When the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance began the process that took the “local” out of local government in Auckland, nearly a quarter of all the submissions it received were from the 0.8 percent of the region who live in the Hauraki Gulf islands. The commission had no option but to hold hearings on both Waiheke and Great Barrier Island, and they were very well attended, I can assure you. The upshot was that both our communities kept our own local boards. Many others in that forced amalgamation did not. The Gulf islands is a little place, but you seriously do not want to mess with us.

I am proud to be Ngāti Waiheke, and I acknowledge those from the motu who have travelled here today. And I am proud to be part of the community and voluntary sector too. Community organisations are the crucible of democracy, the place where citizens come together to share their dreams, and plan our common futures. They are an essential glue of society, which shapes our norms and values, without which we would all be the poorer.

I am carried into this House on the shoulders of activists and organisations who fought for my right to be here. I think particularly of that historic and venerable institution the National Council of Women. It was founded in 1896 and the first president was suffragist Kate Sheppard. It is an organisation to whose tireless advocacy I and every other woman in this House owe our place. We have not honoured this contribution. In 2004 this House passed inept legislation based on an ancient definition of “charitable purpose”, which denies the legitimate advocacy role of non-governmental organisations and which has resulted in organisations like the National Council of Women, and others like Greenpeace, being denied registration as charities. They cannot be registered, because the Charities Commission has an allergy to advocacy. Australian legislators have realised this error and amended their legislation, and I look forward to being part of a New Zealand Parliament that moves similarly.

As I enter this House I look forward to being able to work across parties for the benefit of all our communities—like the bill that will be coming up soon to restrict harm from gambling. I can assure the House that even though I am the Greens’ gambling spokesperson, I am not an anti-gambling zealot, and I will prove that to you by selling you a raffle ticket during the dinner break. I am, however, deeply concerned with the harm caused by commercialised gambling, and especially by the blight on our communities caused by pokie machines.

Kiwis know that these machines reap their profits from problem gamblers. Kiwis know that they can harm whole communities, which is why whenever they have been asked if they want more pokies, people say no. The former Manukau City Council received over 6,000 submissions asking it to restrict pokies. Active, engaged citizens are saying no to pokies, and will be dismayed by the banana-republic, backroom deal being done by the Government, where our laws are for sale, and where the Auckland casino, a monopoly provider, is to be expanded in return for a convention centre—or was that 30 pieces of silver?

Commercial gambling is deeply regressive, and cynically exploitative. It is a transfer of wealth from the brown to the white, from the women to the men, and from the poor to the rich. Casinos are an engine of crime and inequality.

As Simon Collins so cogently argued in last week’s New Zealand Herald feature, we have become a land of inequality. The deregulation of the labour markets since 1991 has not brought the wealth and security to the working people that was promised in this House. We are not a better country for having dismantled generations of knowledge and experience in distributing fairly the profits of work and enterprise.

We used to be a nation that prided itself on giving everyone a fair go, but the human value of fairness and equality has been subverted by greed. It has been subverted by bankrupt financial ideology, which has robbed the poor on behalf of the rich. The one mechanism available to working people to garner a fair share for their work—organised labour—has been systematically demonised, vilified, and stripped of rights that took generations of active citizens to build. I acknowledge the Ports of Auckland workers’ dispute to oppose the casualisation of their jobs, and the Oceania rest home workers who are striking soon.

If we want working people to invest their lives in our future as a nation, we need to assure them of decent wages, safe working conditions, and economic security for their families, or we are forever condemned to waving goodbye to our kids as they flee to societies that will respect them.

I am proud to join the largest team of Green MPs that this country has ever seen. The last election saw a greater awareness that the Green vision is a sound vision. We are waking up to the fact that promises delivered for a 3-year election cycle will not deliver the best outcomes in the longer term. My children, Mata and Joe, and all our children, are destined to inherit an environment much more degraded than the country I grew up in. We have a duty to them and to generations to come to address climate change and to clean up the mess we have been creating.

And finally, it is an absolute privilege to join a team of Greens who are determined to keep our principled approach to politics. I pay tribute to our Green Party MPs who left last term: Keith Locke, Sue Kedgley, and, prior to that, Jeanette Fitzsimons and Sue Bradford, who, together with all our MPs, have demonstrated that principled approach to this House over the years. I hope to do as well. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Waiata

Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Te mea tuatahi me mihi ki a Ranginui rāua ko Papatuānuku, tēnā kōrua. Te Whare e tū nei, tēnā koe. Ko rererangi te waka. Ko Sierra Nevada ngā maunga. Ko Yuba te awa. Ko Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa te moana. Ko Ngāti Merikana, ko Ngāti Pākehā ngā iwi. Nō Karepōnia ahau. Ko Tāmaki-makau-rau taku kāinga i nāianei. Ko Julie Anne Genter ahau.

[Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Greetings to you, greetings to you, and greetings to us all. The first thing is to acknowledge Sky Father and Earth Mother—greetings to you two. Greetings also to the House standing before us. Aeroplane is the mode of transport, Sierra Nevada are the mountains, Yuba is the river, and the Great Ocean of Kiwa is the sea. Ngāti American and Ngāti Pākehā are the tribes, and I am from California. Currently Auckland is my home, and I am Julie Anne Genter.]

It is with the greatest respect that I address this House for the second time. It is with gratitude and humility that I stand here—gratitude to those who have gone before; gratitude to all those who have taught me on my journey so far. Special thanks to my father, John, and my brothers, Sean and Liam, who are here today, to my mother, Pauline, and to my grandparents, who are watching from afar. I owe my presence here today to a great many people: family members, friends, housemates, and colleagues who are far too many to name. I especially want to acknowledge the fantastic and tireless efforts of Green Party staff, volunteers, members, and supporters, who achieved an unprecedented result this past November. We hope to do you proud, and to help turn your efforts into a greener and fairer New Zealand. I stand here with utmost humility. It is an incredible honour and privilege to serve the people of Aotearoa New Zealand. I would like to take this opportunity to affirm my allegiance to Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the reason I and all Pākehā are able to be here with legitimacy and call this place home.

Like many of my neighbours in Auckland, I was not born in Aotearoa. I chose this land to be my home because I love it. I love the forests, I love the lakes and rivers, I love the mountains and the beaches, I love the people. Like many New Zealanders, I grew up swimming in the Pacific Ocean, though it was on the far side. The Sierra Nevada mountains, the redwood forests, and the crystal-clear Yuba River are among the precious places that taught me a deep love and respect of the natural world that sustains us.

However, the wild beauty in the remote corners of California does contrast starkly with the place where I actually grew up. Anyone who has ever attempted to walk along in the undifferentiated suburban sprawl of Los Angeles County, along a loud and polluted eight-lane arterial, flanked by asphalt deserts of mostly empty car-parks and ugly strip development, will understand what I mean. As a young person I often wondered why it was so difficult and unpleasant to walk anywhere, why in a large metropolis with a nearly perfect climate the only place I saw other people was at the mall, and how it could be less costly for each and every person to have to make even very short trips in their own, expensive, 2-tonne box of glass and steel, rather than by walking, or cycling, or taking a bus or train. In fact, I have learnt, it is not.

