Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. Well the Leader of the Opposition delivered a speech that wasn't so much 2022 as 1992. They reckon that they can help out New Zealand's lowest-income families by giving our highest-income earners a tax break. Ruth Richardson called and she wants her speech notes back. The National Party might be dressed up in a nice new sheepskin kimono but you open it up and it's the same old wolf underneath.When they finally get up to speak I have to say that the ACT Party no doubt will continue their call for a robust and sober and rational debate about governance in this country right after they yesterday issued a press release that called for a senior public servant to be beheaded. Maximilien Robespierre called and he wants back his guillotine. It is becoming clearer by the day that the reason Mr Seymour worked so hard in the last term to dispatch Winston Peters was so that this term he could become Winston Peters. So I guess there's only room in this town for one alt-right populist.Can you imagine what this warmed-over Richardson-Robespierre all-you-can-eat duo would do to this country if they actually got back into power? It has taken at least 4½ years to even start to turn around the legacy left over from the last time they were in Government. I have to say we do have a long journey in front of us but Aotearoa is at last heading towards a future that is fairer cleaner and more prosperous and all within the limits of our fragile planet. That is the vision that the Green Party was founded on some 30 years ago a vision of thriving communities where everybody has the means the live in a warm dry home; food that is healthy for us and healthy for the land that it is grown on; vibrant flourishing ecosystems that underpin the kind of healthy environment that we all rely on; clean and healthy and swimmable rivers; new jobs and prosperity for our communities; and a sustainable low-carbon economy. With a strong Green voice in Government today more people up and down Aotearoa New Zealand can now make ends meet. Our communities are safer they are cleaner they are greener and we are healing nature. The Green Party is committed to progress even when we have to fight for it inch by inch and so we will be voting in support of Budget 2022. In recent years as we have battled a pandemic there has been more than one Budget that has attracted the moniker historic" but I do want to say that despite that fact Budget 2022 is a Budget of firsts. It is the first Budget ever to put climate action at its heart. It is the first Budget ever to fund a national family violence and sexual violence strategy. There is a lot to celebrate in this Budget. I also want to acknowledge that there is still so much more that needs doing for people and for planet.This Budget continues to deliver on the foundations that Green Party Ministers laid last term and I want to acknowledge again the work that they did then. It does also make some very important progress to support some of the Green Party campaign priorities of the last election campaign. But if the Green Party had say 65 members of Parliament and we were writing this Budget ourselves a number of things would happen. Mike Hosking's head would explode. The country would be a lot better off and not just because Mike Hosking's head had exploded but also because this Budget would look different. A Green Budget would have done more to help the thousands of families who are struggling to make ends meet and towards that most basic of human rights—a roof over our heads. A Green Budget would have done more to halt the degradation of our wild spaces and the harrowing decline of our taonga species. The Budget report I have to say shows that there has been no significant improvement in child poverty statistics. A Green Budget would have done more to eliminate the scourge of child poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand.I remember sitting in this House five years ago to watch Steven Joyce deliver the 2017 Budget. In a 40-minute speech Steven Joyce did not mention climate change once—not once—but things have changed. Our Government over the last 4½ years has seen more action than in the previous three decades combined. We have passed the zero carbon Act enshrining the 1.5 degrees Celsius goal in primary legislation. We've reformed the emissions trading scheme to ensure that polluters pay the real price of the emissions that they put into the atmosphere and we've put the proceeds from that reform towards establishing the $4.5 billion Climate Emergency Response Fund and we have published a comprehensive plan to cut emissions right across the economy. This Budget is a landmark in our journey to continue that work and to build a clean and green and climate-friendly future.Through this Budget we will decarbonise industry with $678 million of funding for smaller businesses commercial heating decarbonisation and energy-efficient equipment. We will establish native forests at scale to develop long-term carbon sinks and to improve biodiversity with $65 million. We're going to reduce and divert organic waste away from landfill and reduce emissions from waste overall with $103 million. We're going to give people more transport options and achieve significant mode shift to active transport and to public transport with $375 million of funding. All of this investment