General Debate

I move, That the House take note of miscellaneous business.

It is a fine day to be a New Zealander. It is a fine day to know that we live in a country that has so much to be positive about, so much that we can celebrate, and so much that we can look forward with optimism to. Just last month in this House our Government passed a Budget that we can be proud of, one that was focused on the future and focused on keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, accelerating our recovery and rebuild, and tackling those foundational issues that we must tackle collectively: climate change, housing affordability, and child poverty. These are things that any responsible Government must take seriously. What we have to do is remain focused on the future. What we cannot afford to do is to slip into what we’re seeing on the other side of the House in a desperate and destructive Opposition who are showing zero signs of unity, who are more concerned with their own divisions and with their past than with the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.

While we’re on the subject of the past, I would like to just dwell there for a moment. Before I came to this fine House, I was a historian. I was a New Zealand historian, and I still consider myself to be one. Over the last days we have not seen a finer example of why it is this Government made the right call to teach New Zealand history in our schools; we could not have seen a finer example from the Opposition of what happens when someone is ignorant of their past. We could not have seen a finer example of someone who refuses to accept how we got to the places we got to today. The historians club is upset that it’s from someone who purports to call himself a historian that we’re seeing this particular behaviour, but it does give me some semblance of hope to see that even his own colleagues haven’t backed him up—that his own colleagues have been as dismayed at the behaviour and the rhetoric that we have seen coming from the Opposition benches.

On this side of the House, in order for us to confront those issues in our future—if we are going to tackle those foundational issues like climate change, like housing affordability, like child poverty—we must understand what has gone before us. We must understand how we got to where we are today, and what the policies are that got us to this place. I will for ever be grateful to the many months I spent over the road going through Peter Fraser’s papers understanding housing policy straight after World War II. What we’re hearing—the reaction from the Opposition—shows the fact that they do not see that to remain positively focused on the future, we have to understand what went before us.

When I started this speech I said it was a fine day to be a New Zealander. One of those reasons is today’s release of the Climate Commission’s report. As I indicated in my ministerial statement, I distinctly recall sitting in the Paris climate talks thinking, “How on earth is New Zealand going to reach this target? How are we going to do it through domestic reductions and domestic abatements, rather than trading our way out of it with overseas-purchased credits?” Today what we have is a blueprint for how it is that we can start tackling climate change, how it is that we can start reducing our emissions. We have a lot to consider. What we do know, and I think one of the things that we can be hugely optimistic about, is that the commissioners have indicated that we are on the right track. We do have those technologies at our disposal, but we do need to do more. We cannot think that the status quo, the way we are operating today, is the way that we can look forward to the future with optimism. We need to accelerate what we’re doing, need to bring more momentum, and I hope that this House can continue to have a collective approach to that. Climate change is a generational challenge, and I’d like to think this Parliament could rise to that occasion.

Mr Speaker, yesterday you noted to the House that I had a lot of questions to ask and, by goodness, I certainly do. My questions are to this Government, particularly the Minister for primary industries, who’s clearly not listening.

But I would like to start with talking about the floods that occurred in Canterbury during the week. Firstly, before I get into what I was about to say, I want to acknowledge and send out a huge big thankyou to the emergency responders who I have met over the past week or so. Last Sunday, the district mayors announced a state of emergency. Very quickly, we got up our emergency operation centres because everybody could see what a significant event was about to come at us. And again, I want to acknowledge those people who worked around the clock tirelessly for the safety of our people. A number of residents around my electorate in Selwyn were evacuated out in the Selwyn Huts at the bottom of the Selwyn River and further upstream into the hinterland and Springfield. Houses have been badly affected and red-stickered. Roads across the region were shut in their hundreds due to wash-outs, surface flooding, broken bridges, and general danger.

But what of the Government’s response? It was woeful. The Government’s response has left we Cantabrians asking: what does it take for the Minister to declare a large-scale adverse event? On day one, I asked him to declare it. It took him a few days. Even then, it was only a medium-scale adverse event. There are areas in Canterbury where flood damage is as bad as it gets. There is literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage per property, much of which is uninsurable. But the Government—what did it turn up with? A pitiful $500,000 for New Zealand’s most productive sector and our most productive region. There is a playground outside this House that the Government spent more money on; $530,000 on a playground. What message does that send to our farmers who are flogging their guts out in pouring rain up to their knees in mud? What sort of message does it send to them? Within a day of making that announcement, what does the Government then go out and say? I’ll tell you what it said. It’s going to spend $800 million on a cycleway across the Auckland Harbour Bridge, right at the time the Ashburton Bridge is buckling and down to one-way and light traffic only. Talk about being tone deaf and out of touch.

When the Prime Minister formed this Government she said it was going to be a Government for all New Zealanders. Well, we in Canterbury feel it is a Government for Auckland and Auckland alone. So in case anyone’s listening, I’ll tell you what is going down in Canterbury. Rural Canterbury is exhausted. It has been a long, hard 10 days of clear-up and stress and anxiety. Houses are red-stickered, people have had to move in a hurry. They’re now dealing with complex insurance claims. Boil water notices remain in place across much of the region.

