Maiden Statements

Members, in accordance with the determination by the Business Committee, we’ll now have maiden statements. Following the maiden statements, the House will adjourn until 2 p.m. on Tuesday, 20 February 2024. I call on Fa’anānā Efeso Collins to make his maiden statement to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Mai i ngā hau o Ōtāhuhu-nui-a-Rangi, o Maungarei, o Motukaroa; mai i ngā awa o Hikuwaru, o Tāmaki e rere ki te Waitematā, kei te Mānukanuka-o-Hoturoa, ko Kaiwhare, ko Taramainuku kua tau, kua tau ki ngā whenua o Ngāti Toa Rangatira, o Taranaki Whānui ki Te Ūpoko o Te Ika. Tēnā anō tātou.

[From the winds of Ōtāhuhu, of Mount Wellington, of Hamlin’s Hill; from the rivers of Hikuwaru, of Tāmaki flowing to the Waitematā, to the Mānukau Harbour; Kaiwhare and Taramainuku have arrived, have arrived to the lands of Ngāti Toa Rangatira, of Taranaki Whānui in the Wellington region. Greetings to us all.]

E fakatālofa atu ki te māmālu o koutou na tamāna ma na mātua, vena foki na uho ma tuafāfine kua mafai ke fakatahi i te po nei. Vikia te Atua ko tātou kua mafai ke fakatahi venei. Mālo ma fakafetai.

Fai mai ina ua teʻi ae Iakopo i le mea sa moe ai, ona ia fai ane lea, e moni lava e i ai Ieova i le mea nei. E moni lava e i ai Ieova i le mea nei. Faafetai le Atua aua e le faaitiitia lou viiga. Ua ifo i ati malie tuʻumoega o le taeao le sa tafa i vanu tafaoga o manu sisina, ae sa faalepa le au pea, sa fili ma le manoa le fetu taʻimatagi, ae sei faalaolao le puli matagi aua ua nofoia vao tutuʻi i le malumalu ma nuʻu malumau o le maota.

Ou te le fagota la i le sao aua ua uma ona fili le utu ma uu le vao fofou. Fai mai le matematega nai tumua, ua pei o se iʻa e moemauga o le atuolo, o foliga matagofie ia ma le maualuga, maualuga lava o lenei aso aisea, ae a lea ua malutaueʻe le tiʻa sa maluʻia, ua tapu lalaga foʻi le vaʻa o le Tuimanʻua mamana ua atoa laʻau i fogaʻa.

Faafetai le Atua le Tama, le Alo ma le Agaga Sa, aua sa tu i Fagalilo tapaau o le alataua, ae sa matemate foʻi aiga sa Tagaloa pe tua ma ni a lenei aso. Ae faafetai i le Atua, aua ua tepa i ula, tagaʻi i ula, foʻi atu lou viiga e faavavau. Faafetai i le tapuaʻiga a oʻu matua ma oʻu aiga, faafetai tele i matua o si oʻu toʻalua ma ona aiga, i le latou lagolago aemaise talosaga molia. Faafetai i uo ma e masani, aemaise o le paʻia o le aufaigaluega totofi a le Atua, i soʻo se fata faitaulaga—Faafetai tatalo. Ae faapitoaugafa saʻu faafetai i si oʻu toalua Finevasa Fia aemaise si aʻu fanau pele Tapuiela ma Asalemo faafetai tatalo, malo le onosaʻi. Ae tapuaʻi maia ma le manuia.

Mr Speaker, it is an indescribable feeling to stand up and address this House. As a son of Samoan immigrants who made the mighty Ōtara 274—Southside hard!—their home, I am well aware of the giants whose shoulders I stand on and the masters whose feet I learnt at. The courage, foresight, entrepreneurial spirit, and hope of our ancestors who journeyed thousands of years ago through the vast waters of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa brings me here today.

My parents arrived in New Zealand in the early 1960s, told that this was the land of milk and honey. Dad started off as a taxi driver with South Auckland Taxis, and mum on the factory floor at New Zealand Forest Products in Penrose. We lived in a four-bedroom State house on Preston Road in Ōtara, and I attended local schools East Tāmaki Primary, Ferguson Intermediate, and the great Tangaroa College. We’re for ever grateful for the State house that was our home for around 20 years, and the quality public education we received from our local State schools.

