Hughes Gareth: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: General Debate[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19671. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green):Kia ora Mr Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. This week fluttering around outside Simon Bridges’ office I found a receipt. It seems to list a various number of expenses. Let us go through them. I see here we have 4 nights at the luxurious Intercontinental hotel in Wellington. We have got a corporate box for Rugby World Cup matches including an All Blacks game. We have a sailing trip from the Port Nicholson Yacht Club. And meals—all the meals and booze you can think of worth $22000. We have got lunch catered by Ruth Pretty at the Palliser Estate vineyard lunch at Martin Bosley’s and dinner at Logan Brown. All up what we see is $237000 worth of taxpayers’ money to wine and dine just 11 oil executives over 4 days.So here we see National spend $237000 over 4 days. Here we see National blowing an annual ministerial salary in only 4 days on 11 oil executives demonstrating how out of touch National is—how out of touch National is with the world that Kiwis experienced. Spending $22000 just for booze and food equates to about $500 a day per person. That is twice what many Kiwi families spend in an entire week at the supermarket—$500 a day. At a time when Kiwis are struggling working some of the longest hours for some of the lowest wages and with some of the highest costs of living in the developed world we are seeing this sort of action by the Government. At a time when one in four of our kids is growing up in poverty and when 60 percent of our rivers are considered unsafe to swim in something is seriously wrong with National’s New Zealand.You see Kiwis see their Ministers splashing money around on some of the richest industries in the world being more interested in the last drops of oil than they are in the last 55 Māui’s dolphin. They are subsidising tens of millions of dollars to seabed miners who cannot even get a consent through National’s Environmental Protection Authority with special deals for smelters tax breaks for oil drillers pokies for convention centre deals and our assets sold off for a song to a minority. You see this September Kiwis have a choice: National’s pollution economy and crony capitalism or a smarter cleaner fairer New Zealand which is what the Green Party is espousing.So this election my message to Kiwis is: aroha mai aroha atu—love New Zealand. I love New Zealand I love my country and this election I am asking Kiwis to party vote Green to look after to take advantage of and to build and grow the country we love. This election the Green Party is going to deliver a cleaner environment a fairer society and a smarter economy. We are stable. We have got a unified caucus successful co-leaders and we are ready for Government. We are proven. We have led the Opposition this term on issues like asset sales power prices and protecting our Māui’s dolphins and we have worked with National where we could to make practical improvements like the home insulation scheme and the national cycleway.We are modern. We have brought fresh thinking and up-to-date solutions to Parliament and we have tackled those issues other parties are ignoring like climate change entrenched inequality and the underperforming economy. This September Kiwis have a very clear choice on our country’s direction. National says that our rivers and streams should be safe for swimming—well it does not even say that. It says that our rivers and streams should be safe only for boating and wading. The Green Party says that they should be safe to swim in. National says that our economy should continue to be dependent on raw logs milk powder and hopefully oil—desperately desperately hoping for oil. The Greens however have got a plan to build a smarter greener economy that really works for all New Zealanders. Our vision is an economy that sees Kiwis for example in work installing insulation under people’s roofs and solar panels on the top. Our plans include a second internet cable for New Zealand and support to grow the internet economy.There is a limit to National’s pollution economy. You can see it every day in our toxic rivers and streams. There is no limit to the greentech the clean energy and the IT we could be exporting around the world. We are going to deliver that smart Green innovative economy through personal and business tax cuts to everyone by putting a charge on carbon polluters. We are going to invest a billion dollars in extra research and development to help our greentech sector and we are going to establish a green investment bank to kickstart investment in smart Green projects that create good jobs. National will not look it will not count and it will not act when it comes to growing child poverty and inequality but the Greens are going to deliver a fairer society where every child has enough to thrive. We have got a plan for a cleaner fairer smarter Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a very clear choice Kiwis have got this September and we are urging them to get on the roll make sure they vote and party vote Green.