Davidson MaramaHon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Ko te oranga o te reo te take. Ko te mana o Te Tiriti te take. Ko te pai o Aotearoa te kaupapa. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa. [The health of the language is the purpose. The power of the Treaty is the purpose. The good of New Zealand is the issue. So greetings acknowledgments and thanks to us all.]Mr Speaker let me begin by congratulating you personally on taking the Chair. Like all of us here you have been elected as a member of a political party but as Speaker you have made a promise that you will set that aside and you will be neutral. To be strong a democracy relies on fair and honest debate. Mr Speaker you job is to make sure those debates move us forward as a country. People at home look to us to uphold the highest possible standards and whether we like it or not this House is at the heart of our democratic process. Our words and actions in this House travel through the media and social media into our communities. We owe it to everyone to create a safe space for public debate. I trust Mr Speaker that you will preside over the debates that happen here with good grace humour and a fair and even hand.It is the single-greatest honour of my life to be standing here as part of the largest Green Party caucus ever. This is important because smaller parties traditionally lose support after being linked up to a larger party in Government. This has happened every time. But the Greens have now not once but twice grown our support after being in a Government arrangement—unheard of. This is an achievement that is unheard of anywhere in the world and we did it with heart with values and with a vision that uplifted people instead of berating them in a way that appealed to the best of our humanity rather than to the worst of it. The leaders of our two biggest parties spent more time telling you who not to vote for trying to scare people with how things will be under the other lot than they spent time talking about how we build the beautiful future our mokopuna deserve. But not us—not us. The Green Party ran one of the most hopeful campaigns we have ever seen in Aotearoa—a campaign that inspired hope rather than fear Uncle Winston—a campaign that focused on well-thought-out long-term policy not just soundbites a campaign we fought—Rt Hon Winston Peters: Point of order Madam Speaker. I rush to defend myself. That relationship is not true and it's obvious from the speech it's not true. I'm not her uncle.DEPUTY SPEAKER: We will call people by their formal names please.Hon MARAMA DAVIDSON: Certainly Madam Speaker. We ran a campaign that inspired hope rather than fear Mr Winston Peters. We set out clear solutions to the challenges people face and for a climate-friendly future that will make our tamariki and mokopuna proud and people voted for it in record numbers.I want to acknowledge every single one of the nearly 8000 volunteers around the country who got us here today. Door by door conversation by conversation community by community to all of you: thank you. You turned up for the kaupapa. Thank you for showing up thank you for making your voice heard. These 15 seats are your seats too. You are the reason we take our seats here as the third-largest party in Parliament with the biggest caucus we have ever had. It is a team that includes for the first time ever three Green Party electorate MPs.The first Green Government may have drawn to a close but I promise you this. From these seats and in our work we will fight for an Aotearoa where everyone can get by where our native wildlife and oceans thrive where we take bold climate action and where we honour Te Tiriti a record—record—330000 people voted Green. Your voices will be heard and they will be loud.The journey that brought me here actually began on the steps just outside this building where my parents met for the first time. They came to protest the loss of land and language that our people had endured. It fills my heart to continue their fight for the tino rangatiratanga our tūpuna maintained as part of the largest Māori and Pasifika caucus that the Green Party has ever had. Our mātāwaka caucus of Māori and Pasifika members of Parliament has grown from three members to seven. Every one of us along with our wider caucus will emphasise and prioritise tino rangatiratanga mana motuhake and kaitiaki responsibilities by pushing this Government to have equitable relationships devolve power to Māori and hear the calls from our people and communities. A commitment to Tiriti justice is absolutely integral to everything I and the Greens do but it needs to be integral to the work that all politicians do. We must strive for a world that keeps the pā harakeke nourished and bursting with health. We must insist Tiriti justice is upheld across all our work and we must be clear that tino rangatiratanga is key to healing relationships across communities and our reconnecting all of us with our seas our rivers our bush our mountains and our whenua. These fiercely proud tangata whenua and tangata moana MPs take their place alongside me as part of a wider team of 15 tireless experienced staunch community leaders who will stand strong on the issues that matter most to our people. Look I know that many of you have had to travel long distances to get here often spending weeks away from whānau. It never gets easier; I know because I do it too. I love my job and it breaks my heart to say goodbye to my mokopuna and tamariki every week. To all of you in a similar position but especially to Mr Luxon Mr Seymour and Mr Winston Peters I do hope you will take some comfort in knowing that every time you arrive in Wellington for work you are arriving in the Green electorate of Rongotai and you travel through another Green electorate Wellington Central to get to Parliament. There is not a street not a single street from here to the airport that is not represented by a proud Green MP fighting to make life better for everyone and for future generations—won convincingly might I add. I hope Ministers remember these electorates when their Crown limos get stuck in the inevitable traffic jams resulting from his decision to defund the Let's Get Wellington Moving programme. When I look across our new super-charged caucus I am struck not just by the breadth of skills and experience they bring to Parliament but also by their personal stories. Lan Pham who proudly takes her place as the first MP of Vietnamese heritage that Aotearoa has ever had and brings with her a deep knowledge of Tiriti justice and ecological justice. Steve Abel a grassroots activist of grit and unbreakable determination. Darleen