Turei Metiria: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:25. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green):Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. The other day I had a moment of genuine inspiration while watching The Paul Henry Show actually—I know it was a unique moment. Paul and I get along but I have to say that the most inspiring thing about his show is usually the urge I get to turn it off. At the time Paul was interviewing Dr Kirk Smith an expert on climate change from Berkeley. Waxing lyrical about his humungous salary his gas-guzzling boat and his enormous carbon footprint Paul posed a question: what could one man like him do that would actually make a difference? Paul plaintively suggested: “I could sell my massive boat but no one else is going to so what difference could it make?”. To this the ever-patient scientist replied: “Well Paul you’ve got your own television show. You are a leader. If you say that you drive an electric car people will take notice and who knows they might even buy one too.” So yes Paul even a little guy on the telly can do his bit to help save the world because that is what leading is. That is what the role of the Green Party is in this place. We will continue in the 51st Parliament to lead—to lead through our ideas lead through our campaigns and lead through our commitment to addressing the big issues of our time.An emboldened National will now be able to pass any laws it wants with the help of the sole ACT marionette to whom it gifted the seat of Epsom. Look all of the puppet-masters are here today in the Chamber. First on the Government’s hit list will be our workers’ rights followed by our world-leading environmental protection law the Resource Management Act and further asset sales in the form of our State homes. National has nothing but destruction on its mind.For 6 years the Green Party has filled the National Government’s vision vacuum with our ideas—with new thinking like school hubs nurses in schools the climate tax cut the urban cycleways and the Green Investment Bank. In the process we have shifted the debate and we have set a new political agenda. Just 2 years ago National denied child poverty even existed and now apparently it is on the top of the Prime Minister’s to-do list—not that you could tell from his speech today. The Greens have been a key part of a network that has relentlessly worked to expose New Zealand’s child poverty crisis and that stirred the nation to care so much about child poverty that it has now become politically untenable for National not to listen. That is victory that is leading and that is what we do.And yet there are those—even those who did not vote for us—who say that that is not enough and who would like us to have more influence at the table. Since the election I have received a number of letters even from some National Party members pleading with us to form some other kind of arrangement with National because they feel guilty about voting for a party with such a poor record on the environment. The idea apparently is that the Greens could act as some kind of foil to National’s anti-environment agenda if only we just focused on environmental issues. So let me respond to that directly.The Green Party is now established as the third-largest party in New Zealand and one of the most successful Green parties in the world. We are part of an internationally established movement that is on the ascendancy around the globe. Ours is a movement based not just on environmental principles but on the principles of social justice and democracy and of course here in Aotearoa that is enabled through Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This is who we are. We could not stop caring about the environment or the people—or our economic direction for that matter—just because it might be politically expedient to do so. It is not our job to move to the centre; it is our job to move the centre.We have often led the agenda and achieved practical change by working across issues and across the political divides. We remain open to working with National on select projects during this term of Parliament. In 2008 we drew up a successful memorandum of understanding with National that saw 320000 homes insulated across our country. This was a massive success—a win for New Zealanders. We kept that going as long as we could until National radically cut the programme. More Government funding—over $400 million—was committed to the Green Party’s memorandum of understanding with National than was provided to projects with its coalition partners. That is leadership from Opposition.Prior to the election we drew the line at propping up a conservative Government at the expense of a progressive one but in the event that National won we always said that we would work with it to create good Green change. It is John Key however who has indicated that he is not so keen to work with us. Since then we have heard it said that our social policies stand in the way of us working with National on the environment. No. In reality it is on environmental policy where we are the furthest apart. National’s policies include its plans to gut our environmental protection law the Resource Management Act to remove the principle of sustainability from the Act and this will accelerate environmental destruction. We the Greens are about increasing environmental protection.Crucially National has completely failed to grasp the challenge and the opportunities presented by climate change. Such a failure could not be more evident than in the fact that the most significant global environmental issue of our time and of our generation went barely without a mention in the Speech from the Throne this morning other than some oblique reference to managing our emissions but this is no surprise. Under National’s management New Zealand’s net emissions have increased 20 percent and are set to rise by another 50 percent in the next decade. New Zealanders have the fifth-highest per-person emissions in the developed world. For a country that prides itself on “100% Pure New Zealand” that is 100 percent failure. National has rejected the Green Party’s idea for a meaningful price on carbon and has instead chosen to stick with the failed and discredited emissions trading scheme which has driven up emissions