Maiden Statements

In accordance with a decision by the Business Committee, I call on Mike Davidson to make a maiden statement to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Whakapuakina te tatau

Te tatau, o te mātauranga o te whakaaro

Te whitinga o Matariki

Hei here ai, ki te Pīpīwharauroa

Kui, kui whiti whitiora

Kui, kui ki a Raki e tū nei

Kui, kui ki a Papatūānuku e takoto nei

Kui ki mua, kui ki muri

Kia rongo mai ai koe ki te tangi a te manu nei

Kui, kui, whiti whitiora

Ki te whai ao, ki te ao mārama

Tīhei mauri ora.

[Emerge from the doorway

The doorway of knowledge and insight

And the sparkle of Matariki

To bind to the shining cuckoo

It coos to mark a safe crossing

It coos to Raki above

It coos to Papatūānuku that lies here

It coos before and behind

So that you may hear the song of this bird

It coos to mark a safe crossing

To the emerging world, to the world of light

It is the breath of life.]

E te pou whakaruruhau o te takiwa nei, e te mana whenua, tēnā koutou. Ko Aoraki te maunga, ko ngā wai huka e rere ana, ko ngā waitapu, ko Ngāi Tahu te iwi, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.

[To the sheltering pillar of this region, to the mana whenua, greetings to you. Aoraki is my ancestral mountain, the foaming waters that flow, the sacred waters, Ngāi Tahu are my people. Greetings and thanks to you all.]

In August 2020, a few days before my father died of prostate cancer, I promised him three things: first, that I would follow through the process we had started together and gain whakapapa registration with Ngāi Tahu; second, that I would finish my environmental science degree; and, third, that I would become a member of this country’s Parliament. Five years later, those three things are finally ticked off, but my journey to this House did not start in 2020.

I would like to acknowledge and thank the people that have been a part of my journey—many of them here today. My whānau: Fiona, Harry, Gaye, Leon, Clare, Franka, Matt, Murray, Suzy, Dom, Sebastian, Megāne, Lucy, Harrison, and Lianne. Former councillor colleagues; the team at Whitiora and Taumutu Rūnanga; and, of course, I can’t forget the regulars at Vic’s Café. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Eugenie Sage, the Hon Lianne Dalziel, the Hon Rick Barker, and Brendon Burns, who are all here today, and also Te Taumata from Ngai Tūāhuriri. I want to thank Green Party members and supporters, especially those in Christchurch Central, Ilam, and the wider Ōtautahi.

Lastly, I want to pay a special tribute to my father, Rob, who left us all too soon. He was more than a father to me; he was a mentor, a best friend, and a big reason why I’m standing here today. I wish he was here to witness this occasion, and I know he’d be proud.

I came from a working-class family, with a train driver dad, and a childcare worker mum. It was a stereotypical Kiwi childhood spent tramping and camping with my parents and brother all around Te Waipounamu. Politics and protests, growing up, were part of our family. I remember a photograph in The Press newspaper of a seven-year-old me with my father and brother, in the rain, protesting a National Government transport amendment bill that would deregulate the railways, encouraging freight on to our roads instead. It was these experiences that shaped me, that laid the foundation. As a teenager, I always wanted to be an MP, so I joined the NewLabour Party. I remember posting my membership form, but I never heard back. Then, life got in the way, and it wasn’t until 2011 that that spark was lit again.

My home, Ōtautahi, had been rocked by earthquakes, and it was through post-quake response and recovery that I realised the importance and power of community. At the same time, I was going on regular group bike rides, often including my father, then councillor Glenn Livingstone, and former MP Brendon Burns. Naturally, the conversations were political.

With the 2013 local government elections looming, I surprised many by standing for the local community board, getting elected, and then being elected as the board chair. Within a few months, I had discovered my “why”. It was on the community board that I had my first introduction to the importance of urban transport planning, as we led the consultation on one of the first of 13 major new cycleways in Ōtautahi—the Papanui Parallel.

In 2016, I was elected to Christchurch City Council, and, in 2017, to show my support for Metiria Turei, I joined the Greens. I had found my political home: the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. My father and grandfather were life members of the Labour Party; the generations that followed are Green. In 2019, I was re-elected to the city council and chaired the council’s Urban Development and Transport Committee, and the Coastal Hazards Working Group.

Climate change is the biggest threat facing us, and, as a coastal country, the impact on Aotearoa is going to be severe; the impact on our Pacific Island neighbours will be much worse. Anthropogenic activities have seen ecosystems destroyed, habitats wiped out, far too many species lost, and thousands more at risk. The impacts of a rapidly changing climate will only make this worse. Climate-related events are becoming more intense and more frequent. Many of our coastal communities are being impacted by sea level rise, coastal erosion, and storm surges. Other communities are at increased risk of pluvial flooding, fire, and drought.