I did try my hand for a short period at a decile 10 school outside of Ōtara, but that experiment lasted only two weeks. It was during that time in the late 1980s when families from poorer areas were being discouraged from going to local schools because they weren’t considered up to scratch. I’m glad we changed course and decided to high school it in Ōtara, where the motto of our school was “Waiho i te tokā tu Moana”—“Steadfast like a rock in the sea”.

Later, at university, I went on to write my Master’s dissertation on brown flight, critiquing the Picot reforms that have wreaked havoc on our public schooling system. That period was also a challenging time for my family because we were being told by our teachers to stop speaking Samoan at home and only to speak English. My parents didn’t want us to fail at school, so we were allowed to speak English at home, and over time we stopped speaking Samoan altogether. In the end, I lost my language. I struggled, I was embarrassed, and I felt incomplete, and even speaking to you in Samoan this evening gives me major tremors.

There’s a saying in Samoan: “E le tu fa’amauga se tagata”—“No one stands alone, no one succeeds alone”—and, for me, no one suffers alone. Over the past years, with the support of my family and friends, I’ve taken to trying to converse again in Samoan, reading more texts in Samoan, praying in Samoan, and sending our youngest to a local Samoan early childhood centre. Our beautiful language, Gagana Samoa, has returned to our home and is helping to overcome the inadequacy that had taken root in my soul.

As I speak this evening, I’m mindful of the many young people who are navigating these at times treacherous and unsettled waters in life, filled with so much potential, energy, and hope, yet too often misunderstood. In my time as a youth worker in South Auckland, I’ve spoken with hundreds of young people with massive dreams for the future. We need youth workers, we need social workers, and we need mentors to walk alongside our young people. And, yes, we want our youth to be responsible and caring and considerate, so it’s our job in this House to resource the people and organisations who will model the behaviour to them that we expect but who also won’t give up on them and won’t come with a saviour mentality.

Many of our societal challenges are driven by poverty. We can achieve greater social cohesion and lift our sense of belonging by addressing poverty. I’ve been honoured to run youth mentoring programmes for nearly 25 years—that’s about how old I am—and to this day I mentor young people. When we undertook and published research on youth gangs some years ago, the youth we spoke to had the solutions and just needed the means to make it happen. Too many of our young people are filling our prisons, and it is wasted human potential. Give them the tools, the resources, and the means to make a meaningful contribution to the world, and they will.

I was at a conference recently about the threats to democracy and an attendee spoke about their work in developing nations and used the familiar retort “You can’t eat democracy.”, and I couldn’t agree more. This House, this centre of democracy, needs to do more to engage our people, all of our people, so that they can see this House is not just relevant but an essential part of their lives.

The greatest challenge facing our generation is climate change. The Pacific Islands nations are among the most vulnerable to climate change in the world. The world’s continued reliance on fossil fuels, loss of coral reefs, rising sea levels, and increasing severe weather patterns means that our extended whānau in the Pacific are in immediate danger. We, as a collective, must do all we can to, as we say out south, “flip the script”. Truth is, those who’ve done the least to create this predicament are being the hardest hit.

Our challenges, whether ecological, geopolitical, or cultural, are diverse, but we’re bonded by the inextricable ties we have to our lands and our oceans. We’ve inherited philosophies, knowledge systems, and profound ecological wisdom that holds the answers and drives our collective resilience—from West Papua to Hawai’i. Our fight for a climate-resilient, nuclear-free, and independent Pacific remains as strong as ever. We are not drowning; we are fighting.

I haven’t come to Parliament to learn—learning happens as a matter of course through reflection. I’ve come to this House to help. Helping is a deliberate act. I’m here to help this Government govern for all of New Zealand, and I’m here to open the door, enabling our communities to connect better with this House.

During the election campaign, I spoke to people frustrated about their lot in life, scared for their and their children’s futures, and feeling their dreams were slipping away. The people I spoke to expect the Government to do more and to move faster, and I know that there are some in this House who believe Government is not the answer to these challenges and that less Government is better, but here’s the thing: Government cannot be a bystander to people’s suffering, confusion, and disenfranchisement. New Zealand must close the divide between those who have and those who have not, because the reality for my community is that those who have more money often wield more power, more health, more housing, more justice, more access, more canopy cover, more lobbyists with swipe cards, and more time—and the opposite is true for those who have fewer resources.