and accelerated deforestation.If we were to believe the Minister for Climate Change Issues Tim Groser it is because National Party voters apparently do not care. He told hundreds of New Zealanders at a pre-election climate voter event that to many National Party supporters climate change is nothing more than a United Nations conspiracy—a non-issue. “Those are the people we are carrying.” he said. Well I refuse to believe his generalisation about New Zealanders. I think Groser wildly underestimates how important our environment is to us all and in doing so abdicates responsibility for actually doing something about the single most important challenge facing humanity. I know that lots of New Zealanders care about the environment. I know that a love for our rivers and our mountains and a desire to protect our clean and pure brand is not the domain solely of the Greens or those on the left. If anything the clamour for the Greens to go blue should be a wake-up call for National. People want real political action on climate change.Here is the thing about the 21st century a century into which the National Party has completely failed to transport itself: a shift to a smarter cleaner economy is the single biggest opportunity of our time. Being Green is not about doing the right thing anymore; it is about doing the bright thing. It is about leadership. We will continue the push for New Zealand to make the transition to a smarter low-carbon economy. We relish the opportunity to work across Parliament to make this happen. Like we have done with child poverty and inequality we will now move National on climate change.For this reason we have decided to elevate the climate change portfolio to my co-leader Russel Norman. This will mean that both Green co-leaders Russel and myself will have responsibility and lead campaigns for change on the two key crises facing our nation and our world: inequality and climate change. How we respond to these distinct yet often intertwined challenges will define us as a nation and will define the shape of our children’s lives. Russel will lead a team of MPs focused on setting the environmental agenda and driving the bold innovative smart Green policy ideas that can have New Zealand leading the world while playing our part in helping to save it.Already these talented MPs have produced a comprehensive set of solutions that will address the immediate climate and environmental challenges that we face. Gareth Hughes will retain the energy portfolio and also take on innovation. Gareth is an ideas factory seeking out the exciting innovations of New Zealand’s business and bringing them to public attention and driving an energy policy that will see New Zealand 100 percent renewable by 2030. Kennedy Graham will continue his global affairs work with a particular focus on international climate negotiations. It is our view that New Zealand can be a key player and a leader in achieving a global climate accord. Eugenie Sage will continue in conservation and Steffan Browning in primary production. They will continue to fight to protect our environment our previous species our fragile ecosystems and the primary industries that rely on them all and depend on the environment from National’s 20th century pollution economy that places it all at risk. Julie Anne Genter will continue to make the case for smarter investment in transport while also picking up the environment portfolio leading the campaign against the Government’s Resource Management Act reforms which will cause so much environmental and community damage. James Shaw the Greens’ newest MP will put his many years of experience supporting New Zealand’s small and medium sized businesses and leading on sustainable business to good effect in the economic development portfolio so that even where the Government drags its heels on a smart Green future New Zealand business will know that they have an ally and an advocate in the Greens. Climate change and environmental protection must occupy an essential place at the top of the political agenda. It is not an optional luxury but essential to the New Zealand way of life and our national identity. The Green Party will lead on the environment.Although we know that the climate change trajectory is frightening in its enormity we do have a very clear picture of inequality. We can see the damage here and now. We can calculate its fall-out in the future. The Prime Minister’s address on this issue was startling in its lack of compassion for the 265000 children he is actually talking about. We know for example how much poverty costs—around $8 billion a year. We know how many kids will stay below the bread line if we maintain the same 30-year economic plan that has left 265000 kids in poverty—about a quarter of all New Zealand children. We know what those poor kids look like. They are mostly Māori or Pasifika and they often come from single-parent homes. We know where they live. We can estimate how many of them will get sick and how many babies will die of preventable illnesses. Around one baby a week in this country dies from an illness that is related to poverty. How many will drop out of education—we know that. How many will grow up poor and go on to have babies who will repeat the cycle—we have got some idea of that as well. As brutal and cruel as it sounds and as brutal and cruel as it is New Zealanders over the past 30 years have been slowly encouraged into accepting that sick poor hungry and undereducated kids simply go with the territory. They are the price of the rock-star economy. Child poverty rates are double what they were 30 years ago and yet National claims as a success the fact that it has maintained that 30-year high. Success to me is a radical reduction in child poverty.We have at least had in the speech this morning recognition of the importance of child poverty if not its urgency but there was however absolutely no mention of the fact that poverty is largely a question of inadequate income. The question for National remains: does it care enough about these children—the children in poverty—to change the economic drivers that have perpetuated that poverty? The Green Party says it is unacceptable to have kids who are hungry because their parents have to survive on a benefit. National’s excuse that it needs to maintain a gap between work and