But let’s get back to the farmers. Yes, they are usually a pretty self-sufficient bunch but they need some surety from this Government. What they are not looking for is counselling sessions and welfare cheques. What they need is cash flow to get support through to them for heavy machinery and manpower. They need skilled labour and they need it now. I called for Taskforce Green to be activated 10 days ago. The Minister has come through today, 10 days late. Anyone can clean a fence; I myself have been doing it over the weekend.

I have spent much of this last week visiting farms and what I saw is as devastating as it is infuriating, because so much of the damage could be prevented if only the Resource Management Act (RMA) could get sorted out with urgency. Environment Canterbury is operating to a piece of legislation that is utterly useless. Farmers have spent 10 years being prevented from clearing out their rivers. They are 2 metres deep in shingle that could have been dug out had they been allowed to. Many of them have dutifully gone and planted out their riparian fences; they’ve been swept away. I hope the Minister for the Environment, as he redevelops the new RMA legislation, takes into account that people have been asked to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on fencing along flood-prone waterways.

But as always, in the face of adversity, there are those who step up, so I would like to acknowledge the Rural Support Trust; Federated Farmers, particularly my friends and neighbours Chris Allen and David Clark down the road; and the newly minted president of the North Canterbury Federated Farmers, Caroline Amyes, who has had a baptism of fire; also, Student Volunteer Army, Lincoln University volunteers, and the Farmy Army, who as usual have stepped up.

Finally, and slightly off tangent, but the members of the National Party in Selwyn two weeks ago lost a very long-time member George Logan. I would like to acknowledge his passing and to send our love and condolences to his wife, Dawn, and family, and we wish them well.

I’d like to follow on and acknowledge the challenges that many of those farmers in Canterbury are facing up to. As someone who is very familiar with the effects of flooding from the West Coast, I know all too well and all too often the challenges, and, indeed, I saw this morning again where a farmer was saying that they are having to look at what needs to be done next. The issue of the regional council allowing action to occur in the river waste—that should happen. There shouldn’t be a blockage to that. It still does beg the question: what’s the best thing for the farmers to do next? It might be bringing in a bulldozer or it might be bringing in a digger, but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Can I say that the Prime Minister and I visited to see it firsthand for ourselves, and, indeed, it’s good to see that the road link is back up and running there. There are still widespread challenges across the region, and I have to say that long term, we are going to face many more of those acute events.

What we had today was the launch of the Climate Change Commission’s report, which is New Zealand’s attempt to get ahead of what are going to be some challenging climatic times ahead of us. If we don’t take action now and, indeed, if we don’t encourage action across the globe, then, in fact, whether it be farming or just living in rural in New Zealand, it is going to be more and more difficult to face up to these climatic events. So that’s indeed the reason that we are doing this.

We’ve given half a million dollars there. We need to know from people on the ground what more they need and where they need it, because we’re not going to throw that money around, and, indeed, the Rural Support Trust don’t want us to. So we’re committed to working with them.

We’ve had a tough 12 months, and I think we’ve committed about $50 billion to COVID recovery requirements. Do members know how much money we earned offshore last year from our primary production exports? About $48 billion. That puts it in perspective. Through the COVID crisis, we generated about $48 billion worth of exports—a huge achievement, and I want to say thank you to the people across the primary sectors for doing that—and we will continue to do that, as I say, in supporting the people across rural New Zealand to achieve that.

We have to support that export-led growth. We’ve pivoted—and I don’t like using that word. But New Zealand—

💬 Hon Stuart Nash: Again—again.

I’ve got to get it out there—I’ve got to get it out there. We’ve pivoted—that is, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, or NZTE, that the Hon Stuart Nash and I have responsibility for. Indeed, we gave $54 million for them—they weren’t able to travel offshore—to support exporters to get out and connect with the world and sell their wares, and they did an incredible job. In fact, we doubled the number of companies that we were helping directly in-market. We connected them up to a digital service. We gave them in-market reports. We enabled them to remain connected to their customers, and that’s why we saw $48 billion of export revenue—an amazing achievement.

What we are getting from the markets, though, is increasing signals—if not directly from the consumers at this point, but certainly from the supermarkets and those buying—that they want to connect to more sustainably friendly products, and New Zealand is well positioned to provide those. They want lower-carbon produce. They want produce that is produced to the highest standards of animal welfare, and that indeed ensures that we are looking after the environment as we deliver those. We are in a great position to do that, and we will assist farmers, horticulturalists, foresters, and all of those people across our industry to sell into the higher-value markets that continue to grow that $48 billion.

Last weekend, we signed a statement with APEC economies. A third of the world’s population, half of the world’s trade, and we committed, firstly, to recover from COVID by ensuring the flow of vaccines and medical goods could be unhindered throughout the globe. That was a massive achievement to have that clear statement from half the world’s trade, and, indeed, it will go forward. We then extended that to say that beyond COVID, we need to continue to open markets—not close them down—to international trade. The message that was going from APEC through to the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the end of this year is that we want to see the WTO be a relevant, up-to-date, and effective organisation that protects not just small countries but also big ones when it comes to trading internationally.