It’s hard to be poor, it’s expensive to be poor, and, moreover, public discourse is making it socially unacceptable to be poor. Whether it’s bashing on beneficiaries, dragging our feet towards a living wage, throwing shade on school breakfast programmes, or restricting people’s ability to collectively bargain for fairer working conditions, we must do better to lift aspirations and the lived realities of all our people.

To that end, I want to say to this House with complete surety that the neoliberal experiment of the 1980s has failed. The economics of creating unemployment to manage inflation is farcical when domestic inflation in New Zealand has been driven by big corporates making excessive profits. It’s time to draw a line in the sand and, alongside my colleagues here in Te Pāti Kākāriki, we have come as the pallbearers of neoliberalism, to bury these shallow, insufferable ideas once and for all. And this, sir, is our act of love.

Paolo Freire, in his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, said “love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is a commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is a commitment to their cause—the cause of liberation.” The most recent election campaign left many in our Māori communities bruised and targeted for the perceived privileges supposedly bestowed upon them. Shared governance is a rich concept about how we include those who’ve been excluded for far too long in the work of this House and the democratic institutions that are fundamental to our collective wellbeing. We are tangata Tiriti and we have nothing to fear.

As a New Zealand - born Samoan living in South Auckland, I’ve experienced, written about, and spoken about racism in this country. I’ve also been on a well-publicised journey in understanding the needs and views of our rainbow communities, and I have a long way to go. My message to whānau who often experience the sharp end of discrimination—disabled, ethnic, rainbow, brown, seniors, and neurodiverse—is thank you for trusting us with the responsibility of facilitating a new discussion on how we move forward together and make possible what was once deemed impossible.

The American civil rights activist James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” We commit to working across this House as a nation and with each other, irrespective of our post code, income bracket, skin colour, or level of qualification attained. But, in order for that work, we must come with humility, the desire to listen, and—dare I say it—maybe speaking last.

If I was to inspire anyone by getting to this House and my work over the next three years, I hope that it’s the square pegs, the misfits, the forgotten, the unloved, the invisible. It’s the dreamers who want more, expect more, are impatient for change, and have this uncanny ability to stretch us further.

Finally, may I take this opportunity to thank those who have assisted with my most recent campaign: Louise, Elizabeth, Shari, Vasemaca, Seuta’afili Patrick, and Alofa. And to the coolest people in the Greens, dare I say it—the South Auckland branch of the Greens—and the Pasifika Lived Experience Network, thank you.

To Te Pāti Kākāriki, my friends, my colleagues, who opened the door to me and warmly welcomed me into your whānau, thank you. To all our family and friends who have made the journey to Wellington and are here in the gallery this evening, thank you.

And, finally, to my family, le tofa ia Legaoi Opeta, ma le tina peleina ia Asalemo Epe Elika. My parents—Dad, Tauiliili Sio, and my brother Thomas, who are both watching from Heaven, and my Mum, Lotomau Collins, who is here in the gallery, thank you all. To the most amazing woman in my life, with whom I’d like to wish a belated “Happy Valentine’s”—to my beautiful wife, Fia, and Kaperiela and Asalemo, I love you. Kaperiela and Asalemo, a quick reminder that I will be your Valentine’s for ever, because, in true Samoan fashion, you can’t get married till you’re 50!

My favourite part of the Mass on Sunday is when our parish priests will rise and say, “The Mass has ended.”—it’s about that time that I start to think about what we’re going to be having for lunch. But our priest continues, now with his arms outstretched, and he will close with this charge to the congregation: “Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

Mr Speaker, it is with that spirit, the spirit of peace and love and service, with which my extended family who are here today come to this House. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[Applause, hongi, and harirū]

Waiata—“Fa’afetai i le Atua”

Kia ora koutou. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I acknowledge the local iwi—Te Atiawa, Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga—on whose rohe we stand.

Bish-boom, bish-boom, bish-boom, bish-boom, bish-boom, bish-boom—that’s the sound of my heart. I have a damaged mitral valve. That whooshing sound, “bish”, is the sound of a little blood flowing back the wrong way, which in part explains my attitude to the world perhaps.