makes this the first real climate Budget but it must not be the last. This climate Budget is a huge step and I do want to take a moment to celebrate that but tomorrow it is back to the work of turning around decades of inaction on climate.Another Minister of course is also starting to turn around an immensely challenging problem. The Minister I'm talking about of course is my co-leader the Hon Marama Davidson. Marama continues to work tirelessly on the pernicious problem of family violence and sexual violence a problem that requires bringing together many different Government departments and community organisations. Last year Marama delivered Aotearoa New Zealand's first ever national strategy and action plan to eliminate family violence and sexual violence: Te Aorerekura. That work built on the foundations laid by Jan Logie in our first term in Government as well as Marama's own deep experience working in and alongside vulnerable communities and tangata whenua.Now I've said it before and I'll say it again but Te Aorerekura is nothing short of a landmark in New Zealand's social history. This Government inherited an underfunded largely ignored sector broken up into many groups that didn't have a clear understanding of their roles let alone a national strategy. Thanks to Marama that is now in place and Budget 2022 has provided the funding to deliver on it: $114.5 million over four years to prevent and respond to family violence and sexual violence across Aotearoa. With that funding we will address the drivers of harm and will enhance protective factors and shift community and social norms that condone violence with $38 million we'll strengthen the existing integrated community-led response approach with another $38 million we'll develop workforce and organisational capability frameworks for the sexual violence centre and fund the implementation of new family violence frameworks and tools with $7 million and so much more.I cannot overstate the importance of this work. Everybody has the right to live in a peaceful home to be respected and to be safe from the mistreatment and violence that has been a shame on this country's history. We must have a future where children and families and whānau can thrive knowing that their homes are safe and the initiatives in this Budget are crucial to getting there.Our cooperation agreement with the Labour Party has delivered significant investments in people and in planet in today's Budget. Last term we helped to turn around decades of underfunding for conservation which had seen the health of our forests the rivers and the birds in decline. There is a long way to go yet but we do welcome today's commitments to fund new work to protect our forests from the damage that's caused by wild deer and goats; renewed investments in Tiakina Ngā Manu to protect our taonga species; and investment in huts and tracks so that more people can have the opportunity to spend time and enjoy nature by walking or tramping or hunting or fishing or mountain biking. Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers and other staff are on the front line of protecting nature and we do welcome the Government's commitment to increase their incomes and to maintain staff housing in really remote areas whilst also upgrading the DOC vehicle fleet to low-emission and electric vehicles.On Budget day I do think it's important to highlight some of the relatively modest amounts of investment that actually will make an immeasurably large difference to people's lives but that tend to get overlooked with all of the big headline initiatives that get announced. Budget 2022 delivers funding for eating disorder support services that will improve the lives of hundreds of young people and their families. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall for her collaborative work with the Green Party on this often unseen but deeply felt crisis in our communities. We welcome the continuation of Piki the youth mental health programme that was begun in the last term and also the expansion of Mana Ake to five more areas of Aotearoa.For our rangatahi and their whānau we welcome the expansion of child and youth mental health and addiction services for an additional 1300 people. The Opposition makes a lot of noise about being tough on drugs but it is precisely that hollow rhetoric that has seen drug harm explode over the past 40 years. The Green Party has always fought for evidence and compassion in drug policy and the approaches and the investments that genuinely build resilience and healing. These are important initiatives in the cooperation agreement between Labour and the Greens.The Budget also delivers on areas that the Greens have long campaigned for which are not covered by our cooperation agreement with Labour. For example we welcome the affordable housing fund that will provide support for not-for-profit rental providers and we do applaud the huge commitment to give Pharmac the funding that it needs to make more lifesaving medicines available to more New Zealanders who need them. I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the people who have been campaigning for these investments for many many years. That is a strength of the Green movement: tireless work to put a political issue on the map to raise public support and to put forward positions and solutions that Governments adopt. So we are very happy