We realise the importance of vaccine, and the trade and movement of that. We realise that medical equipment is necessary, and food. Trade is—

Order! The member’s time has expired. Stuart Smith.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I realise my name is quite difficult to pronounce, but well done.

💬 SPEAKER: Such an unusual surname.

I would like to start by acknowledging my colleague Nicola Grigg who’s doing a fantastic job supporting the people in mid-Canterbury, and in particular during that very difficult flood. I know from experience with the Kaikōura earthquake, actually being there means a lot, and it’s hard work, but good on you for doing what you’re doing because it’s really important. So thank you.

North Canterbury and South Marlborough were suffering from a drought—second year in a row, actually—and staring down the barrel of a pretty ugly spring. But that’s all changed since that rain event has gone through. The other day I was down in Okuku, which is in the south western corner of my electorate, which was pretty badly affected by the drought there as well. I know from my experience in farming previously in mid-Canterbury how important it is to keep the fairways of the rivers clear. Quite clearly, that is not happening—no pun intended. It is not happening at the moment. Environment Canterbury (ECan) are not spending the time and the money. It seems to be they are using consents and so on as an excuse to not clear out the river. And it’s so important to do that because willow trees start growing in the middle of the riverbed. Eventually, when a flood comes, it redirects the river straight towards the bank and it changes its course. And unfortunately, as my colleague mentioned before, every rainfall event now, until those rivers can be repaired, will cement in that new course and it becomes very difficult to reverse. Canterbury has been formed by rivers; that’s how the Canterbury Plains were formed millions of years ago. But we have tried to control them, and now the die is cast, we have to get in there. It’s just simple work that ECan should be undertaking on a regular basis.

I’d like to acknowledge the vineyards and wineries in Marlborough who have offered to repurpose posts to send down to Canterbury. Albeit there are some issues to work through with that, but it’s a significantly generous offer. I’d also like to acknowledge KiwiRail. I approached KiwiRail to see if they would assist in getting those posts from Marlborough—we’re talking about a significant number—down to mid-Canterbury, and they’ve kindly offered to help, and they didn’t even hesitate. So I’d like to acknowledge that; that’s very community-spirited of them.

I’d like to turn now to the $500,000 support package. When I was down there being driven around by one of my constituents, who is a very practical sort of a guy, he rattled off a whole lot of numbers and he said, “What would $500,000 actually do?” And I said, “Can you put that in an email?”, so he did. I’d like to refer to that now. He said, “$500,000 would purchase 4,166 bales of baleage.”, which is helpful, but that’s not going to go very far. He said, “Or you could get 5,000 bales of meadow hay.” Again helpful, but not going to get very far. And he said, “Well, 38 kilometres of sheep netting.” And that’s helpful, but there’d be 38 kilometres of it gone missing. I was in paddocks beside a riverbed, where a person had been out there shifting sheep to high ground, parked his ute, no water, turned around a few minutes later and saw his ute floating past, and they had to drag it out of a tree—written off because of the flood damage. And there are metres—many metres, hundreds of metres—of deer netting and sheep netting just all over the place, ripped out, useless. So 38 kilometres of sheep netting is not going to go a long way. Or diggers are needed; we know that—4,166 hours of 12-ton digger hire. I would say you could soon get rid of that digger hire, let alone the work required in the river beds, with a large bulldozer.

So $500,000 is a good start. It’s not enough. These people need our support and they need to know that we actually care. Actually, the best thing we can do is get them some money so that these sorts of things can be actioned very quickly because, if we don’t, there’ll be more flood damage the next time we get rain—and we’re heading into winter, we’ll definitely get a few more rains—and we’ll have those rivers going back outside their banks and creating more damage and more heartache for people which they do not deserve. We need to back them, and I urge them to do it now.

The direction for the future is often influenced by what happens in the past and history. I’m proud to be a member of a Labour Government that continues a proud legacy of looking long term but trying to deal with the immediate needs and not shy away from those challenges. It is also a legacy where we continue to look at the most vulnerable and figure out how you lift the most vulnerable in our society so that no one is left behind. I’m proud that this side of the House continues that particular legacy, focused on the future—not just the three years, but long term.

In this Budget, you have heard my colleagues say that we are getting on with the job of keeping everyone safe from COVID-19, that we are looking to accelerate the recovery and rebuild so that we are taking the whole population with us, on tackling some of the foundational challenges. Climate change—we’ve heard today from a very important report, and I’m pleased to hear that other parts of the House recognise that this is serious not just for Aotearoa New Zealand but across the Pacific region. The tackling of housing affordability. Often we forget; we’ve inherited many of these challenges but we have not shied away from it in tackling them head-on, including child poverty.