When I was an infant, we lived in the best home our parents could afford, a typical damp, cold weatherboard house in Mount Albert that backed on to the railway tracks. And when I was three years old, I fell very ill. A doctor came to the house late one night and listened to my chest for a long time and sent me straight to hospital. I had rheumatic fever. I survived with a lifelong heart murmur, thanks to penicillin and the public health service. But when anyone asks why an environmentalist cares so much that every child in this country should be raised in a warm, dry, affordable, accessible, secure home, I carry that belief in my heart with every beat.

When I was four, we moved to another house, and my sister Kate came along—and, Kate, you are there with Isabel and Sophie. I planted a tōtara seedling in our backyard when I was seven years old that had come free from the school fair. E noho ana au ki raro i te maru o Maungawhau [I am residing under the protection of Maungawhau]. I planted it in the rich volcanic soil on the lava flow of Maungawhau. The seedling has grown, now far taller than me. I can’t even get my arms around it. And for me to stand in the shadow of something that began no taller than a child’s thumb and will, if let survive, far exceed a human lifespan is to feel the awe of my early wonderment of nature, which I believe all of us experienced in our childhoods.

And for the sake of livable cities and a livable planet, I am prepared to work with Chris Bishop to bring back general tree protection. We can do this, Chris—mana rākau. When I was eight years old, I came home from school believing I was dumb, in the terminology of the day. I couldn’t read. Mum found a teacher—Margaret Hooten—who assessed dyslexia and taught me to read through phonics, but school had already lost me. It is a matter of mental survival for a child in that if the system doesn’t believe in you, you cannot believe in it. I had a distrust of the education system and a cynicism towards authority, which has never really gone away. One thing I will support this Government in is use of structured literacy in the classroom and debunking this failed system of whole-language learning that has harmed so many through illiteracy in this country.

In 1981, I was 11, and my parents took me down to Fowlds Park to assemble for the protest against the Springboks playing the All Blacks at Eden Park. The organiser said I was too young, and I had to walk home. But at that age, I had a strong sense of the need to be part of this movement against our country playing sports with an apartheid State.

I joined a march against nuclear weapons when I was 13. I understood the existential threat of nuclear holocaust and the vile nature of US hegemony. When the audience stood and applauded as David Lange completed the Oxford Union debate in February 1985 on the moot that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible, I remembered the distinct feeling of pride at being represented by this articulate leader taking this principled stand on our behalf as a small nation. Lange’s retort to the pressure of the US to accept nuclear weapons was, “It is self-defeating logic, just as the weapons themselves are self-defeating; to compel an ally to accept nuclear weapons against the wishes of that ally is to take the moral position of totalitarianism which allows for no self-determination, which is exactly the evil we are supposed to be fighting against.”

I am dismayed that as the United States descends further into genocidal hegemony, we are so quickly willing to burn that hard-fought nuclear-free independence by signing away our status out of ANZUS and putting us back into AUKUS. New Zealand belongs as a nuclear-free, independent South Pacific peacemaker.

When I was 15, I learnt how to play David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” on guitar: “Ground Control to Major Tom”. David Bowie is still my spiritual guide. It would set me on a path of music making and songwriting that is a profound salve and sanity in my life. Into the abyss we stare, and art draws us out into pure air.

At the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art many years later, I saw a 40,000-year-old Chinese flute exquisitely crafted from an ostrich bone. Music and art are a much more ancient and universal necessity of being human in the constructs of industrialism, capitalism, consumerism, individualism, and money. Any society that wants to be healthy and intelligent supports the arts. A shout-out to my beloved friends paying their rent in the “Tower of Song”.

When I was 16, some kids brought the petition against homosexual law reform to Mt Roskill Grammar. A group of us went around telling other students not to sign it; that it was a bad thing. Even as I was just discovering who I was, I knew that no one should be made illegal for expressing their sexual identity—and that goes for gender identity too.

My mum was raised in the provincial Bay of Plenty in the 1940s and 1950s. Her mum, Kathleen, had lost her first husband in the Napier-Hastings earthquake. Mum’s was a disrupted upbringing. She fell pregnant out of wedlock in the late-1950s; the options were adopting the kids out, or illegal and dangerous abortion. In the convent where she was sent, unmarried mothers were expected to give birth to their illegitimate children in shameful silence, and the babies were taken without ever being seen or held by their birth mothers. When I was 19, my sister Kate and I were able to meet our sister Chris and our brother Stephen. It’s great to have you here today, Chris—where have you gone? You were there, and now you’ve gone! Mum said there should be some place on Earth that you can walk in the front door and make yourself a cup of tea without asking anyone permission. That was her definition of home.