Climate change is no longer an abstract concept happening to someone else, somewhere else, sometime in the future. It is here and now. We should be acting, but instead we continue to pander to vested interests and fight amongst ourselves. We need to do better; we need to be better. The decisions that are made, or not made, in this House will be felt by the generations that follow. Do we really want to go down in the history books as the generation that failed this country?

While adaptation is now necessary, it is simply not possible to adapt ourselves out of the worst impacts of climate change. We must continue to mitigate and accelerate our efforts to lower emissions. In cities, transport is the biggest polluter. In Ōtautahi, New Zealand’s second-largest city, 54 percent of emissions come from the transport sector, and most of that from land transport. We must transform our transport system across the country. We must make it easier for people to choose to walk, bike, and take public transport. We must make it easier for people to own and have access to an electric car. Our urban form and our transport networks need to work together. We can no longer sprawl, taking over valuable food-producing land and locking us into car dependency. We must grow in and up. Unfortunately, with a current focus on bigger, more expensive, but low-value motorways, our communities are missing out on safer, quieter, people-friendly streets, and the climate and health benefits that go with them.

My time as a city councillor has made me acutely aware of the importance of local government and its role of providing for community. The wellbeing of the people who make up the towns and cities across Aotearoa is a core function of councils, and instead of continually scapegoating them, central Government needs to work in partnership with local government. Councils are on the ground every day, implementing Government direction, and continual changes are expensive and erode trust. They have done the mahi and provided good information on how to improve the sector. Let’s listen to them.

It was 2018 that my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He knew he had relatives in Scotland but not who they were, so he took a DNA test, and this led us to connect with some Scottish cousins. What was most interesting about the test, however, was it showed that he was Māori. This discovery meant a lot to my father, and it explained a lot as well. My great grandfather was Alexander Ramsey. Alex was the son of William Daniel Barrett, a Ngāi Tūāhuriri man from Tuahiwi. Alex’s mother married a Scottish man three months before he was born, and because of the social norms at that time, his Māori identity was taken from him. That had a rippling effect. Like Alex, my grandmother never knew her whakapapa; my father, only shortly before he died; myself and my brother, in our forties.

One of the most memorable moments in my life was being welcomed as whānau at the wharenui Tuahiwi Marae by the late Dame Aroha Reriti-Crofts, who, at the time, was our closest living relative. The kōrero from both my father and Auntie Aroha, on that day, is something that will live with me for ever. So even though we had been welcomed as whānau, gaining registration through the Ngāi Tahu whakapapa unit was extremely important to my father—not for him, not for myself, but for his mother, who had struggled through State care and abuse. He saw this as a way to give her mana.

In 2023, I was fortunate to be employed as operations manager for Te Taumutu Rūnanga, and then, in 2024, I moved to Whitiora Centre, the organisation mandated to drive positive outcomes for my hapū, Ngāi Tūāhuriri. As an MP, I look forward to continuing the work with my hapū and others across the Ngāi Tahu takiwā and beyond.

I stand in this House today concerned for our future. Our communities are struggling, and the environment is under attack, and politics across the globe and here in New Zealand is becoming more confrontational and toxic. We are failing our tamariki. But while I’m concerned, there is hope; hope found in action, in the volunteer and community groups working collectively across the motu to help each other, to restore nature, and to advocate for change. Hope is also here in this House; it’s in the members’ bills; it’s in the thousands and thousands of submissions on legislation; and in every debate. Those of us working to make Aotearoa a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable country will not give up.

Over the next 12 months, I will work with my Green colleagues to hold this Government to account, to challenge them, and to show the people of Aotearoa what a Government with a green heart will offer our country: a country that upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi, takes real action on climate change, and lifts people out of poverty; a country where everyone has what they need, our water is clean, and nature thrives; where our healthcare system is resourced to meet its needs; where children can safely walk and bike to school; and we all live in warm, dry, affordable homes.

The current drive for economic growth at any cost is hurting us, and it is destroying our environments. I think that people forget that we do not live to serve the economy; it is here to serve us. We created the current economic system, and we can recreate it in a way that better serves people and planet. We have huge challenges ahead, and we cannot solve them if we only think about the short-term gains for a privileged few and ignore the long-term cost to the many. Because I want to see enduring change, where we don’t constantly roll back progress, and where people and planet come first, not the GDP.

I want to leave this House knowing I’ve been a good ancestor, knowing that I’ve made my mother and father proud and created a better future for my son.

Mō tātou, ā, mō kā uri ā muri ake nei! For us and our children after us!

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Waiata—“Ka tahuri au”