The wealth of my homeland and the material comfort that I was raised with also contrast starkly with the endemic poverty that lies beneath the shiny movie screen surface of America. As a child I recall a few trips to downtown Los Angeles, another world from the big houses in our predominantly white neighbourhood. We visited many cardboard towns of homeless people set up underneath motorway flyovers. We brought them hundreds of brown bags with sandwiches, and carefully walked around broken glass, hypodermic needles, and rubbish that covered the footpaths. We went home to our safe, quiet neighbourhood, where it was easy for me to read, study, and achieve. Why is it like this? Does it have to be this way? Could the spaces between the buildings be places that we love? In a wealthy society, could everyone have a safe place to live, and have the same opportunities to achieve? These are the questions that have shaped the journey of my life so far.

The week I turned 18 I left home to seek adventure beyond the suburbs. I ended up in a small town in the mountains in northern California, where I lived and worked with people from all different backgrounds. We lived week to week on minimum wage jobs in restaurants and cinemas. We bought most of our clothes and furniture in op shops. We were happy, although in the winter we sometimes had to break the ice in the toilet, which had frozen overnight, and we could not really afford to go to the doctor or the dentist. My friends there were all doing their best, and were smart and hard-working enough to make a great contribution to society, but many did not feel that path was open to them. My privileged upbringing made it easy for me to move on when I was ready to continue my studies. I studied philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, to try to uncover the rational underpinnings of my political and ethical convictions. In my final year I took up French, in part due to a love of Voltaire and his pragmatic approach to humanism.

Ten years ago I left the United States. I initially went to France to gain fluency in the language, but I stayed because I could not bear to return to a country engaged in the futile and destructive wars championed by George W Bush. After some time working and travelling in Europe I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to undertake postgraduate study at Sciences Po in Paris, where I was able to study economics and political theory. My questions about the places where we live and the nature of our economy were slowly informed by my experiences, as well as by my studies. I eagerly delved deeper into new approaches to urban planning, transport, and resource management at the University of Auckland, and in my subsequent work as a transport consultant.

Every one of us travels, most every day, and every one of us consumes goods that have been transported from farther and farther away. We are all very personally familiar with the annoyances and the injustices that inevitably occur when we are running late and need to get somewhere. But there is a much bigger picture. The places where we live are fundamentally shaped by the transport system and policies put in place by Government. In turn, this affects the money and time we must spend travelling, the quality of our air and water, and the fact that nearly 40 percent of our energy use is for transport. We increasingly see that it affects our health, the value of our land, the cost of development, and the affordability of housing. It even affects the amount of interaction we have with our neighbours. Perhaps most pertinently for this Government, it affects our balance of trade and the amount of money we have left over each week to save or to spend in the domestic economy. The latest research in transport and urban planning tells us it is entirely possible to foster healthier, safer, and more livable towns and cities. Doing so will even save Governments, households, and businesses money, while facilitating economic development, so why are we not doing that?

It was when working as a consultant with district and regional councils, Government agencies, and private developers that I realised there are no technical, economic, or cultural, even, barriers to sustainable towns and cities. The impediments holding us back from doing things smarter are mainly political, and this is true in areas beyond transport. That is why I joined the only party with a good understanding of transport, and indeed a coherent vision for the future of our economy and society.

I am sure all members of this House will agree that we face some very daunting challenges. The global financial crisis, the end of cheap energy, climate change, and increasing inequality are the four big ones, and they are all interrelated. The flip side of these challenges is that we have an opportunity to approach things differently. We have an opportunity to improve the ways we live and do business, and it will enable us, our children, and our grandchildren to meet these challenges successfully, but to do so we will need to approach problems differently than we have in the past. We will all need to listen to one another. We will need to move past ideology and look beyond our prejudices.

If the House will indulge me, I would like to talk about an emerging view in cognitive science called the argumentative theory of reason. Since the Enlightenment it has been commonly assumed that each person has a uniquely human faculty of reasoning, which they could individually use to deduce the truth. However, the evidence from psychology does not support this; in fact, people do quite poorly on reasoning tests. But, as it turns out, we are all very good at arguing, especially in this House. People are very good at finding evidence to support their arguments. That is part of the reason why we struggle with confirmation bias: that is, we tend to find evidence to support the views that we already hold. This is well-documented in psychology.

This theory does not suggest that reasoning cannot lead to good decisions. The idea is that humans evolved in groups, and reason actually functions socially, through argumentation, rather than individually. We can see this as the wisdom of crowds, which is informing our digital age. It has interesting and inspiring implications for deliberative democracy. We often assume life would be better if we could just get on with it, whatever our favoured course of action happens to be. But doing more, faster, without the buy-in of everyone, is not necessarily advantageous. It turns out that we make better decisions collectively, when more people are involved in the debate, even if it takes longer. Having multiple perspectives represented means more valuable information is included in the evaluation, and more minds weigh up the validity of the arguments put forward. It gets round our confirmation bias and makes for more robust decisions. It is why MMP is so crucial, because it allows many more perspectives to be represented in Parliament.

I am proud to be a member of the Green Party, which uses a consensus model of decision making. Consensus does not mean we all agree. In fact, we often have heated arguments, but by taking the time to allow everyone to have their say and continue until everyone can live with the decision, I believe that makes our policy much more robust. Greater participation in decision making could help us with the challenges we face, in at least two ways. Firstly, it will prevent us from being seduced by expertise that may create more problems than it solves. As the members of this House will hear me say many times, I am sure, in the next 3 years, our transport predicament is at least in part due to the perfectly understandable but misguided approach of traffic engineering that focused on increasing the volume and speed of vehicles, to the exclusion of all else. When we take wider impacts into account, some of which are represented by the public health sector, and some represented by local communities, we get a better idea of the true economic impact of our infrastructure projects.

Secondly, groups that have profited from the status quo and have become very powerful have a vested interest in maintaining it. They will claim that any move to a more sustainable and fair economy will kill jobs or drain New Zealand of innovation. It is understandable that they react this way. They want to protect their short-term interests, but over and over again we see evidence that when small powerful groups have too much sway it benefits no one, not even them. We have seen special interests consistently lobby for deregulation that ended up costing everyone more in the medium term. Examples include leaky homes, US car manufacturers arguing against fuel economy standards, hedge funds, and deep-sea oil contractors—and these are barely the tip of the iceberg. All arguments are not equally strong. By not favouring certain points of view just because they are powerful or have claims to expertise, and by having more people involved in the debate, I believe we can collectively find solutions that will enable us to create a better world.

For my part, during my time here I hope to use my unique perspective and experience to contribute to law and policy that will enable us all to flourish. I would like to encourage and enable greater participation in our political process. I hope to move beyond the traditional assumptions and to persuade members from all sides of the House that New Zealanders will greatly benefit from a much smarter transport and urban land use policy; that we will all benefit from a fairer, more transparent, and less punitive justice system; and that we will all benefit from an independent, publicly funded broadcasting system.