for any Government to copy our homework.For decades we have known that the health sector has been underfunded. So today's announcement is obviously a very good start at turning this around and together with the pae ora reforms that will help to ensure that everyone gets the healthcare that they need regardless of where they live. I particularly want to welcome the funding announced for the Māori Health Authority because the Green Party campaigned at the last election for an independent Māori health authority and we're delighted that has not only been set up in legislation but funded in today's Budget. We do need to see this though paired with a genuine commitment to partnership to Māori-led approaches to determining how primary healthcare is funded and provided to Māori communities—particularly those in rural areas who have missed out for so long. We know that good health outcomes will only be possible when we fully address the social drivers of physical and mental health problems including poverty and inadequate housing. So we will continue to work towards a future where everybody is supported in their wellbeing at all stages of life—that is health policy. We will continue to push for better wages for our essential healthcare workers—that is health policy. We will continue to push the Government to go further than today's announcement and to commit funding for pay equity across the whole sector including for the lowest-paid staff who do essential work in related areas like aged care—that is health policy.Many families around Aotearoa on low incomes are struggling to manage rising costs and other pressures. Budget 2022 contains an array of measures to ease those difficulties. I am very pleased to see more examples of making people's lives better and at the same time reducing emissions and taking care of our planet—so for example we particularly welcome the $73 million to expand and improve Warmer Kiwi Homes. This will mean more families will have access to warm and dry and safe homes at the same time making those homes more energy-efficient and climate-friendly. We welcome the commitment to half-price bus and train fares for low-income households. This is work that was begun when there was a Green associate transport Minister. We welcome the extension to half-price public transport—but also wouldn't it be better to make public transport free for everyone for all time for good? The funding that's announced today will help something like a million people to ditch the car and to switch to cheaper public transport and at the same time that will help to cut emissions in such a critical sector.We have an abundance of renewable energy sources. We do welcome funding that will help to enable low-income communities to access cleaner and more affordable and more secure energy supply. So this is a welcome step forward and at the same time the Green Party is firmly of the view that the next way to lifting living standards is to lift incomes and to make sure that families actually have enough money in the first place. That means fair wages and higher benefits. There is a quiet revolution in this Budget in the form of a new fiscal strategy. For too long there has been huge political pressure on an arbitrary debt-to-GDP ratio but we carried the debt in other ways. We have a housing deficit we have a transport deficit we have a deficit of three waters infrastructure we have an environmental deficit and we have a social deficit. The new approach that's been announced by the Minister of Finance will now mean that arbitrary debt restrictions will not stop good fiscal infrastructure projects that stack up on all other metrics such as cutting climate pollution. Now we have never shied away from the need for a fundamental shift in our economic thinking—a shift that means putting a focus on the wellbeing of our people and the limits of our planet above the pockets of property speculators. The way that we need to fund our public services in this new fiscal strategy is by broadening our tax base and it just so happens that there is a massive gap in our tax system where those who earn a salary pay their fair share of tax but those that own vast amounts of wealth do not. A wealth tax would provide the revenue necessary to increase important necessary operating expenditure it would plug a hole in our tax system and it would mean that the wealthiest New Zealanders would pay their fair share of tax. It would also make David Seymour's head explode and that's an added bonus.The Green Party has always had a clear progressive voice in this House a voice that says that we should tax wealth fairly don't just be happy to sit by while many of the wealthiest have a lower tax rate than middle and low income earners. It is a voice that says that the environment and the economy are intertwined and only with a healthy planet will we have healthy communities. So this is a Budget of firsts. But to solve climate change and to address inequality and also our biodiversity crisis we need the next Budget to break new ground and the one after that and the one after that. The status quo will not work. We can do better—we can do so much better. So we do look forward to a series of bold progressive Budgets. We look forward to a future where everybody lives in dignity comfortably within the limits of our planet. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa."