Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I wish to congratulate our Minister of Finance on his work to prepare this well-being Budget. This is a very exciting development for our country. This is a completely different approach one that we have long been in need of especially off the back of a previous National Government which left us with embarrassing shameless levels of homelessness environmental degradation polluted rivers suicide for young people at a level which we should not even dare to speak about that is happening in our country and so many indicators that said far too many of us were being left behind. So this is the first time that we as a country are taking a small step towards looking at the real value of things and not just their simple price. The Green Party has always championed a new way of seeing our economy as part of our society and our natural environment and not just the boss of all things because that has led us completely down the wrong track. My predecessor Jeanette Fitzsimons said in her valedictory speech that her main goal in Parliament had been to find better ways of measuring our economic success and that the aim should be a better economy not just a bigger one. The work also that my colleague James Shaw is doing to establish genuine well-being indicators might be the single biggest change we can make to how our economy is run for the better of the many and not just the few. So we are delighted—the Greens—that our Government is starting to move towards this holistic approach. It's something that tangata whenua have always known have always wanted to protect. We see our economy run in a way that should protect the natural world that we all rely on in a way that enhances people's well-being and not just short-term profits for the few. We have to allow the model to develop in a way that will truly value all the contributions that are often not counted. This year's Budget is based on interim measures that are good but that don't yet have the wider perspective that the Green Party's well-being indicators aim for. I want to talk about kauri tree as an example. If I go to the Budget Policy Statement I was pleased to see a statement that said that additionally data on New Zealand's natural capital and research into the natural environment could be improved. Our majestic kauri trees are ancient living breathing taonga that while living provide a bastion for humans in the air we breathe and the whakapapa we hold dear because kauri are actually our elders. Kauri are great atua of our forests and their well-being depends on our accountability to protect our natural world. Kauri both feed off and provide nourishment to the ngahere ecosystem around them. They mark the independent relationship between insects and birds and shrubs and all plant life and so as living inhabitants since hundreds and thousands of years ago kauri have adapted to the soil and bugs and climate in a way that introduced species never will. Yet with all of this exchange with all of this value these elders of our forests under our outdated system are valued more when they are dead and being ripped out of swamps and shipped off as goods overseas sometimes illegally. So I welcome the acknowledgment in this Budget Policy Statement because if we had been taking proper care of our kauri like we should've been and if we had been measuring their value as we should've been we would not be facing the spread of kauri dieback today that threatens these rangatira. I cannot come to grips with a future world that has lost kauri tree to extinction. Instead I imagine an economic system that properly values all parts of our environment and this Budget Policy Statement is hopeful in marking and indicating that value. Imagine an economic system that counted the likes of the kapa haka leaders and performers and volunteers who dedicated a collective thousands of hours of unpaid work to bring just next door here in Wellington a festival featuring Māori arts and cultural excellence second to no other festival in the entire world. Imagine a system that could capture that. Imagine an economic system that counted the time that nanas and koros and parents have spent caring for their families and nurturing children. Imagine a system that asks: are the things that we are doing to increase our well-being today adding to or detracting from the ability of future generations to increase their own living standards? These are the value indicators that the Greens have always stood for and will keep pushing for. Now I go to the members opposite and their addresses today. Certainly their leader Simon Bridges and his so-called Bluegreen agenda still cannot see beyond the narrow lens of price and dollars and they keep upholding that. It's quite bizarre. They continue to stand and uphold that outdated system that has done nothing but ruin and that has actually decimated the future outlook unless we start acting now. For example the National Government starved the Department of Conservation of funding and imposed a model where business groups got to sponsor our native plants and animals. Simon Bridges has promised to restart offshore oil prospecting. He's said that four-lane highways are good for the environment. How green is actual Bluegreen though? This is narrow thinking in pursuit of short-term gain at the expense—the expense—of the environment. There is no green in there. He won't support the brave kids standing up for the future of their environment in the climate strikes next week. His entire caucus just pooh-poohed them and rubbished them yesterday out on the tiles—dismissed them looked down their noses at kids standing for their environment. This is the Bluegreen agenda of the members opposite. Simon is buying into the narrow idea—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): It's the Hon Simon Bridges. MARAMA DAVIDSON: The Hon Simon Bridges is buying into the narrow idea that school is simply to train kids up for low-paid jobs so that they can keep paying rents on their mouldy flats to their landlords. That's what the Hon Simon Bridges has as his idea of education. I'm actually looking forward to seeing these young people exercise their power and their voice to call us to account. We know that the National Party cannot understand why they are doing that. They don't get why they would want to exercise their civic duties and raise one of the most important issues facing us here in this House and in the world today. They would rather block the public from a select committee hearing on this very statement that we are debating right now just to score some meaningless cynical political points than hear from genuine submitters about how excited they are with this new approach and what ideas they might have to make it a truly good one. There's your Bluegreen agenda right there. We have many examples of Government initiatives with wider benefits—more than what the initial price suggests—and that's what this new approach is all about. For example home insulation brings huge social and environmental benefits that go beyond the simple price of a few Pink Batts. It prevents illness it reduces energy demand it reduces power costs for households and it creates jobs in a green industry. With this precedent we establish a better way of looking at the economy. We need to do more. We need to find more ways of delivering these benefits that simply go beyond the dollar price of them. I'm pleased that this Government has made a start. Thank you.