I believe that every member of this House has come here because they believe in the possibility of democracy, and that their contribution can have a positive impact on our fellow citizens and on this beautiful place we inhabit. To the 50th Parliament I say that I acknowledge and respect our shared passion for service, and I look forward to working constructively with each of you where we can find common ground. I believe that we can move beyond our traditional assumptions and find new ways of doing things that will leave us all better off. Kia ora koutou.

I acknowledge this House, the land it stands on, and the indigenous people of this place. To all the women and people from the margins who have gone before me in this place, I thank you. I will do my best to live up to your vision of a future where we can all speak constructively. To those still on the margins, I promise you my best efforts to redress hardship and injustice and to live up to your expectations. And to all the amazing Green Party activists and voters, again my thanks. I look forward to our ongoing journey.

I pledge to this House and to those who elected me that I will seek to honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Declaration of Independence, and the principles of cooperation, inclusion, integrity, justice, and fairness. I stand here today as a leftie feminist lesbian, who sometimes despairs about what we are doing to each other and our planet. I stand here as an ordinary Pākehā New Zealander. I stand here knowing we could do things so much better if we did things differently.

I grew up in Invercargill. Both my parents worked really hard to give my brother and me the opportunities that they had not had. Dad worked for the electricity department, and mum was a theatre nurse. My mother was brought up in Lebanon for part of her life as a daughter of Baptist missionaries, and I remember as a child watching the Israeli bombing of Lebanon on TV and her pointing out a massive pile of rubble that had been her childhood home. For me it was an early grounding in global affairs and world politics, and I felt lucky to have her and to be watching from afar. My dad grew up in rural New Zealand, and he passed on his love of the outdoors to my brother and me, while teasing us for being townies. His history as a polar explorer was incredibly exotic and has given me a sense of unlimited possibility. Mum and dad always told my brother and me we could do anything we wanted, as long as we worked hard enough. And I would like to thank them for this start and for bringing me up to care about fairness and justice, the world, and our precious places. I would also like to apologise in advance for all the times in the coming years that you are going to be bemused by your radical daughter—sorry about that.

Despite having this amazing start in life, my teenage years were pretty tough. Like many people, many New Zealanders, I suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness. I was bewildered by the changing world, not sure of who I was, scared I would not be able to live up to my own expectations, and angry about the greed and cruelty I was seeing around me. It was the 1980s, and New Zealand was in the middle of massive social and cultural change. It was the time of the women’s conferences and the catchcry “Girls can do anything.”, as well, of course, as the media and discussion telling us we could not. It was the time of the Springbok Tour, Bastion Point, and homosexual law reform. During this time my friends were dealing with racism on a daily basis—as, sadly, friends are still now—being followed in shops, stopped in their cars, patronised, ignored, and mistrusted. Their tears, frustrations, anger, or extra efforts to conform disturbed me then and still deeply disturb me. The 1980s was also a time of radical economic change, and I saw this through the lens of a spate of suicides of fathers of students at my school, who due to the removal of Government farming subsidies faced the loss of their family farms and their identity. This was a tragic lesson on the human cost of decisions made in this place.

Being unwell, I went off the rails for a while during the 1980s and early 1990s, and the truth is I am very, very lucky that my friends and family—and particularly my brother—managed to get me through university and hold me here until I managed to get back on track. It was an incredibly precarious time for me, and I cannot express how grateful I am to have got through it. What got me back on track was discovering activism and community work. I started working for Women’s Refuge in the early 1990s, and this gave me a sense of purpose, of being able to make a difference, and of solidarity with others wanting a better world. I finally felt as if I was part of something, and had a sense of how I could contribute to the world.

I have never lost that feeling of purpose or the sense of responsibility that comes from thriving when I really know that so many others are not. Since then, increasingly, I have seen the focus in New Zealand turn to individuals and individual responsibilities, rather than to family, community, or shared endeavour. Yet societies cannot function if everyone acts as an individual. It is connection that makes our society work, not isolation.

Today one of the key stories I carry with me into this House is from the 1990s, when I was working in youth health. I was doing a suicide prevention workshop with a group of unemployed, disenfranchised, and disconnected young people. I asked these young people about what it takes to be successful, and they came up with responses like being smart and working hard. And I asked, in a rather leading way, whether they thought getting help from other people make a difference. They disagreed. When I asked whether they thought, say, Jenny Shipley or even Tupac had received help to get where they were, they again refused to acknowledge that possibility. These young people were already on the margins, out of school, out of work, and they believed it was their own fault they were in this position. They believed individual responsibility was all. But, rather than that myth spurring them into action, it put their lives at risk and it significantly increased their chances of remaining unemployed. All their charisma, energy, and ideas were left floating in the ether of individualism and self-blame.

If we cannot see we are interdependent, then we will not ask for help when we need it and we will be left floundering in polluted waters, unable to breathe. We are all beneficiaries and should be proud to be so. I am the beneficiary of years of support from family, friends, the State, not to mention the beneficiary of colonisation and at times the unemployment benefit. There should not be a stigma in accepting help when you need it. And there is benefit in sharing and helping others when they need it. Individualism locks in inequality and oppression, and as a result we all lose out.

I also carry with me today, into this House, all too many stories of gender-based abuse and violence. One in three girls, one in seven boys, one in 11 women, and up to one in two transgender people will experience sexual abuse in this country. One in three women experience psychological or physical abuse from their partners in their lifetime. On average, 14 women, six men, and 10 children are killed by a member of their family every year. Police are called to around 200 domestic violence situations every day—that is one every 7 minutes on average. Police estimate only 18 percent of domestic violence incidents are reported. Like most of you, I carry some of these stories etched into my heart from experience—my own, of others, and those I have worked with through Women’s Refuge and the Wellington Sexual Abuse Foundation helpline. The people of these stories who have been victimised by what is predominantly men’s violence are from all ethnicities, of all ages, genders, and sexualities, across an ability spectrum, and from every economic stratum. This is not an issue of poverty.

It is important to me that I bring these stories into this House, because these stories need to be shared and the shame taken away from those who are holding the stories. We representatives of the people of this country have a duty to honour the extraordinary strength of survivors and ensure, first and foremost, that they have adequate support to heal. They also need to see that we are working to prevent the same thing from happening to others or to them again. We have a duty too to those perpetrating the abuse to help them learn the fulfilment that can come from equal relationships, rather than ones of power and control. It is not enough to have a task force. We need to implement the recommendations of those task forces. And it is not in any way acceptable that funding for sexual abuse counselling through ACC has been cut in half and that domestic violence support services have effectively been cut, while their workload has increased by 12 percent. There are immediate changes we can make; they need to be a priority, for all of our sakes.

I also bring with me today stories of hope into this House. One is about the launch of the Assume Nothing exhibition at the Dowse Art Museum in 2008. Assume Nothing is a photographic exhibition by Rebecca Swan celebrating diverse gender identities. The exhibition showed a range of people who do not fit traditional gender roles or narrow definitions of male or female, looking strong and beautiful. Attending the exhibition, having recently returned from overseas, I felt so proud to be a New Zealander, proud to live in a country that has such spaces, and people willing to share so intimately of themselves in the pursuit of understanding and the celebration of our diversity.