My father was courageous and loving. He adored his children and he would spoil us to a fault. He was a rower, a computer systems analyst, and won a seat on the Auckland Council in 2004 as a City Vision Green opposing drinking-water privatisation.

Mum had been a land girl and a herd tester. She worked six years in the Norwegian Merchant Navy, visiting 42 countries in 1960s before she met Dad. She was part of the playcentre movement, the Child Poverty Action Group, and was a silver grand master bridge champion. Just weeks before her death in 2010, she arrived at the bottom of Queen Street in her wheelchair, she was riddled with cancer. She came to the 40,000-strong march against mining that I had helped to organise, and Dad wheeled her all the way up Queen Street; she wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

For my values, who I am, and my compass on life, I’m so much indebted to my parents.

I travelled in my twenties. At 27, a site of extensive rain forest destruction for palm plantations in Malaysia set me on the path of the last 27 years of my life, advocating for the protection of nature. I returned to New Zealand, and, on the wall of a friend’s flat, I saw a poster of someone standing in the canopy of a giant rimu tree. It was Pat McNamara, and the banner said “Haere mai! N F A welcomes those who respect the forest”. I found my band of likeminded brothers and sisters at Carlaw Park on Waitangi Day in 1998. When we stood in those ancient West Coast forests as young people and saw the blood-red sap on the freshly cut stumps of centuries old rimu, we sometimes felt helpless, but we learnt the art of campaigning under the tutorage of Nicky Hager. When 137,000 hectares of native forest was eventually protected, we experienced firsthand that through organised political action you can change the course of history.

I’m blessed to have subsequently played a part in movements that stopped coal-fired power at Marsden B; kept our food production GE-free; protected our oceans, coasts, and climate from offshore oil and gas exploration; undid plans to mine our most valuable conservation land; save sea life from plastic bags; and, most recently, advocated that rural people should not be exposed to nitrate-contaminated drinking water. Shout-out to Native Forests Action Council, Greenpeace, and Mana Rākau friends here today—[Looks at clock] crikes, the time is terrifying, Mr Speaker.

I believe in an interconnected world. We are nature; it is us. If the rivers are sick, the people will be sick. The absurdity of industrial progress is that it promises a better life through destroying the only world in which we can actually live. For the few to degrade and pollute what is a necessity for all—clean water, abundant oceans and forests, a stable atmosphere—is more than merely an injustice to people; it is an act against all species and against the viability of life itself, and, therefore, the most monumental harm that could be committed.

A Parliament that is not able to meaningfully address existential risk threats itself risks irrelevance. If this House has a just purpose, it must be to protect the common good from the ruthlessness of vested interest, rather than, as it so often does, facilitate those vested interests to harm the commons.

We make a grave error in not seeing Te Tiriti o Waitangi, in the words of Moana Jackson, as a profound, visionary base upon which to build a country. The Treaty should be seen as a sacred bond.

When I was a kid, there was a black wall on Dominion Road with the words painted, “Honour the Treaty.” I didn’t know what it meant. They didn’t teach us anything about New Zealand history at school. On the inside cover of the school journal was Goldie’s painting of Māori arriving in a sailing waka in despair and starvation. A vivid image like that is a powerful lie to load into a child’s brain.

I cannot stand the wilful sowing of ignorance, particularly by those with political power. To quote Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol, on ignorance he said, “Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.” To still suggest Māori ceded sovereignty is an audacious erasure of history in actual texts, let alone a betrayal of human relationships. People do not cede sovereignty. Not my ancestors the Scots, not the Irish, not the West Papuans, not the Palestinians, and not tangata whenua, Māori. Self-determination and autonomy are deep human needs. Any nation that truly believes in freedom does not want that only for itself while denying that same freedom to others. As tangata Tiriti, I will uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tino rangatiratanga for Māori. That is the Pākehā price of citizenship.

As climate change bites with ever greater ferocity, it will be the society that we hold together and the values of that human society that matter more and more. What is the foundation of the life we make in this earth? As a culture, it must be based on plurality, on justice, on respect and understanding, and, ultimately, love. The most useful line in our otherwise pretty average national anthem is “in the bonds of love we meet”—in the bonds of love we meet.