For Pacific communities, long term, we have a clear vision. It is about: we are the masters of our own destiny, that we are the authors of our own solution, and we’ve got a plan for the future. That plan was captured in the Lalanga Fou report, where young people, in particular, told us that thriving Pacific languages and cultures are important as part of their identity; economic prosperity, equally important, because the old narrative from plantation farmer to factory floor is no longer the plan and narrative for our young people. They want to be the owners of enterprise. They want to be the masters of the digital economy. This Government will support them to achieve those aspirations. Healthy, strong, resilient families—and that’s a holistic view. It is not just about physical wellbeing; it is mental, it is spiritual, it is cultural, it is economic. It is with a holistic view that we look on these things. And, finally, the goal of resilient and confident young people, because that gives you a glimpse of what the future looks like and the people that will shape the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.

So this Government in its Budget of 2021 announced a package of $108 million over four years. This continues the legacy—unprecedented investment in this space, recognising that Pacific peoples have suffered greatly alongside Māori. COVID-19 highlighted all of the inequities and the barriers that we face. It highlighted also that, too often, this House allows this pattern where Pacific peoples are the first to get hit in any economic downturn and are slow to recover. This Government is working hard with the Pacific community to make sure that we can accelerate that recovery.

Fifty three million dollars in four years is added on to the Budget for the Ministry for Pacific Peoples to continue the work of Tupu Aotearoa, to continue the wellbeing approach, so that there is across-the-line sight across all Government departments so that there is more collaboration, greater cooperation, with a line of sight in making sure that funding flows to the community.

And $16 million over four years now means that we can work with the regions. The regions are growing. And I know, my colleagues, this is funny, but I often say, “Watch out with Pacific peoples, they’re growing fast in the regions, we’re going to take over New Zealand, and we’re going to take over the regions.”

With the $30 million that sits with education—first time ever that a Government is funding Pacific languages, Pacific bilingual immersion education at school. In addition to that, we will roll out a policy that sets in stone the value and the recognition that language is important right across for all peoples, and, in particular, it is a fundamental cornerstone of Pacific peoples’ wellbeing.

Well done to this Government and well done to Minister Grant Robertson for a wonderful Budget 2021.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Today is one of those important days in the development of this country’s economic history. It’s the day that under the zero carbon legislation, that ACT alone opposed in this House, the Climate Change Commission has brought forth its first formal advice to the Government, advice that tells the Government that it must reduce carbon emissions nationwide according to a series of sector-specific plans.

It is the case in this world that our major trading partners and our friends and allies are decarbonising, and we need to follow them. It would be dangerous for a small trading nation to become significantly out of sync with its trading partners, because for diplomatic reasons, trade policy reasons, and simple consumer preference it would be foolish for a small trading nation to become an outlier on something as significant as climate policy. But if it’s the role of the New Zealand Government and this Parliament to ensure that New Zealand follows and stays close to our friends around the world in terms of decarbonising, there could not be a worse way of achieving it than what the Climate Change Commission has proposed today. Why? Let me count the ways—there are three.

Number one: it is so micro-managing. It forecasts into the future that there’s going to be a 2.6 percent reduction in GDP by 2050. How many economists in the last century have managed to forecast 29 years out to the nearest 0.1 percent? And all the assumptions in the report have the same over-precision. They assume that they know too much more about the future than what anyone can truly know. They say we must stop importing a certain type of car in a certain year, reduce the number of cows by 13 percent, and stop connecting gas to new restaurants. The truth is it’s no more easy to predict the technological future in 2050 today than it was to predict what 2021 would look like in 1992. That’s what they’re trying to do.

The second issue is that it’s not actually going to help, because this country now has two contradictory and conflicting climate policies. One is the emissions trading scheme, which now, thanks to legislation last year, has a cap setting the total amount of carbon emissions that New Zealanders are allowed to make. Number two is what was announced today, which tries to micro-manage which technologies and which sectors and which processes people can use. That micro-management means that if somebody buys a different car because the Government told them to or plants a different tree because the Government told them to, they merely free up carbon credits which, under the cap, allow someone else to use carbon emissions for something else. So there’s actually no improvement from these unreliable forecasts into what the future should look like. It’s the same reason that centrally planned economies failed throughout the 20th century. It’s as though we’ve learnt nothing.

And the third big problem is it’s totally disconnected from the rest of the world. The zero carbon Act says that we need a 24 to 47 percent reduction in biogenic methane by 2050, that we need to get to net zero long-lived gas emissions by 2050. Well, if the rest of the world doesn’t do that and we do, New Zealand will be destroying its own economy to have no influence on the climate. On the other hand, if the rest of the world does more, actually we’ll be an outlier. Our goal should be to keep in touch with our friends around the world, not to set own goals regardless of what the rest of the economies in the world to.

Finally, we’re not able to buy foreign carbon credits, so if our competitors around the world, if our cement factories are competing against companies in Vietnam that buy cheap carbon credits from South America, where they’re replanting the Amazon, then New Zealand ends up being disadvantaged. We should be able to buy foreign credits.