I am here in this House to work for a world where we can enjoy our differences of gender, sexuality, culture, ethnicity, ability, and age—in every aspect of our society. We are a diverse population and I hope to see the potential of this diversity realised. Would it not be wonderful to see Government as a whole drive to increase innovation and productivity by addressing the barriers that are holding all too many people and communities back? I will work to grow this hope, so that we can all see the beauty of difference rather than the fear of the “other”. We all need to know we count. We all need to know that together we can make a difference for ourselves, our families, our friends, and our communities.

Through my work in the community sector I have learnt the importance of creative solutions, involving people in change, of having politicians who will work with you, keeping to your values, and how to do a lot with very little money. I bring these skills and others to this place.

All the stories I have shared today demonstrate who I am and who I am working for. To remind myself of these values I got a tattoo over the holidays, with the Audre Lorde quote “My silences have not protected me.” I will do my best to speak out for all of us, so one day we can all be protected and free. But my sister-in-law has suggested I should get my other leg tattooed with “Discretion is the best part of valour.” I am not quite ready for it.

I am very proud to be a Green Party MP because the Green vision is a new vision. It is a vision that holds equity, economy, and the environment together and acknowledges we are all important and have a duty of care for each other and the planet. I would like to thank the Green team and all the parliamentary staff in advance for doing all the work that enables us to make a difference. I hope I can. Finally, I would like to thank all my family—mum, dad, Noel, Ian, Anna, Liz, Maria, Kyran, Deb, Whetū, Jac, Caroline, Denise, and Billy—for all your love and support.

With your food basket and my food basket the people will thrive. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

Waiata

Kia ora tātou katoa. I give my acknowledgment to this House, to those who have gone before, to the tangata whenua of this region, and, indeed, to Aotearoa. I acknowledge my parents, both no longer with us—Ivan passing just a few years ago, and Alice just a week and a day before the election—and my late half-brother, Trevor, who was also so supportive of my vision. To the Green Party MPs before this current 14—to the late Rod Donald, who led such a full but short life, inspiring me and many others to remain resolute in the vision of a fair and sustainable Aotearoa and world; to Jeanette Fitzsimons, now retired after 15 years of inspiring leadership and example; to Nandor; to Keith Locke; to Mike Ward; to Ian Ewen-Street; and to the two Sues, Sue Kedgley and Sue Bradford, who have both shown such significant output—thanks to you all for your support and friendship.

In acknowledging my fellow Green MPs and their skills, knowledge, and passion, I think of the great Green team and the party that has reached the New Zealand public in such a way that we are now 14—and we will grow. Many of you have put so much of your life into the Green cause—a very special thanks to you. To those Greens in my rohe of Marlborough—you and many others have directly encouraged and supported me. I am scared to start naming you all, because where do I stop? But for inspiration and leadership, Alison and Nozz Fletcher—I think we all say thanks. Bob and Jenny Crum—such special friends. Pam Nicholls and the great Green campaigners—so much effort from you all, and what a great crew. Thanks to the Van Pallandt family for your love and support. To my son Jordan, who cannot be here today, your love and support, as with Jamie’s, is a rock for me. To all my five siblings, all here in the gallery today with my son Jamie over from Melbourne, and other close friends, it is so great to have you with me today.

The non-governmental organisations—to my many, many friends and colleagues in the non-governmental organisations I have worked with for years, you are fantastic and a big part of why I am here. Much of what you strive for so very hard should be achieved for all New Zealanders by good leadership and vision from Parliament. You deserve better. You are another great big family that makes a wonderful world, striving for an even more wonderful world. Thanks to Philippa Jamieson, Elvira, Matt, Marion, Bob Crowder, Margaret Jones, Kyra Xavier, and the great Soil and Health Association team; the Bio-Gro and Organics Aotearoa New Zealand teams, Brendan Hoare, and Seagar Mason and whānau; to the Friends of Nelson Haven and Tasman Bay whānau—what a strong, close, hard-working group for coastal ecosytems—to Pete and Tukutai Beech from Guardians of the Sounds; to Tim Newsham and the Marlborough Environment Centre; to Susie Lees, Claire Bleakley, Zelka, Jon Carapiet, and Jon Muller from GE-Free New Zealand; to Alison White from the Safe Food Campaign, Meriel Watts on pesticides, and Murray Horton on peace and foreign ownership; and to many other non-governmental organisations and friends. You all really do rock, and we have achieved a lot. There are other very dear friends whose close love and support have helped me and my vision—you know who you are, and thank you so very much.

I would like to acknowledge my fellow members of Parliament—those who have returned, those other newbies like me, and those like you, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch, who have been elected to further positions. I would like to acknowledge the parliamentary staff, also, who have been so helpful already—thank you. I include, especially today, in parallel to the members of Parliament, our executive assistants and collective office staff. You have either returned or are another set of newbies, thanks to the results of last year’s general election and your skills. Congratulations especially to my executive assistant, Angela McLeod, who is helping me find my feet and has so much experience to offer me—thank you.

What a great privilege it is to join the Green Party caucus in Parliament with portfolio responsibility in most of the areas that I am particularly passionate about, and also to get on to the Primary Production Committee. Primary production underpins our economy and most of the environmental issues New Zealand is grappling with. My year started with the challenge of theoretically taking holidays yet acknowledging the demands of many emails and Facebookers about what was wrong with the Food Bill. The Food Bill won overall. Time management, saying no, and prioritising among the many important issues are certainly the biggest challenges for me, and I have already learnt a strong lesson. My portfolio areas of agriculture, organics, forestry, fisheries, biosecurity, customs, genetic engineering, and security intelligence all have immediate issues to start on. I am looking forward to them, to the others that will arise, but especially to those that I will bring to the table.

So where did this Green MP come from? My family moved to Marlborough when I was 4, in 1958—No. 4 of six children—to an undersized house on a half-acre Blenheim section running down to the Ōpawa river. That was developed into a huge garden, with nut and fruit trees. The outdoors of what seemed to be a huge section and the wilderness of the Ōpawa riverbank gave us children a space from the constraints of the house, and gave our mother, Alice, a reprieve from incessant children. There were boats and fishing from what was then a tidal-influenced river, which has changed now, with shoals of mullet to try for, which are not there now; the then endless eels, which are fewer now; cowboys and Indians—they are not there, either—the huts; and all the childhood adventures. From that home we were all given a sense of curiosity and were taught to question beyond the obvious, and certainly encouraged to question authority. Clearly, that persists.

As a child I loved gardening and keeping lizards. With a keen interest in ecology, I can still recall in my sixth-form biology text—and those important teachers—the wonderful drawing of a giant rimu, including epiphytes and pīwakawaka, showing the complexity of the indigenous ecosystem. That interest persists in my work’s focus, in both marine and terrestrial sustainability. The interrelationships between organisms and ecosystem services that work so well in nature need to be modelled in productive and social systems for a sustainable humanity. They should underpin every decision from Parliament. The Green Party’s guiding principles interlink them well.

