Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you so much. I want to talk about how Wellington was built as a city around excellent public transport and walkability. We had electrified trams regional rail—and in fact the rail was electrified more than half a century ago. We have a beautiful human-scale urban form that allows a lot of people to live within the city to walk to their destinations and we are surrounded by a beautiful town belt. Wellington absolutely was a paragon of excellent transit-oriented development living in harmony with nature.In the electorate I live in Rongotai people use the bus more than anywhere else in the country to get to work. That's right—Rongotai is number one in the country for bus use. That is despite the appalling and shocking situation with cancellations and ghost buses that we currently have. So despite the current dire situation of bus cancellations patronage is up: it's back to 97 percent of what it was pre-COVID. People want to take public transport particularly in Rongotai. Rongotai is also the fourth-highest electorate when it comes to people using a bike to get to work and that's before the explosion in cargo bikes carrying children that I often see on my commute to work on a bike. What I want to say right now is that Wellingtonians deserve better public transport just like every other community in Aotearoa New Zealand. We can afford to have excellent public transport. It can be fully accessible; it can be very affordable. It benefits our people and our planet and our climate. But currently decisions that previous Governments made are leading to the situation where people can no longer rely on public transport to be reliable. You know I've talked to so many people in the past few weeks who've missed appointments or been late to work because of bus cancellations and this is a result of subsequent Governments underfunding public transport. Everybody here knows that before I came into Parliament I worked in transport and urban planning; I am passionate about public transport and that's why I got involved. Under the last National Government public transport was a poor cousin; it hardly got any investment. During that time decisions were made by the regional council to make long-term plans around bus contracts that had no—they did not build in population growth or growth in patronage. So we've had several decades of languishing public transport which means that despite people wanting to take it and needing to take it they can't. There's a further element that I don't think is fully appreciated which is the housing affordability side. We also need more affordable and sustainable housing within Wellington and particularly within Rongotai and we have the potential to provide that. How do we recruit bus drivers when housing is unaffordable? How do we recruit early childhood teachers when housing is unaffordable? There are so many jobs that no matter how much we put up wages it's not going to enable people to live in the area unless we increase the housing supply. And we do that through public housing so that it is really about the people not about profit. So that is something we can do.The Greens have long been the champions of public transport in this country. Our campaigns have led to electrification of the rail network in Auckland after many decades of it not happening. We've won the City Rail Link. We've been campaigning on light rail for Wellington since the 1990s when James Shaw was in high school and first joined the Green Party. If the Greens are in Government we will prioritise light rail because we know that Wellington—and in particular the Rongotai electorate—wants high quality frequent reliable public transport. Light rail will enable not only more people to move at peak time with fewer drivers—and that takes the pressure off the system—it means cleaner quieter streets and it means more capacity for affordable housing within our city which will make it even more vibrant. And of course we can have those fully complete streets which mean protected cycleways so that people trying to get around on their cargo bikes with their kids—because it's the most convenient way to get around Wellington—can do so and not feel in danger of being hit by a car. All of this is possible but the Green Party is the party that can deliver the leadership to provide the public transport that all of New Zealand deserves particularly the Rongotai electorate.