Thank you all for being here. It’s wonderful to have you here. Special mention to the Greens, and particularly the awesome west Greens. The south Greens are quite good, but the west Greens, and Sinéad and the voters who got me here—I’m stoked to be part of this amazing caucus.

My life did not lack meaning before fatherhood, but afterwards it became the meaning. My grandfather, George, of the Aberdeenshire Abels, born in Invercargill, would say that parenting was greatness thrust upon you. It’s true. You are great, Quinn. Boom! Gotcha! He’s going to hate me for that.

Quinn was born three days after the Petrobras survey ship left te Whānau-ā-Apanui’s customary waters—his middle name is Raukūmara; his age, 12, marks the years since they left. I want to thank Rikirangi Gage, Dale Takutimu, Rob Ruha and all the Apanui crew for that powerful alliance we made between Greenpeace and you. And Mike Smith and Hinekaa Mako who instigated the bond—it’s great to have you here, Bianca.

I met Rawiri in that struggle—I know you’re not here, Rawiri; I’ll stand with you any day to stop the oil drillers. I know I’m not meant to mention people who aren’t here, but you are my hero. I’ll stand with you any day, Rawiri, to stop the oil drillers, and Megan, for that matter, and any of you for that matter—join the side of life.

I know people on all sides of the House; I’m not a natural partisan, I believe that dialogue across difference is vital for harmonious society. And I love you, Niamh, it’s great to have you here, thanks for backing me in this crazy thing. Good to see you here too, Emmet, and all the Deighton-O’Flynns. And Glasgow in the House, Lucy Cusick—team beestaay there—let’s go.

Finally, on the day my mum died, she had lost the ability to speak but was still completely cognisant. Her brother John called from Katikati—he was too unwell to make her passing, and he said, “Recall to Jan when we were children we took the horses down to Pāpāmoa Beach. We took off the saddles and the bridles and we clung to their manes, and we rode them bareback into the breaking waves, screeching with laughter. It was ecstatic; the horses loved the sea and so did we.” That joy and ecstasy of interaction with wild nature, that is what it is to be a child. That is what it is to be human, and that is what we must defend for all children now and to come. Kia ora koutou, kia ora koutou katoa.

[Applause, hongi, and harirū]

Waiata—“Purea nei”

Ai lam chu dat nay? Ngāti Toa, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa ki te tonga.

Kō Ngāti Aotearoa rāua ko Vietnam oku iwi. Ko Lan Pham tōku ingoa. He mihi mahana ki a koutou kua tae mai nae. Warmest greetings to you all. My name is Lan Pham. My whakapapa is of Vietnamese and Pākehā heritage, and I am so proud to stand here as the first Vietnamese MP in te Whare Pāremata.

There is a saying my father, my Ba, reminded me of: “Uống nước nhớ nguồn”—“Drink the water; remember the source”. Standing here today, I want to begin by acknowledging my source: my incredible family, friends, and supporters; those who are here, those afar, and those who have passed on, especially my amazing mum, Rosalie, and my mother-in-law, Natalie. I want to acknowledge the fine, proud people of Vietnam, and also the thousands of Vietnamese who, just like my Ba, have settled here, had families, lived lives, and flourished in this incredible land of Aotearoa—xin chao.

So how did I get here? Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū, Banks Peninsula, was where I had the pleasure of running for election, supported by the greatest Ōtautahi dream team—you know who you are—in the greatest electorate in the motu. It includes a fair chunk of the south of Ōtautahi, Christchurch City. Mr Speaker, I want to acknowledge you for your longstanding representation for Ōtautahi, and my Banks Peninsula MP sisters Vanessa, Tracey, and Laura, and, of course, to the Port Hills communities, where, no doubt, all our hearts and well wishes are, especially today with the devastating fires.

The origins of Banks Peninsula lie with the legendary explorer Rākaihautū, captain of the first waka that settled in Te Waka o Aoraki, the South Island, and the bountiful mahinga kai he and his people encountered and enjoyed. Rākaihautū’s story is connected to mine, as it’s on these same lands that my great-great-Irish ancestors arrived in 1876, disembarking from the Waitangi in Whakaraupō, Lyttleton, settling in Akaroa.

My English heritage is from my granddad, who served in Egypt and Italy alongside his three brothers, before an injury returned him home to safety.