I lived in the bush for over 6 years, 300 metres up on the side of my maunga, Aorere—Mount Stokes—the tallest mountain in the Marlborough Sounds, at 1,200 metres, with an endemic daisy in its indigenous alpine floral summer mix. We could walk out the back door and climb to a snow-covered crispy top in the winter, with views over Marlborough, over Tasman Bay, up to the North Island, and past Cook Strait to the Kaikōura coast. My family—my then wife, Diane, and our two boys, Jamie and Jordan—looked out over Forsyth and the Chetwood Islands to a distant Stephens Island/Takapourewa, and we were totally off the grid.

My work on marine sustainability started there, when Anakoha Bay began to have mussel farms along nearly all of its 12-kilometre coastline. Marine farming—having submitted to more Resource Management Act marine farm applications than anyone else in New Zealand, I will focus on this just now. Friends of Nelson Haven and Tasman Bay remains involved in Environment Court proceedings from the last aquaculture gold rushes. We have built the case law supporting good planning in the Marlborough Sounds. I am keen that the National Government’s hunger for an aquaculture boom does not create the same environmental impacts or non-governmental organisation workloads as the last two gold rushes did. Yet National is now clearly supporting New Zealand King Salmon and others, through its aquaculture law reform. Reform was necessary, but not so enabling as to encourage King Salmon to try breaking down the community’s hard-won protections of smart spatial planning in the Marlborough Sounds.

King Salmon in Marlborough is a prime example of foreign ownership and what is happening throughout New Zealand primary production—a dairy conglomerate here; multithousands of hectares of forestry land there. The potential ownership of Marlborough Sounds water by the infamous Malaysian Tiong family needs to be prevented. Plan change and resource consent applications by King Salmon to the Environmental Protection Authority for eight new salmon farm sites in areas currently prohibited to aquaculture in the Marlborough Sounds were made following the aquaculture legislative reforms last year. The applications are for an initial 35 years as controlled activities, which without further plan changes mean an indefinite period of re-consenting—effectively, ownership.

Foreign-controlled salmon farming in New Zealand’s marine environment is akin to mining in the conservation estate. New Zealand King Salmon’s operation is no more sustainable than the Tiong family’s other operations: clear-felling rainforests in the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Burma, Africa, or the ancient forests in Russia. The fish fed to raise the salmon are from ecologically collapsing fisheries off Chile and Peru. The high pollution effects of salmon farming in New Zealand need further research. Human rights abuses attributed to Tiong’s Rimbunan Hijau Group companies in Papua New Guinea make for further reason why New Zealand should not be associated with this company. The Tiong family already has extensive interests, especially in forestry, in New Zealand but must be prevented from further ownership, including our marine environment.

The eight new areas applied for by the Tiong-dominated King Salmon are public space that has been zoned by the Marlborough District Council as not being appropriate for aquaculture, due to its amenity and wilderness characteristics and the balances of uses of the Marlborough Sounds. It should be a marine park, not an industrial park. The aquaculture zoning by Marlborough District Council was the result of extensive public consultation and Environment Court processes, which are now intended to be overridden by New Zealand King Salmon and the National-led Government through the aquaculture legislation changes. I am pleased to say that the Green Party is opposed to foreign ownership and supports landownership for New Zealand citizens and permanent residents only.

This has another twist in it: $500,000 was gifted by the National Government for marketing of New Zealand King Salmon products offshore because it was tough times last year. The question for the House could be “Who has shares in Direct Capital?”—the other 49 percent of New Zealand King Salmon. Well done, National, for giving half a million dollars to Tiong to promote unsustainable production! That is quite a subsidy for a 51 percent overseas occupier and polluter of New Zealand waters.

Forestry—foreign companies such as Tiong own or control the vast majority of logs or timber products going offshore, yet this Government seems hell-bent on making it easier for them. One is allowing the gassing of our communities and the ozone layer with spent neurotoxic and carcinogenic ozone-depleting methyl bromide from the log fumigations. Labour and National have both dodged forcing the recapture of the invisible, odourless gas, which cannot be tracked with confidence. Giving the industry 10 years’ latitude while we increase our exports and fumigations means people are getting sick and dying—dying for whom? The same foreign-dominated industry has this Government forcing councils back from implementing decent safeguards to stop the crude forest harvest practices loading our streams and estuaries with millions of tonnes of sediments. These are sediments that destroy fisheries habitats and nurseries. The Government just does not make the links—or it does not care.

The current iteration of the National Environmental Standard for Plantation Forestry, which limits councils in crucial areas of protection and will not measure sediment pollution, is still too tough, apparently, and Cabinet wants it further pared back. The cost-benefit ratio was not right. The hundreds of people terrorised by flood waves of log plumes and debris—from Pōhara to Tapawera, Marlborough to Ōpōtiki and beyond—and the thousands of kilometres of marine environment deserve much, much better. I am looking forward to a Green Government.

Time does not allow today, but I could speak for hours on the work I have done on exposing genetic engineering field trial abuses; how the last few Governments have been complicit through their agencies in cover-ups; how they have removed GE—or this Government has—from the Food Bill as something we need to regulate for food safety; and how they have allowed more than 70 GE food lines to be approved for New Zealand consumption, including the latest: GE soy and corn resistant to 2,4-D and other herbicides. 2,4-D on our kai? I think not. Why has National continued funding GE crop and forestry research yet sabotaged the organic sector, while our more civilised trading partners have set targets for organic production because they know that the environmental, health, and social benefits have so much value for their nations?

New Zealand farming, the great unsubsidised producer, is not what it seems, as the gross externalities from New Zealand’s farming, fisheries, and forestry are actually subsidies that are nicely tucked away by our free-marketers. Organic production can make us the “100% Pure Aotearoa New Zealand” that Mr Key’s Tourism New Zealand dropped last year on behalf of Federated Farmers’ lobbying and the lack of an aspirational vision for cleaning this country up and maintaining a brand that New Zealanders can be proud of. I am looking forward to a Green Government and to working with my colleagues here as well. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. I greet the sky above and the air we breathe. I greet the seas that surround us and the lands on which we stand. I bring this stone from the Waimakariri to remind me of Canterbury’s great rivers and to anchor me here. The Waimakariri replenishes the aquifers that give Christchurch its water, which created the plains and creates wealth on those plains. The Waiwhetū aquifer and the Ōrongorongo and the Wainuiōmata rivers provide us with the water we drink in this House. I acknowledge the rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands, and aquifers throughout Aotearoa for all of the life they sustain. Without clean and healthy waterways and a temperate, life-sustaining climate, we are nothing.

When I first walked on to Parliament’s grounds as a member of this House last November, I heard a tūī practising its scales below the Beehive. The tūī’s chorus is sweeter than anything I might say in this Chamber, so I took its song as auspicious—a sign that if tūī have come to Parliament, their oral petitions would encourage this House to give more serious attention to our wild landscapes and our indigenous plants and animals, whose ancestry and tenure in these islands is so much longer than our own.