benefits does not pan out when 40 percent of the kids in poverty live in working homes. Their parents—beneficiaries and workers—need to be paid more. That is blindingly obvious and yet this Government is pathologically allergic to taking the action that it can to fix this problem.Over the next 3 years I will make it my business to generate an even bigger appetite for change in New Zealand in order to end child poverty and I am joined by an incredible team of Green MPs who believe the same. Call us “Team Kids” if you will. Kevin Hague while holding the health portfolio will also now take on the crucial housing portfolio. The Greens have made incredible progress in improving New Zealand’s housing stock through the home insulation programme working with National to insulate more than 300000 homes and significantly improving the health of the children and families who live in those houses. But that is not enough. We need more affordable housing and improved quality. National offers none of that; the Greens do. Catherine Delahunty will continue in education promoting our school hubs’ unique plan to alleviate poverty and build stronger communities in schools. School is so much more than just achievement in the three Rs. Imagine if schools were great places not just for kids to learn but where parents could upskill as well and the whole place is run on solar power like so many schools already do. These are the connected solutions in education that the Greens will lead on. Jan Logie will take on the whole of the social development portfolio and employment and Denise Roche will tackle industrial relations and immigration. Between them they will lead the charge to raise incomes for the families who call New Zealand home—beneficiaries and workers alike—incomes that National now directly threatens with the reforms in industrial relations and welfare. Mojo Mathers will continue her incredible advocacy for those hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders with disabilities and will protect the rights of all New Zealanders to decent affordable food through the food portfolio. Dave Clendon will continue to build a safer community by improving our criminal justice system and reducing offending and will stand up for civil rights within the criminal justice system including the rights of the children and families of prisoners.For a little country New Zealand has a proud history of leading on the solutions. We were once the global leaders in women’s rights. We gave women the vote 52 years before France which is celebrating its 69th anniversary of suffrage today incidentally. We stood up to the mighty US in the 1980s and said no to nuclear power. Other nations noticed in part because of how small we were and how brave we were to take that stand. We are the little country that can.So there is all the more reason to think twice before leaping in when the US says: “Let us go to war.” John Key says it is odd not to follow the US into military conflict against Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria. What we say is what is odder for our brave little nation than to follow the US into yet another military incursion when all the evidence points to it being the wrong move. The overwhelming outcome of half a century of US military intervention in the Middle East is that life is worse for the people in that region and for those of us in the rest of the world. There is no doubt that the Islamic State threat is a very real one but there is too much doubt that the way to respond is by committing New Zealand to war. Military incursions so far have radicalised many of the most radical groups. The endless bombing of the Middle East will not solve the problems there.The Green Party does not have all the answers on this issue—none of us in this House do—but we do think that New Zealand should examine its non-military options. We are prepared to be the lone voice in this Parliament against the notion of involving our country in another war. New Zealand should and could take a more constructive approach. There is an urgent need for humanitarian assistance in the region. We have the skills and the experience as a nation to respond to that. There is far more good to be done by providing shelter to those displaced by conflict than by going to war. War is by nature self-destructive.So are the economic strategies that perpetuate climate inaction and inequality. New Zealand can and must lead with smart modern responses to all these challenges and the world will notice. By meeting the challenge of climate change and inequality we can transform our economy and our society for the better and in doing so lead the world because New Zealand is uniquely placed to seize the opportunities arising from the global shift to clean energy. We have the best cards in the pack—the natural resources the people the intellect and the know-how. We just need the leadership. Our competitive edge is not cheap labour more cows and dirty oil; it is environmental stewardship a fair and tolerant society and smarter cleaner economics.Over the next 3 years the Greens will honour the one in 10 New Zealanders who gave us our seats in this House. Last Parliament we led the Opposition and we return with the same number of MPs to set the political agenda again. We will hold the Government to account and be a voice in this place for those who are too little or disenfranchised to have a voice of their own. I note with some dismay that I am the only woman political party leader in this House. I am proud though to be helping to lead the most diverse and the most representative of parties in Parliament because like New Zealand the Green Party caucus is half women and a quarter Māori. We are a collection of passionate people who have spent our lives fighting the good fight leading in pursuit of not money or prestige but the values that we stand here to represent—a fairer cleaner smarter New Zealand playing its responsible role in the world.I genuinely wish my colleagues across the House well especially those new entrants who arrived after the last election. My enduring hope is that we can reach across our political barriers and make real progress for our people and our country over the next 3 years and that in doing that this nation of journeyers and pioneers will lead the world yet again. Thank you.