Today is a big day but not for the right reasons. New Zealand does need a plan to decarbonise in sync with our partners, but to do it with this level of micro-management, with this level of isolation from the rest of the world, and with two contradictory climate policies is total insanity, and the ACT Party proudly stands alone opposing it, as we’re the only party that always has.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the difficulties that our farming communities are facing right throughout the Canterbury district. But I have another story to tell right from the heart of those farming districts, and it comes from the little town of Leeston, right in the heart of Selwyn district, for which Nicola Grigg is the member.

A community-led initiative in those districts established a te reo Māori course last night. The word went out, and, lo and behold, the St David’s Church in Leeston just this week was absolutely packed, flowing out the door, with members of the community. In spite of all the difficulties that they’re facing at the moment, folks from as far afield as Ashburton drove all the way to attend a te reo Māori course. What message does that send? The message sent is that there is a huge, huge demand and huge interest from rural New Zealand in learning our Māori culture and in te reo Māori, and I take great heart from that.

I think the buttons that our Opposition are trying to push are not working, and it’s evidenced right from the communities that they purport to represent. I want to acknowledge those good people, because it wasn’t overflowing with Māori in that St David’s Church; far from it. These were heartland farming folks from across all of those affected districts. So I just want to acknowledge them, and it just goes to show that our Government’s goal, our aspirational goal of having 1 million te reo Māori speaking Kiwis by 2040, is a real possibility. I take great hope from that. We are reinforcing that through our investments in this Budget.

But I want to just focus on the work that we are doing as a Government. We are focused on our recovery from COVID-19. And I want to acknowledge the work that our Minister for Trade and Export Growth, the Hon Damien O’Connor, is doing, not only rebuilding our economy but ensuring that we are increasing our export trade opportunities across the globe. Isn’t that great? Isn’t it great that we have achieved—our primary sector in the face of a global pandemic—$48 billion in export revenue just last year? I want to congratulate all of those involved in our primary sectors, many of whom are based around the Māori economy as well within that big figure. That just goes to show the right decisions that we have made as a Government, but that work is continuing. It must continue. We must ensure that our trade policy is delivering for all New Zealanders.

That’s why our Government has our Trade for All agenda. It’s all about having higher value goods and services, protecting the environment, underpinning high quality, productive investments, and supporting our regions to grow. And it’s all about ensuring that New Zealand shares our economic growth widely. So it’s exciting, the work that we’re doing, and I want to acknowledge the Minister, Damien O’Connor, who will be venturing overseas to ensure that we make good progress on free-trade agreements—free-trade agreements (FTAs) that are vital to increasing our export growth and markets.

Critical work is now continuing on the UK FTA, for which Minister O’Connor will be travelling in-market to further our case, and also with the EU FTA. These are really important trade agreements for our country. The UK is our sixth largest export market. Our modelling shows that we will be able to increase by up to a billion dollars within 10 years of concluding that deal. But, most importantly, we want to ensure that we won’t sacrifice quality for pace. We want to ensure that we have high quality free-trade agreements in place. I want to acknowledge all the work undertaken by the officials within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the expert work that they are doing in the UK, in the EU, and right across in furthering our Trade for All agenda.

There’s so much that is going on within our Government. I want to acknowledge the partnerships that we as a Government are doing with Māori. We are seeing it in the housing area, we are seeing it in the health area, through our Budget, and we are also seeing it in fast moving areas like launching rockets from the same Selwyn district right by Lake Ellesmere in partnership with Ngāi Tahu. We are moving and we are reaching for the stars.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Where I come from in Canterbury, actions speak louder than words, and what an absolute kick in the guts for Cantabrians who have been affected by the flooding ten days ago. The Prime Minister goes into Ashburton, does a photo op, disappears, and the next day $785 million for a cycleway. Three-quarters of a billion dollars, and what do the Canterbury floods get? Half a million dollars—$500,000 versus three-quarters of a billion dollars. That is tone deaf. How could you get it so wrong? Communities frightened, having to leave their houses in the middle of the night, with the fear of stopbanks breaking, and in some areas, like mid-Canterbury, the stopbanks did break. Houses flooded, farms flooded, roads washed away, bridges washed away, complete devastation, and we have a Government that comes in more interested in photo ops and announces a mere $500,000, and then goes up to Auckland and announces $785 million for a nice-to-have cycleway. Where is the fairness in that? And, quite rightly, Cantabrians feel as though they’ve had a kick in the guts from mother Nature with the floods and now another kick in the guts from this Government when they’re down.

But what gives me great hope is a word that we don’t use often these days, and that’s “parochial”. What Cantabrians know, especially after the earthquakes, is how to look after each other—we know each other. And what I’ve seen, going out and about in my electorate of Waimakariri, to the neighbouring electorate, in Selwyn—I just want to acknowledge the great work Nicola Grigg is doing in Selwyn in leading the National Party’s response to the Canterbury floods. And when you look at the devastation in mid-Canterbury as well, it’s great to see those Cantabrians getting on and looking after each other. I was at a farm in Ashburton a couple of days ago. Neighbours were turning up, members of that community, most of them unannounced volunteers, turning up in their trucks, turning up in their tractors, all there to help out the affected farmers, because they know they are not going to get any support from this Government. This Government does not care about them, and they have showed that. A measly $500,000 compared to three-quarters of a billion dollars for a cycleway.