Aotearoa’s 70 million years of geographic isolation from other parts of Gondwana produced some of the world’s oldest and most unusual life forms: trees such as the kahikatea, fruit basket of the forest, and animals such as the tuatara, the wētā, and the giant carnivorous land snails, Powelliphanta. We can and must invest more in safeguarding the first inhabitants of Aotearoa and the places where they live. We have no treaty with them, but they define who we are. They are what makes New Zealand so distinctive in the eyes of the world. As Sir Paul Callaghan recognised recently, our natural heritage and clean environment are among the assets capable of attracting the world’s best thinkers and brightest minds to New Zealand, to help build our future here.

Working to protect nature’s healthy functioning is what inspires and motivates me. As a JAFA who rolled south 20 years ago to Canterbury and who stayed, I want to acknowledge the work of two earlier Canterbury members who helped shape a Pākehā land ethic: Thomas Henry Potts and Harry Ell. Thomas Potts was the member for Mt Herbert and a member of this House from 1866 to 1870. He was an observant naturalist and ornithologist and the first parliamentarian to press for forest conservation. Recognising kiwis’ role in the forest ecosystem, Potts sought their legal protection when thousands were being slaughtered to provide feathers for ladies’ muffs, which were fashionable at the time. And Potts advocated for national domains, the forerunners of our national parks. In October 1868, his successful motion that the Government ascertain the present condition of the forests of the colony, with a view to their better conservation, was the first step in the eventual establishment of forest reserves and a national system of public protected lands.

Potts’ vision was carried forward by Harry Ell, the member for Christchurch South. It was Ell’s persistent representations that gave us the Scenery Preservation Act of 1903. That was New Zealand’s first statute devoted to establishing reserves specifically for the purpose of nature conservation, rather than soil and water conservation. In 1903, when colonial New Zealand was more concerned with developing agricultural land and converting forest to pasture, the legislation was remarkable. Much of that land was seized or coerced from Māori and we are still working through the process of reconciliation and recompense to truly honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

This year, we celebrate 125 years of national parks in New Zealand. Thanks to the far-sighted initiative of Ngāti Tūwharetoa and their paramount chief te Heuheu Tūkino IV, their gift of the sacred peaks of Tongariro, Ngāuruhoe, and Ruapehu to the Crown in 1887 created our first national park. Today, our national parks and other protected lands are the basis of our tourism industry, places of recreation, and inspiration. They provide ecosystem services of incalculable value. We could be as similarly visionary today as Ngāti Tūwharetoa if we established large marine protected areas covering the submarine volcanoes and islands of the Kermadecs, Antarctica’s Ross Sea, and areas important to the 85 seabird species that breed in New Zealand waters. We could pass legislation to protect our native plants, which are unprotected outside parks and reserves.

If Potts and Ell were alive today, I hope they would be encouraged by the thousands of hours that volunteers devote each week to improving the prospects for wild nature by planting stream banks, killing possums, and controlling weeds. I hope they would be encouraged by the innovative farmers who are growing food and fibre while reducing their water use and nutrient losses. What would they make, however, of sending chemical cocktails deep underground to frack the earth and extract hydrocarbons, the ploughing under of the Mackenzie Basin’s dryland plants for yet more dairy pasture, and the killing of 14,000 albatross and hundreds of fur seals, dolphins, and sea lions each year as fisheries by-catch? Throughout lowland New Zealand, rivers, lakes, and streams are no longer fit for swimming, fishing, or harvesting kai. The waters of Lake Horowhenua were recently described as being able to kill animals and small children. Last weekend, the Canterbury District Health Board warned people to avoid reaches of the Hakatere/Ashburton, Ashley, and Waimakariri rivers because of toxic cynobacteria that can cause skin rashes, nausea, and numbness.

We can destroy or degrade our lands and water for the profits of a few, or we can recognise the vastly higher value to our citizens and visitors of making the clean, green image real. To do that, we need smarter regulation—strong national policies and environmental standards on fresh water—not the tissue paper national policy statement we have now. We need to limit dairy cow numbers in sensitive catchments such as the Mackenzie Basin and Te Waihora / Lake Ellesmere, and we need to charge for the commercial use of water to help fund sustainability initiatives. We can prevent Southland’s wildlife-rich Waituna Lagoon from flipping to become algal soup. We can say no to new dams on wild rivers. We can fund the Department of Conservation properly. Then it can control predators on much more than 12 percent of the conservation estate, as it does currently. By restoring the health of rivers, lakes, and estuaries, we can properly implement article 2 of te Tiriti so that Māori can have full enjoyment of their forests and fisheries.

New Zealanders have elected and put their trust in us to serve and value both present and future generations. That means enacting the policies and programmes to stabilise rising global temperatures. It is essential and urgent that we find the collective political will to do this. Irreversible changes in the Earth’s climatically sensitive systems would make life much more challenging than living with a Fukushima or a Chernobyl. Thinking globally and acting locally by curtailing further expansion of coal mining in New Zealand would help safeguard the climate. It would also retain productive farmland and natural treasures. The coal strata of the Buller coal plateau were laid down 40 million to 50 million years ago. A handful of human generations have used a sizable part of this resource. What are we leaving for future citizens 50, 100, or 500 years from now?

Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy describes our nearsightedness thus: “Our inability to live entirely in the present (like most animals do) combined with our inability to see very far into the future, makes us strange in-between creatures, neither beast nor prophet. Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost.” Non-governmental and community organisations such as the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, the Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand, Federated Mountain Clubs, the Environmental Defence Society, local protection groups, and many iwi and hapū are a vital thin green line in seeking to protect the future by safeguarding wildness and nature’s healthy functioning.

Activism for earth justice and the defence of mauri takes determination, hard work, and a thick skin. Corporations like to marginalise you as nimbies—people who are against progress. I honour all those who act and organise to protect oceans, keep coal in the ground, and prevent destructive and poorly conceived development proposals, from Southland lignite to Meridian’s Mōkihinui dam. All strength to you.

I acknowledge former Forest and Bird colleagues, including the late Jacqui Barrington, friend of kererū and foe of magpies, and the late, great Kevin Smith, a keen thinker who sharpened my activism. I am proud to represent a party that recognises the seriousness of the ecological and climate crisis, and the need for sustained and comprehensive political action. I am proud to represent people who understand that our preoccupation with economic growth is a major part of the problem and that progress is better measured by social and environmental well-being than by GDP.

As a list MP, I would not be here without the hard work of Green Party members, staff, and supporters, particularly by the Aoraki Greens. Thank you for trusting me to be a clear voice for the principles of the Green kaupapa. To my Green caucus colleagues: I value your sense of urgency, your passion for change, and your laughter. I thank Jeanette Fitzsimons for being such an example of serenity and calm wisdom. Jeanette and Rod Donald helped inspire me to join the Green Party and they helped build strong foundations. I remember Rod for his boundless energy and his championing of electoral reform and MMP. We are a much better Parliament because of that.