Tana and Hūhana Lyndon proud Ngāpuhi mates for me wāhine Māori and daughters of the north whose roots life and career are firmly grounded in the whenua and protecting Te Taiao including Tai Tokerau. Kahurangi Carter another wahine toa and powerful voice for our Ōtautahi whānau and the health of Papatūānuku herself. Efeso Collins a proud descendant of Samoa whose longstanding commitment to strengthening the family community and cultural connections between Pasifika families and peoples living in Aotearoa and the islands found his rightful home here with the Greens. Our man from the deep South Scott Willis who knows as well as anyone how to bring together a community for positive local-led change. And finally Tamatha Paul MP for Wellington Central and a new generation of wāhine Māori political leaders who make Auntie Marama's heart burst with pride.James Shaw and I are truly honoured to be leading these eight new MPs and the seven who return for another three years. They have each made it their life's work to challenge the status quo and change Aotearoa for the better and I am pumped to see what they will do in the House. Whatever they do and however they use their power I can assure this House of one thing: the members opposite are not going to get away with their political violence lightly. If they think they have a problem with their own team leaking confidential papers to the media in the very first week they best buckle up. It is over here on this side of the House where they will find their real challenge.One of the things that makes the Green Party unique is that we do not make a choice between action outside of Parliament and inside of Parliament—we need both. We have to engage in protests and rallies and raise the voice of our communities but we do also translate our passion and our causes into laws policy and practice. That is why the 15 of us ran for Parliament and I promise you this to the country and to this House: we are going to give it everything that we have got absolutely everything because everything a Government does is a matter of political choice. These choices reflect the underlying values of the people in charge the people who are making decisions that affect our lives and the lives of people we love.Unburdened by what is to come the Speech from the Throne was the best chance this Government will ever have to make clear to people why it is actually in power to set out its vision for Aotearoa that it wants for our mokopuna to grow up in to explain how it plans to allocate resources where they are needed the most so we can build the kind of communities and society that are good for all people to live in to create the conditions we need to support each other to care for our native wildlife and to cut climate pollution. Instead—instead—what we got is a random visionless and harmful grab bag of laws that are more about politicians' pet projects and petty grievances than they are about addressing the challenges we face right now.Watching this Government take shape over the past few months has been hard and dispiriting for thousands of people up and down Aotearoa myself included but now more than ever we need to be willing to overcome cynicism and disappointment and take the hard work of change forward. The fear and uncertainty of what lies ahead is made so much worse by the all too frequent reminders that prejudice and inequality still shapes so much of our politics. What matters most in politics isn't the headlines the meetings or the speeches; it is people and I have to say watching as people and whānau have come together across the motu in recent weeks including yesterday to call for peace and speak up for Te Tiriti makes me hopeful. It reminds me that all our actions no matter how small or large are powerful worthwhile and capable of delivering lasting change.Thousands and thousands of you have shown up in your communities to demand this Government uphold our shared values and an end to the atrocious and enduring killing of children and innocents happening in Gaza that requires lasting just peace for the mokopuna of Palestine and Israel to be able to cherish their whenua together. And if you ever doubt you can make a difference just look at what you did when this Government dared to say it would reopen our moana and our oceans to oil and gas companies. Nearly 30000 of you so far took an immediate stand and signed a petition telling the Prime Minister and his co-deputies that they had no mandate to tear up climate action. Days after promising it lifting the ban was nowhere to be seen on the Government's 100-day plan. People power won the oil and gas ban and it is people power that is going to save it.These are the reasons why I am optimistic and as I stand here today I am absolutely clear about one thing: this Government and its programme of performative cruelty does not represent our future. That is up to us. Yes the path ahead will have some ups and downs but we remain focused on our journey towards an Aotearoa that upholds Te Tiriti heals te taiao and ensures everyone has what they need to live a good life though this Government is wanting to put obstacles in our way like unwinding the freshwater standards that are finally restoring the mauri to our awa; like tearing up fair pay agreements (FPAs) a move that will disproportionately harm young people women Māori and Pasifika. FPAs would have put more money in the pockets of people who work tirelessly to teach our mokopuna keep our workplaces clean and safe stock the supermarket shelves and get us around on the bus. Ending FPAs is a big political middle finger to all of those workers. Like raising the price of electric cars by ending the Clean Car Discount—but only after the PM himself had benefited from it. Like winding back protections for people who rent and giving tax cuts to landlords. Like raiding the money raised from our biggest polluters through the emissions trading scheme to pay for their tax cuts for wealthy people a decision that is about as far away from a climate dividend as you can possibly get. A dividend would give the same amount to everyone not higher tax cuts for the wealthy while people who need support the most completely miss out. This is a cynical dishonest policy that speaks to National's gross incompetence in both climate policy and financial policy. Though we face these obstacles we are absolutely clear about where we are heading as a country.We have overcome obstacles and changed this country before. We stood up as a small nation and made a promise to future generations that the Aotearoa they grow up in will be safe and free from nuclear power. We stood up to the harms of the past