What it says to us is that this Government does not understand provincial New Zealand. Yes, some of the farmers will be able to deal with the issues behind the farm gate—they’ll be supported by family and friends and other farmers and their neighbours—but it’s the infrastructure that’s going to be needing the funding, and we need to get on and do it today. That’s the roads, that’s the bridges—these are going to cut off vital rural communities from the support they need. What COVID has taught us is how thankful we are for the farming communities. We would be up the proverbial creek without a paddle without our farming communities. COVID has taught us about the value of primary industry in New Zealand, and we need farmers performing to the best of their abilities, and that’s why this Government needs to step up and respond to affected Cantabrians.

With my final minute, I just want to acknowledge the many volunteers that stepped up on the night of the 30th, and the Saturday and the Sunday. Many of those people that stepped up over the weekend in my electorate of Waimakariri were volunteers—volunteer civil defence, volunteer fire brigades. We also had our police, our district councils as well, because there was a real fear, quite rightly. I live next to the Ashley River. The Ashley River was biblical. I’ve never seen it like that, the thundering noise and the torrents and the perception of the stopbanks failing. And I want to let Cantabrians know that the National Party will back you. We will shine a light on this Government’s failures. We will bring your voices to Wellington when this Government won’t listen—

The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So much doom and gloom from the other side of the House, but on this side of the House we’ve just had an extraordinary Budget that will take all New Zealanders with us as we rebuild in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. There were literally two things that the member who just resumed his seat, Matt Doocey, said that I actually agree with, and one was to acknowledge the role of volunteers. As the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, I absolutely tautoko that. The second one that he said was that we need to get on and do it today, and that is action on climate change.

I just want to, I guess, take the House back to something that the Prime Minister said right at the start of her tenure as the Prime Minister. She said that climate change is our generation’s—and, perhaps even more so, the next generation’s—nuclear-free moment. We’ve also said, right from the start of when this Government took office, that there are three areas that we would focus on in our term in Government. One is to continue to keep New Zealanders safe from COVID-19. The second is to rebuild our economy in a way that is sustainable and actually takes New Zealanders with us on that journey. The third is to continue to address some of the long-term challenges that face us as a nation, and one of those is climate change.

We’ve seen from the Climate Change Commission’s blueprint on addressing climate change that they have confirmed that the Government has made good progress to reduce emissions but that it’s time now for us to step up and to get on with further actions. We’ve seen, though, from the Climate Change Commission’s advice, that we need to build, as I said, on progress. The important bits of their advice that I’d like to just highlight today are that meeting our targets is achievable and it’s affordable and will bring huge economic benefits, benefits to people’s health, wellbeing, and to our wallets as well.

The other point that I’d just like to highlight is that it’s a collective effort. There is a job in there for everyone to do: agencies, local government, central government, businesses, and our communities as well. As the Minister for Youth—this is an incredibly important issue for our young people, and we’ve seen that time and again. We’ve seen that over the years. In 2019, we saw about 170,000 people take to the streets to encourage us all, here, decision makers, to move on climate change, on climate action. That was, of course, the School Strike 4 Climate.

I want to highlight some of the work that the Ministry of Youth Development has done in this space. A shout-out to both the ministry and also Hivers. The Ministry of Youth Development has encouraged active engagement between youth and the Climate Change Commission through an initiative called the Hive. It’s a by youth, for youth initiative. It encourages a two-way conversation between our rangatahi, our young people, and decision makers, and it demystifies the policy engagement process in a way that is really exciting. I just want to shout out to our Hivers both past and present. It’s an initiative that started in 2020. It was a way to mitigate some of the sense from young people that their voices weren’t being heard by decision makers and, equally, that many of our Government agencies were struggling to engage with young people. So this group of 15 young people that was partially funded by the ministry used the Climate Change Commission’s advice package consultation as their first engagement, as they demystified the policy process.

They’ve also shared some of what they’ve heard. They broke down the Climate Change Commission’s advice into a way that was understandable to young people. They used social media like Facebook and Instagram. They used some of the interactive polls via Insta stories to reach out to a diverse range of rangatahi across Aotearoa. They shared some of the areas of importance, and one of them was on transport, and ensuring that we have—so as the Opposition bangs on about the fact that we are offering various modes of transport to New Zealanders, I want to point to the fact that our young people are actually asking for this, for us to decarbonise the transport network and to offer options to them by way of public transport. This is the time to act, and we are acting.