My Vietnamese heritage originates in Quang Ngai, a beautiful coastal province in central Vietnam, where Ba grew up with his parents and tribe of 11 brothers and sisters. In the midst of the Vietnam War, Ba came to Tāmaki-makau-rau as part of the Colombo Plan scholarship. It was there at Auckland Uni that he met my mum. From this rather radical pairing of a devout catholic and a zen Buddhism practitioner came love, marriage, and six kids in our Mitsubishi carriage.

Our upbringing here in Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara was full of love and rowdiness. Our door was always open to make room for family and friends who needed a home or a meal. Looking back, my life, and schooling at St Mary’s College—just up the hill—was a constant state of blissful ignorance. I truly believed the world was this brilliant place—which it is—led by wise, thoughtful leaders who looked at all the evidence and made the most sensible decisions for the good of all people and the planet.

There’s a saying, “The biggest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” Well, as a young person, I was that threat. It wasn’t until I finished my undergrad degree at Massey in Palmerston North and realised that I had no real practical skills that I moved south to Dunedin, enrolled in a Conservation Corps course, and started using my brain.

There I met not only my dreamboat husband, Emerson, but I began meeting and learning about our most endangered native fish species, who are most commonly encountered fried as a whitebait patty. I learnt of bizarre, outdated laws, such as the fact that the one native fish with explicit protection was declared extinct several decades before the law was even made.

I went on to work for the Department of Conservation as a freshwater ranger, witnessing firsthand both the wonder and degradation of our precious waterways. I began learning about the history of Aotearoa, the deep injustice of colonisation, and the faulty foundations that we’ve built this country upon. It was over this time I began coming into contact with some of our leaders—MPs, local councillors, and the like—and was surprised by their lack of understanding, yet the strength of their opinions, and it made me wonder: who are the people running our country?

It was enough of a prompt for me to take on my Master’s in freshwater ecology at Otago University. Then, with a group of friends, started a charitable trust called Working Waters Trust. We worked with awesome landowners—mainly farmers—and partnered them up with rūnanga, schools, and community groups to protect and restore native fish habitat.

While I loved working in these delightful bubbles of native fish worship and habitat improvement, I was becoming increasingly frustrated by what I saw around me. Just over the fence were more wetlands drained and more land intensification on a vastly bigger scale. The work we were doing wasn’t enough, and I could see that without change at scale, it would never be enough.

So I sailed off on a five-day boat ride to the paradise of Rangitāhua—Raoul Island, in the Kermadecs—to take up a 12-month role as biodiversity and science manager for DOC. At this time, the global consciousness around the realities and urgent need for action on climate change was rising. People around the world were taking to the streets as part of the global people’s climate marches. With this involving two of my favourite things—scientific evidence and people power—I had to join. So I ran a climate march for our island and was chuffed to hit international headlines when The Guardian reported that the entire population of Raoul Island had turned out to march—all seven of us.

It got me thinking about the importance of showing up and organising to be a part of something bigger. On this active volcanic island, surrounded by land and ocean brimming with life, I realised that the boat would return me to Christchurch a week before the local government elections, and I thought, “If I need to sit behind a desk to protect and restore places like this for others to treasure and experience, then so be it. I’m going to run for council.”, and I did.

Working with an awesome team in Christchurch, I got to work making campaign videos from the island and spreading the word. People would contact me asking, “Why are you running? You don’t have any name recognition, you don’t have enough experience, you don’t have X, Y, Z”—typical perceived barriers that young, diverse, or non-political people hear when they consider running for political roles.

When I returned to Christchurch for the election, I got the shock of my life to discover the highest-polling candidate for Environment Canterbury was me: 55,000 people across Christchurch voted for me. Across all local government election results that year, only the Mayor of Auckland and Mayor of Christchurch received more votes than I did. It was a pivotal moment for me. I realised these elected roles are an open opportunity for people wanting to make a difference in the world. They’re roles that to function require a diversity of representation, experiences, and ideas, and they’re a key part we so often overlook in making change. So big ups to all members in this House for taking up that challenge by putting your hands up.

Across the two terms I went on to serve on Environment Canterbury, the most powerful influence on me was witnessing the constant dedication of mana whenua in upholding their rights and, equally, their responsibilities as kaitiaki and in their exercise of tino rangatiratanga in spaces which have, more often than not, simply failed to give regard or effect to them.