and through the Treaty of Waitangi Act enabled some redress for land wrongly taken from tangata whenua and Māori. We have won marriage equality stopped the harms of conversion therapy ended the logging of native timber revitalised te reo through kōhanga reo and kura kaupapa decriminalised abortion and built thousands of warm dry homes. These changes only happened when people got involved and came together to demand them. Now is not the time to stand by and let the future just happen to us. The time is now to take charge of it and to do everything we possibly can to pass on to our tamariki a planet that is stable cleaner and based on equity and Tiriti justice.Those of us in this House have a choice to make. We can reject a politics that breeds division and hatred and whips up fear and disinformation. We refuse to spend all our time talking about the next outrageous thing Mr Seymour or Mr Peters said instead of focusing on what matters to people's daily lives. We do not allow spectacle to take the place of robust good faith public debate. We say kāore to all of that that.Instead we can work for change—change that means that every child always has enough to eat a safe bed warm clothes and decent shoes. To support the whānau all over the country who are being forced to cut back on kai just to pay the bills. To address the homes that are cold and damp all of the time and making children sick. We can debate how we restore our native wildlife so every generation and the seven generations that come after them can enjoy the astonishing beauty of our natural world. Native birdsong in our backyards streets lined with trees our playful tamariki can climb and an ocean once again full of fish dolphins whales and healthy underwater forests. How we make sure tamariki can ride their bikes or scooters to school without worrying about noisy fast moving polluting traffic. How we protect our communities from a climate crisis that is turbocharging flooding and extreme weather in places like Auckland Northland Tairāwhiti and Hawke's Bay. How we honour the promise of Te Tiriti o Waitangi celebrate te reo Māori and support tangata whenua to live long healthy and happy lives. How we affirm the tino rangatiratanga of whānau hapū and iwi over their whenua and their taonga. So we all have a shared responsibility for the whenua we live and rely on and to care for each other and make decisions to benefit the many and not just the few. As a Parliament we should be debating how to achieve these things not whether to even try. We can be that beautiful inspiring country. I believe with all my heart that the vast majority of people want Aotearoa to be that country too.Our success depends on how we use our power at this moment how we use our voices and how we organise and mobilise collectively to channel our justifiable anger into sustained and effective action. Our job of caring for Papatūānuku so she is thriving in her own right can only move forward if we move forward together. Change will never come from turning on each other but by turning towards each other. It will never come from sowing hatred division and lies but by staying true to our values and sharing the truth. It will never come from abdicating our responsibilities to whakamana Te Tiriti o Waitangi but by embracing those responsibilities so our tamariki and mokopuna can grow up in an Aotearoa where their language and whakapapa is celebrated their health is prioritised and their whenua is protected.Democracy is about more than just gimmicky announcements—things politicians say for attention—and it's even about more than just Parliament. It is about coming together to bring about real and lasting change. And that is what the Green Party is here to do.So to anyone listening at home today I want you to know you have to stay encouraged—we have to stay encouraged together. Whāia te tika [Pursue truth]—we can always make a difference. Fighting for what is right is always always worth it.Now no one doubts that it will be tough. This Government is actually saying the truly nasty things out loud like they care more for the ability for unhealthy programmes and rolling back Auahi Kore numbers and targets and aims. They care more for allowing that than they do for solid public-health policy that also acknowledged inequities. They're saying that out loud—that and so many more things. This Government is showing and telling us who they are actually here for. And I can tell you not for the people I see in my community in South Auckland. They are not here for students for single parents or for people with disabilities. They're here for people who make money from exploiting workers renters and our taiao.For more than 30 years we have known better than anyone that there is only one way to change Aotearoa for the better and that is together. Aotearoa needs us. All those people who need support to pay the bills and live a good life need us to fight for them. The children who go to bed hungry tonight and every other night need us to fight for them. The whānau who cannot pay the rent and are sending their tamariki out to work instead need us to fight for them. The young people growing up worrying about what their future holds on a planet where extreme weather becomes a new normal need us to fight for them.We will be stronger we will be tougher and we will be more compassionate. We will be more staunch than we have ever been before—and we have already been staunch. These Green MPs here will carry with them the voices of our communities and ensure they are heard loud and clear in the halls of Parliament and power and beyond.We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We have everything we need to create the Aotearoa we all want to live in—an Aotearoa where everyone has what they need to put kai on the table and a safe place to call home and live a good life. We can reduce the outrageous and immoral level of income- and wealth-inequality we have in this country. We can confront climate change with the urgency and the scale that it demands and invest in action to protect our rivers land forests beaches and oceans. We can uphold Tiriti justice and return resources directly back to iwi and hapū so tangata whenua can finally have the autonomy and authority over our whenua and wellbeing that our tūpuna always maintained. This is the Aotearoa we must continue our journey towards. Our actions no matter how small or large are powerful worthwhile and capable of delivering lasting change.E te iwi don't sit this one out. Don't sit this one out. Let's get out there and fight for the future we all deserve. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou kia ora mai tātou katoa.