I’m really proud to stand today as co-leader for the Green Party of Aotearoa and acknowledge and support the progress that has been made so far on climate change, on climate action. I acknowledge the Hon James Shaw and his hard work as Minister of Climate Change to lay down the foundations, to pull together some of the most impactful action that any Government in Aotearoa has taken in the past 3½ decades. I also know that we need to lift our standards way higher than the work of the past 3½ decades of consecutive Governments, because what is before us right now is absolutely urgent, and, as the independent Climate Commission report says, we have to and must take the urgent action now, and right now is when we can.

But today what I wanted to do was to highlight that it is clear that the Treaty, Te Tiriti, relationship must underpin all of the work. The Climate Commission themselves have made that very clear. Also, the zero carbon legislation, which came to be agreed to, made it very clear and put in a legal requirement to uphold Te Tiriti. The Climate Commission themselves understand that no work can be enduring, no work can be long lasting, unless we uphold Te Tiriti. So today I wanted to remind us—remind us—of the indigenous knowledge and leadership that has been at the forefront of strong activism and strong solutions for a cleaner planet that looks after the many. For many, many decades we have seen indigenous people around the world and here in Aotearoa right at the forefront of that work.

Just recently, if we are looking across the seas, we can look to the indigenous knowledge of the Aboriginal people, who, had they been given the proper support and affirmation of their thousands-and-thousands-of-years-old knowledge, would have been able to mitigate the abhorrent Australian fires that we saw recently. Again, in the Amazon, if the indigenous Brazilian peoples and nations of the Amazonian forest had been supported to actually have their land—land back is, of course, the answer to everything—then we would have also been able to see the protection of the lungs of the planet in those Amazon fires and the destruction that we also saw recently.

Here in Aotearoa, it has been iwi like Taranaki who have been protecting against the destruction of the moana—the moana, the sea, which, again, is a massive, carbon-sinking part of the natural world that we also must continue to protect. Also, the iwi in my Tai Tokerau north have long been resisting and opposing dirty big oil, but have also been creating the solutions and the frameworks that we need to create a low-carbon economy that understands that we need to protect our planet for generations to come, but also that we need to form better relationships across us, and communities and people, for the sort of economy that is going to take care of us better. My people on the East Coast, Whānau-a-Apanui and Ngati Porou, again were at the forefront of resisting big oil entrenching on to our territory and on to our waters, while at the same time opening up marae for crises. In the middle of the Canterbury floods—and part of the indigenous solutions and frameworks that we can all take heed of—marae were opening up to manaaki and support people. In the context of a white supremacist threatening to hurt my people on our marae, what do our marae do? They open up. They welcome. They manaaki—what they’ve been doing for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I am here on behalf of the Green Party, on behalf of my hapū and iwi, to remind us all that we know these solutions, these frameworks, with the sort of thinking that is going to lead us into the economic transformation that will benefit a wellbeing for our planet, for the many and not just the few, that have been here all along—have been within Aotearoa the whole time. We have an opportunity. Not only are we all climate Ministers, we are all climate MPs. We have an opportunity to forefront that at the work that we are doing. We have an opportunity to finally understand that indigenous knowledge is key to the solutions for our economy, for protecting our biodiversity, for making sure that all people have what they need, not just the few. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s an absolute honour and a privilege to stand today to make a short contribution on being focused on our future.

I’d like to acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. We sometimes tend to forget that we are safe here in Aotearoa because of the leadership that has led us this far. We only have to look at our neighbours, and I want to say a big “bula” to our cousins in Fiji with the spread of COVID-19 and, of course, over the Tasman in Australia. Of course, if we are digging further around the world—so I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Prime Minister and where we are today and, of course, her Cabinet.

I want to also acknowledge the leadership of the Minister of Finance, the Hon Grant Robertson. He often talks about being “morally right” in his delivery in the House and throughout the motu, and he also talks about restoring dignity, just reminding everyone about our wellbeing approach. It is a wellbeing approach. As has been said many times before, it is about keeping New Zealanders safe from COVID-19, accelerating our recovery and rebuild, and tackling our foundational challenges; in particular, housing affordability, climate change, and child wellbeing.

In my travels since the Budget announcement on 20 May, I’ve had feedback from the Pacific community, and most of that feedback aligns with—I’ve summed it up in these few words. They’ve said that as migrants from the Pacific they welcome the Wellbeing Budget, Securing Our Recovery 2021. In these difficult times of COVID-19, the Pacific families who find themselves as welfare beneficiaries have acknowledged, to me, the Labour Government for the contribution to alleviate the monetary situations they face daily. To restore our people’s dignity requires genuinely a sharing of power and resources, love and peace, to reposition ourselves from being marginalised socially and economically, and I want to acknowledge the leadership of the Minister for Pacific Peoples, the Hon Aupito William Sio.

Often we hear and voice those concerns, and there is more to money and resources to change the deprivation that our people are faced with. When I say “our people”, our Pacific people, we morally can’t afford to continue with the same old deficit thinking arguments about Pacific peoples. We have to put in these new changes that are coming about. We have to ask ourselves why. Our wellbeing is about living in abundance of aroha, of kāinga, of country.

I want to quote the beliefs upon which the Pacific people ground our purpose and work in education, and I want to go to the Bible. Spiritually, our Lord says, “I come so that you have life and have life abundantly.” This is wellbeing, living in abundance of aroha, of trust, of peace and happiness, and happiness and abundance for tangata whenua o Aotearoa—the indigenous Māori peoples of Aotearoa—to respect their values and beliefs, ways of being, and doing, and improve their health, housing in their own land. Why? Why would you not build in your own land? Why would you not support that? I want to acknowledge, of course, the last speaker that spoke before me, the Hon Marama Davidson, who speaks about indigenous knowledge and intelligence. Likewise with Pacific people, our people can make a contribution to living in abundance in our country in Aotearoa.

This is a Budget that I believe certainly helps to attain our aspiration to enrich Aotearoa spiritually and with holistic education. Our young people, through the document that the Minister Aupito refers to, Lalanga Fou, talks about the aspirations of young people, of needing to see themselves in the leaders of this country.

I want to finish as I started. I want to finish in acknowledging the leadership of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. It is not very far off that we have come through this COVID-19 and we are here safe today. On that note, I want to acknowledge everybody, the team of 5 million. Mālō.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. I rise to continue to talk on that hope of our future—the future for our nation. Looking at Budget 2021, it was a hopeful Budget addressing things like inequality, investing into our future, our commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in terms of more than a billion dollars going into Māori initiatives and I had the privilege of hosting our Māori Cabinet Ministers in Taranaki during their roadshow. We must focus on our future. We must focus on hope and what it means not only for our grandchildren but our great-great-great-grandchildren. We must hold on to this hope, and climate change is, as we’re talking now, it’s the generational challenge that we face.

On my wall here at Parliament, I have a quote from a North American First Nation wahine, Winona LaDuke, and it says, “Be the ancestors our descendants will thank.” Be the ancestors our descendants will thank—and that’s why I stand in this House today. That’s why I come to represent the people of New Plymouth, of Taranaki, and of Aotearoa, because I want to ensure that my great-great-great-grandchildren have an environment, have a place to live, but, more importantly, a place to thrive. And we’re doing that as a Government. We’re working hard. There’s obviously been the zero carbon Act. There’s been the establishment of the Climate Change Commission. We’ve had our national energy strategy, as well as putting $300 million to boost our green investment finance fund, ensuring that we accelerate our low-carbon technologies, renewable energies, low-emission vehicles—just to name a few.

And then I look in my own region and in my own electorate, and what we’re doing. We have Ara Ake, which is our new energy development centre, which is looking at state of the art, innovative ways to look at our clean, green, low-, zero-emission future, and that’s something funded by this Government. We also have Hiringa Energy, who are developing our green hydrogen future, looking at ways for heavy transport, ways to work with large industry around how we have green energy, green hydrogen. And along with that is First Gas, who’s based out of Taranaki as well, in the New Plymouth electorate, who are working and have released their green hydrogen plan. The big question people have is: can I still burn a sausage on my barbecue? And the good news is that you can, although that might create some emissions, obviously, if you’re burning things on the barbecue. But at the opening of my new office just recently, I had First Gas there with their hydrogen barbecue, cooking sausages, giving them out to the people. Our future is bright and hopeful.

Also, local iwi—I’m really grateful to Te Āti Awa and the work they’re doing around development of subdivisions and housing, which always has a green lens on how to do it in a future-focused way while respecting the land, respecting the whenua. But it’s a challenge, and for me in this role it’s a challenge, because it’s very much around: how do we retain jobs while we diversify our energy sector? And I believe that as a Government, we’re working hard to ensure that we do, because we do have the tools, but we must do more to ensure that we get to the future that we dream of.

So the climate change report was out today, and I was really impressed with the Minister of Climate Change and with the Prime Minister, also being hopeful that this was an achievable goal, this was affordable, this had opportunities for clean, for more connected and vibrant communities. It was fair, it was equitable, and it was honouring Te Tiriti.

I just want to complete my conversation this afternoon to reflect on the community in my local electorate of Parihaka. And I want to reflect on what that community means. That community was formed as a collective response to injustice, and today they work hard and continue to work hard around—as a collaborative and a collective to deal with the injustices, not only human injustices, but injustices that humans inflict on our environment and on our land. They are working on sustainable options for the future of our region. And I thank Parihaka for what they do. I come back to the raukura there: three feathers that have been there for more than 100 years. It comes from the Christian tradition but very much it’s around glory to God, peace on Earth, and goodwill to all mankind. I believe around the future that we have, the opportunity we have for our climate is around, that we look beyond ourselves, what’s above—what that might be for you. We look at peace on Earth, which is not just between people, but is between our environment and our planet. And we look at how we look after each other. We have the goodwill to all people, to our planet, to our ancestors, and also to our descendants to come. So I am hopeful. I look forward to serving this electorate in this House in terms of finding a way forward in our future as a nation.

The time for debate has expired.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.