I want to acknowledge, in particular, those amazing rangatira whose relentless contribution to the kaupapa of upholding Te Mana o Te Wai and te Oranga o te Taiao cannot be overstated—particularly Peter Ramsden, Mandy Holme, and John Wilkie who have now passed, and the current and past chairs and whānau of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu who I’ve been privileged to walk alongside, some of whom are here today. Ka nui tonu ngā mihi, ka nui tonu te aroha. [Many thanks, and much love to you.]

All of these experiences have helped me now understand that I am shaped by this whenua—the harbour and hills of Te-Whanga-nui-a-Tara; the rivers, lakes, and oceans across the motu. I’ve learnt lessons through the history of this land, the death of my mum, the birth of my own children, and understanding my own heritage.

I’ve had my breath taken away by the phosphorescence surrounding Te Hoiere / Maud Island, by the breach of a humpback whale and her calf off Rangitahua, and by the glimmer of a glitter-gold kōaro gliding through a stream in the Otago high country.

I am wholeheartedly committed to understanding and healing the injustices of our past and upholding He Whakaputanga and Te Tiriti as the extraordinary foundation of our path ahead. I want to make it crystal clear, as a representative of the rich multicultural fabric that makes up this country, to every person of every ancestry that justice for Māori will not take away or erode your own rights, as some may claim. Addressing the injustices of our past and moving forward to uphold Te Tiriti is something we can all be part of, and all have a role to play in. I promise you: if you engage and seek to listen and understand, you will be more enriched and feel more connected to your own place of standing on this land—that is the generosity and the invitation that Te Tiriti offers us.

I’m grateful for that, and grateful that life and circumstance has given me the privilege to be here in this moment with all of you, because, ultimately, what a time to be alive, and what a task ahead of us. A time when we live in an upside-down world, where the protection of trade routes has a higher priority than the protection of human life; where the profits of corporations and banks have more sanctity than the ecological integrity of our forests, our oceans, and our children’s future; where despite all our innovation and technology, we neglect to secure the fundamentals of life on earth, like clean drinking water, like a stable climate to grow food, like housing our people—the things that connect and sustain us.

So we’re at a crux, right? A crossroads where transformational, radical change is necessary. But what exactly is so radical about it? When I joined the Green Party, I was struck by how often people would use that word “radical”. “Oh, Lan,” they’d say, “why did you join the Greens? They’re too radical for me.”

Well, let’s unpack. The term “radical” is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “going to the root or origin; touching upon or affecting what is essential and fundamental.” I am so proud to be part of a bigger-picture kaupapa focused on the essential and fundamental things in life that support our earth ecosystem to function, a kaupapa focused on designing a world that prioritises the essential work of caring for each other as fellow human beings and caring for our planet as the basis of our economy and our society—not as a nice to have, not as a when we can afford it, but as an essential. It’s focused on what should be a not so radical idea: that the foundation of Government decision-making should be informed by mātauranga, evidence, and long-term mokopuna decisions over short-term quick fixes, individual reckons, and Google research. Some may call this radical, but to me it’s more accurately plain common sense.

My hope is that we are a wise enough group of elected members that we can collectively turn our minds and our experience to what is truly essential and fundamental for this country and our future. But I’ve been around decision-making tables long enough to know that it doesn’t matter what my or any one individual’s aspiration is; what matters is our collective action, our shared plan. What matters is what we do together.

A wise friend once told me, “Proceed as if success is inevitable.” In this story of unprecedented global challenge, success, to me, looks like a world that recognised the true wealth of our society is based on care and connection to each other, and a world designed within the Earth’s ecological boundaries, and that gets us the ultimate reward: a legacy of abundance for future generations. So let’s proceed as if success is inevitable: to lead the world in waging peace, justice, and care for all life as deliberately and powerfully as those who today wage war, genocide, and destruction of our planet.

Sure, we’re in the thick of our own mess right now, but I want to finish with the wise words of Vietnamese monk Thích Nhất Hạnh: “No mud, no lotus.” The opportunity to bloom is today. It will be extraordinary, and here is your personal invitation to all be a part of it.

Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei—for us, and our children after us. Kia ora.

[Applause, hongi, and harirū]

Waiata—“Ko Te Tiriti”

The House adjourned at 6.25 p.m.