I thank the officers of Parliament and staff throughout the precinct for their friendly help to this new MP. Parliament’s effective functioning relies on your quiet work. As a recent graduate arriving here to be researcher in the mid-1980s from a patriarchal Forest Service, it was liberating seeing what the political energy and skills of the Labour women’s caucus could achieve for fairness and equality. I look forward to working with you again, and to working with members around the House on making good law and policy.

I am here today because of bad law. I would not be here if we still had elected regional councillors in Canterbury. I thank all 13 of my former councillor colleagues on Environment Canterbury for the practical lessons that they gave me that politics is the art of the possible. Robust debate in a council chamber shows that democracy is alive and well, just as it does in this House. It does not mean that council or Parliament is dysfunctional. I look forward to being a member of a House that recognises the fundamental principle of no taxation without representation and restores regional democracy to Canterbury.

Next Wednesday we remember the 184 individuals who died, and many others who were seriously injured, in Christchurch this time last year. I acknowledge the families who are going through the hardest of tasks, rebuilding their lives after losing someone special. Kia kaha. Coming from Christchurch, where hundreds of heritage buildings have been demolished and concrete tilt slabs risk becoming the dominant building style, it is a pleasure to work in such a beautiful historic building. The skills and craftsmanship evident in Parliament’s construction and the 1990s refurbishment and restoration show what is possible with a commitment to both seismic strengthening and heritage protection. Christchurch’s rebuild will not be enhanced by more Government-appointed commissioners or by enlarging the scope of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s powers. It would be enhanced by delegating more power and resources to the elected community boards to strengthen local democracy, decision making, and accountability. This would embrace the strong spirit of neighbourliness that has got us through the quakes and the thousands of aftershocks.

The earthquakes are a reminder that Gaia does not care very much about human survival. Using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently, and acting now to stabilise the climate, clean up our waterways, and conserve biodiversity will better protect our future and that of other species.

In closing, I thank friends and family who are here today or watching on television for your decades of love and support. To my parents, my brothers John and Phillip and their families, the late Stephen, and my dear partner, Richard, I love you all heaps. You make me strong. And particular thanks to my beautiful niece, Natalya, for travelling so far to be here today. I dedicate my time in this House to working to help create a better future based on sustainability and greater respect for nature, community, and democracy. Now, if I may, Mr Speaker: [Birdsong] Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa.

Ka titiro atu au ki Pukeatua e tū mai rā, ka whakarongo ake au ki ngā ripo o Te Awa Kairangi. I tupu au i raro i te raukura o Te Ātiawa i Moerā. Tēnā koutou katoa. E te Rangatira o te Whare, e te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mana nui, e ngā mema koutou katoa, tēnā hoki koutou. E ngā tini mate kua whetūrangitia ki te kupenga wairua, haere, haere, haere.

Ki tōku kuia, ki tōku poutokomanawa, ka piri tonu koe ki taku ngākau, ka tata tonu koe ki taku puna mahara. Ki a Rod Donald, ahakoa kīhai māua i tūtaki, i whakamanawa koe i ahau ki runga i tēnei haerenga. Ki a kōrua, menemene mai, hōmai ō ihi, ō wehi, ō wana ki a au. E moe kōrua ki te pō i waenga i te tini, e moe, e moe. Rātou ki a rātou, tātou te hunga ora, tēnā tātou katoa.

[I gaze upon the prominent landmark Pukeatua standing over there, and listen to the whirling waters of the Hutt River. I grew up under the feathered plume of the Te Ātiawa tribe at Moerā. So salutations to you all. To the prominent figure and Speaker of the House, greetings to you. To the charismatic great, all of you members, I acknowledge you, as well. To the vast and many who have passed away, farewell, farewell, depart.

To my kuia, to my pillar and ridgepole, you remain close to the seat of my affections and thoughts. To you, Rod Donald, even though we did not meet, you inspired me to make this journey. And so to you, two dear people, smile please, give me your power, awesomeness, and qualities of inspiration. Sleep there in the void among the many; sleep, sleep and rest. They the dead, to the dead, and to us the living, I salute us all.]

I never met Rod Donald. To many people it will seem amazing that just 6 short years after his death, there is already a Green MP who never met Rod. To many it will seem very sad—indeed, it is. I first joined the Green Party, as both a member and a staff member, in January 2006, just months after Rod’s death. Although I never worked with him, his absence at that time was palpable. The party was reeling from his death and reeling from a tough election result, which had seen our numbers in Parliament reduced from nine to six. It is often said that it is not easy being Green, and in 2006 it most certainly was not. I am therefore immensely proud of the way the Green Party has rebuilt in the intervening years, so that I now stand in this House as one of not six but 14 Green MPs representing the best election result the Green Party has ever achieved. We have cemented our place very firmly as the third party of New Zealand politics, and in many ways as the true Opposition.

I am now one of seven new Green MPs in this 50th Parliament, and together with the second generation of Green Party co-leaders, Metiria and Russel, we are an entirely new caucus from that first elected in 1999. But although the faces have changed, the Green Party principles and values have not, and though I did not know him, I think it is safe to say that Rod would have been proud of the team that has risen to speak tonight.

Because I never met Rod I never got to tell him that he was partly responsible for the formation of my political consciousness. It was 1997 and I was sitting in a sweltering upstairs classroom at Hutt Valley High School watching a video in fourth form social studies about the 1981 Springbok Tour. Suddenly, there was a young Rod, resplendent in his fluoro vest and orange bike helmet, clashing spectacularly with his shaggy red hair and beard. He spoke earnestly into the camera about why he was putting his safety on the line to march in the front lines of the increasingly terrifying anti-apartheid protests. I was moved, fascinated, and, strangely, jealous.

I went home and told my mum that I wished we had issues like that to protest about these days. She laughed and told me there were plenty. I started paying attention and realised she was right. So I have Rod to thank, in part, for setting me on the path to politics, and I also have my mum, Wendy Walker, who is here tonight, to thank for that and so much more. Mum, thank you for your unstinting love and unbelievably dedicated parenting—especially in those early years when it was just you and me against the world. You have made me who I am today. For reasons that are long since forgiven, my mum found herself on her own with a small baby in 1982. She had the support of her mum, my Nana, who passed away, sadly, aged 92 last year, before she got to see her eldest grandchild elected to Parliament. My mum also had the support of her sister Heather, and many other family and friends, for which we both remain very grateful.

But when faced with bringing me up on her own, my mum was also able to rely on the proud tradition of the New Zealand welfare State. For the first part of my life we lived in a council flat in Moerā, and mum received the domestic purposes benefit. This support guaranteed that I had the essentials—a safe home, enough to eat, and the loving ministrations of an attentive caregiver. Every child—and I mean every single one—deserves these essentials.

While I was a preschooler mum used the training incentive allowance to train as a kindergarten teacher. She started teaching not long after I started school and has been a much-loved and respected teacher at many kindergartens around the Hutt Valley since. My colleague and co-leader Metiria Turei also used the training incentive allowance when she found herself with a small baby and no qualifications. She got a law degree and has taken care of her family ever since. Today that support would not be available to them. We all know that John Key grew up in a State house and that Paula Bennett was a sole parent—now they are Ministers of the Crown. With the fantastic education I received at public schools in the Hutt Valley, I grew up to win a Rhodes scholarship and get elected to Parliament, aged 29. But, in the words of Russel Norman in his maiden statement to this House, these stories do not mean that a State house kid, or a public school kid, or a DPB mum can do anything. They mean that the State’s commitment of resources towards housing, education, and income support really does make a difference. Nāku te rourou, nāu te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi.

[With my food basket and your one, the people will be sustained.]

The commitment of State resources towards housing, education, and income support; the belief that when we guarantee the essentials to every child, we guarantee them opportunities for life; and the abhorrence of gross inequality and injustice—these are the issues that drive me. I am honoured to be entrusted by my party with the portfolios of children, housing, and youth, so that I may make progress on these issues during my time in this House.

Although these driving issues are primarily about social and economic justice, there is a reason that I am a member of the Green Party, and it is not just that it was Rod in that video; it is also that, like many New Zealanders, I was raised with a deep love and appreciation for our precious natural heritage. For this I have to thank my Dad—one of them—Simon Davis, who is also here tonight. He joined mum in the not always joyful task of raising me when I was 3 years old. He took me outside, threw me in rivers, coaxed me up hills, strapped skis to my feet and pushed me down mountains, and showed me something extraordinary—that we live in the most beautiful country in the world but that we have a responsibility to look after it. So, Dad, thanks for making me green, and for always pushing me out of my comfort zone, so that I have now found myself leaping off the biggest cliff yet and here into Parliament.

I joined the Green Party because its policies on the issues I care about reflect my own beliefs, and I do not have to compromise to adopt them; because the Green Party does politics according to Ghandi’s exhortation to us all to be the change we wish to see in the world; because when the Green Party thinks there should be a spokesperson for children, it appoints one; because the Green Party takes gender equality seriously; and because the Green Party is the only party that understands the inextricable links between our environment, our economy, and our people, and builds those links into everything it does.

The world is changing. Green parties around the world are riding a wave of success, achieving their best results ever, and, in the case of one German state, electing a Green Party Government. That tide that has been turning around the world is now turning here in New Zealand. The future is green, and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand is ready. But the increased ranks of Green MPs who have spoken tonight would not be here without the blood, sweat, and tears—and there were tears—of thousands of amazingly dedicated Green Party members and supporters. I want to pay tribute to all of you who have put us here today: to the provincial and national campaign committees, to the party executive and paid staff, to the national campaign manager, Megan Salole, and her team, to the Young Greens and other party networks, to the other candidates like James Shaw, whose extraordinary efforts saw the Green Party come second in the party vote in Wellington Central, and to the non-violent army of volunteers around the country, thank you. In particular, I want to thank the members of the Hutt South Greens campaign team—too many to name but many of whom are here tonight. Thank you, team, for the leaflets delivered, meetings attended, meals supplied, stalls staffed, data analysed, sausages sizzled, and hoardings erected around the mighty electorate of Hutt South. Ehara taku toa he takitahi, he toa takitini.

[My strength is not of a single warrior but rather of a vast number.]

At this point it is appropriate to acknowledge the amazing kākahu that sits on my shoulders tonight. It was woven by longstanding Green Party member and leader Danna Glendining over 22 months, under the guidance of kuia at Te Rau Awaawa in Hamilton, and gifted to the party at a pōwhiri in January. This incredible taonga is woven from the feathers of Pākehā birds, including caged battery hens, who have found a freedom in death in this kākahu that they never had in life. I am honoured and humbled to wear it in this House tonight. Danna, thank you for this taonga and for everything you have given the Green Party over the years. I will be doing everything I can to convert your hard work, and the work of Green Party supporters around the country, into good green change in Parliament.

And that good green change is urgently needed. We are staring down the twin barrels of climate change and peak oil, and this Government is squandering the window of opportunity we presently have to lead the world, live up to our clean, green image, and retool our economy to meet the challenge. Our freshwater resources are in crisis, and this Government is burying its head in milk powder, encouraging the rapid intensification of commercial agriculture and the irrigation of our iconic landscapes, and trying to spin us the line that cleaning up our rivers is compatible with this approach, when we know it is not. We have seen disaster and destruction wreaked by oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico—and here on our own shores—and this Government is still soliciting big oil and gas to drill in our waters. And New Zealand has one of the fastest-growing gaps between rich and poor in the developed world, and this Government is still pretending that its corporate welfare policies will trickle down when we know that they do not and will not.

In her maiden speech to this House, Jeanette Fitzsimons said this: “Governments have allowed, [even] encouraged, the huge gap that has opened up between rich and poor and they can, and must, close that gap again.” Yet here we are 15 years later and the gap is wider. I carried Jeanette’s old briefcase into the House today, and I am ready to get stuck in. As you have heard from my colleagues, reducing the gap between those who have the most and those who need the most is now one of the defining political issues of our time. Just last week, the New Zealand Herald ran a series of articles highlighting the yawning chasm that has opened up between the very rich and the rest of us since the failed neo-liberal experiment of the 1980s and 1990s. The world is waking up to the realisation that inequality is good for no one. Groundbreaking research has shown that the more unequal a country is, the worse it does in almost every social, economic, and health indicator. People in more equal countries live longer, do better at school, are less likely to be victims of crime, and suffer less from drug and alcohol abuse. Our own statistics in New Zealand bear this out.

Equality and social justice in some form or other have been the preoccupations of my career so far, from speaking out as the editor of a student magazine—and, it must be said, not always getting it right—to being a small cog in wheel of the Treaty settlement process, to writing a Masters thesis in Oxford on Māori disparity, to advising the last Green Party caucus on social issues. Now I am here in this House to make reducing inequality and ending child poverty my missions as a lawmaker. By the time I leave this place, may we have made real progress towards closing the gaps and guaranteeing the essentials for every child. That is my commitment. Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa.

[Keep it close together, not wide apart.]

Before I conclude, there are some thanks that cannot go unsaid. They are to the many people who look after me and nourish me emotionally from wherever they are in the world—in particular, my sister Sian and my brother Adrian; my other Dad, Tim, and my Australian whānau, especially Sam and Roz; my cousin Sarah; my parents-in-law, Lesley and Rick; my sisters-in-law, Bronwyn and Katherine; and Kitty, who is part of the family whether she likes it or not. But, above all, I thank my partner in life, and in civil union, David Haines. Dave, I cannot even describe how much you have given to me, not only on the crazy journey here but in every part of our lives together—but you know. You shore me up, you carry me along, and you make everything possible. I am afraid that I am not always able to adequately reciprocate, and for that I am sorry. But I love you, and I love that every challenge is an adventure we embark on together

So I start my journey as a parliamentarian, shored up by my loved ones, and ready to change the world, one step at a time. Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua.

[Protect the land and the people, and go forward.]

Waiata

Sitting suspended from 6.11 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I move, That the debate be now adjourned.

Motion agreed to.