Kedgley Sue: Valedictory Statement 
Kedgley Sue: Valedictory Statement 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to kick off the valedictory season in this Parliament. 
I am what you might call an accidental MP—someone who ended up in this House by accident not by design. I casually agreed to put my name on a Green Party list for the 1999 election at a time when the Green Party was polling at zero percent. The next thing I knew Jeanette Fitzsimons was on the phone to me telling me that I had just become an MP. So the first few weeks passed in something of a blur but even so I did feel that I was participating in a moment of history in being part of the first group of Green MPs to be elected to Parliament. Jeanette and the late Rod Donald were wonderful mentors to their new and very green MPs. We had then and still have today a very supportive and egalitarian culture which I suspect is rare in the political world. I recall a meeting with Telecom shortly after we were elected. I felt they were trying to lead us up the garden path so I gave Rod a gentle kick under the table. I thought afterwards imagine a newly elected backbencher kicking Helen Clark or John Key under the table. But that was the sort of relationship we had and still have in the Green Party. 
I did take a while to get the hang of Parliament. I remember nonchalantly deciding one day to vote to change the title of the apprenticeships bill to the modern apprenticeships bill. No sooner had I uttered the words “7 votes in favour” than out of the corner of my eye I saw Trevor Mallard roaring up the House towards me yelling “Get outside!”. I airily refused and wondered what on earth all the fuss was about. It turned out that thousands of copies with the old title had already been printed and now thanks to my change of vote would have to be thrown out. 
Another amusing memory was when I persuaded Nandor at the very last moment to vote against the microchipping of dogs bill. All hell broke loose because his was the casting vote that defeated the bill and no one had warned the Government about his sudden change of heart. An outraged Prime Minister was on the phone and even the normally serene Jeanette Fitzsimons was apoplectic but we could hardly conceal our delight that we had spared hundreds of thousands of dogs from being needlessly microchipped. 
Shortly after we arrived in Parliament the Green Party negotiated a moratorium on genetic engineering and a royal commission of inquiry. Jeanette and I spoke at literally hundreds of meetings around the country and helped organise mass protests and marches. But despite huge public support for the moratorium the Government lifted it in 2003. I recall the furious reaction when the Green MPs walked out of Parliament in protest. Nevertheless I am proud of the fact that we helped ensure there are no genetically modified crops growing in New Zealand—so far at least. 
One of my first acts as an MP was to accept an 80000-signature petition from SAFE—Save Animals from Exploitation—which called for sow stalls to be banned. I climbed into a sow stall to demonstrate how cruel it was and was ridiculed for doing so I might add. So it is gratifying that a decade later the Government has finally agreed to get rid of sow crates. 
Another early highlight was our successful campaign to save the Overlander. I took the Overlander on what was to have been one of its last journeys and arranged to collect our Save the Overlander petitions along the way. Everywhere the train stopped there were huge crowds of people clutching petitions. At Otorohanga people brought their petitions in a century-old wheelbarrow and at Te Awamutu no sooner had the guard explained over the intercom that we were going through the King Country which was home to two famous New Zealanders Jim Bolger and Colin Meads than there was Colin Meads standing at the station supporting our petition and the train went wild. 
I said in my maiden speech that I wanted to represent people who were fighting for safe food animal welfare public transport natural health and other green issues. And that is what I have done. I may not have represented a geographic constituency but I have certainly represented an issues-based constituency and the thousands of people who contact me about food and other issues are testament to that. Some people tell me they see me as their voice in Parliament and I feel humble to have fulfilled that role. 
I have also been a voice for animals in this House and I am proud to have put food and animal welfare on the political agenda. When I first raised animal welfare issues MPs cracked jokes and rolled their eyes as if to say “How can you expect us to take such a trivial issue seriously?”. So it is fantastic that it is no longer a laughing matter. But even so hundreds of thousands of factory-farmed animals spend their entire lives locked inside cages in conditions of almost unimaginable cruelty. And the Animal Welfare Act still protects the interests of animal owners not the interests of animals. So it was disappointing that my member’s bill which would have amended the Act was defeated in Parliament. 
When the Green Party came into Parliament our ideas seemed radical even loopy and we were swimming against the tide. But now many of our ideas are widely accepted and we are swimming with the current. We have even managed to break down the stereotype of morris dancing mung beans and sandals—that stereotype—and we have shown that we can bring about change as an independent party even when we are not part of any formal coalition. And even when we have not succeeded in getting legislation changed we have helped to change attitudes. My 36000-signature petition calling for mandatory country-of-origin labelling of food was rejected by Parliament but it has helped to raise awareness of where our food comes from and forced supermarkets to introduce voluntary country-of-origin labelling. 
Perhaps my greatest frustration as an MP is the fact that this Parliament has no jurisdiction over most aspects of our food. We have handed over control of this vital issue to an Australian-based organisation Food Standards Australia New Zealand where we have one vote out of 10. I am all for closer relations with Australia but surely cuddling up to Australia need not involve handing over great chunks of our sovereignty to Australian-dominated organisations or becoming the seventh state. 
But despite such frustrations I have hugely enjoyed my time here working with MPs from all sides of this House particularly in select committees. I enjoyed chairing the Health Committee. It was extremely satisfying to have my flexible working hours bill become law and satisfying to have worked with the Labour Government to secure funding for six successful projects including an organics advisory service a $12 million Nutrition Fund and working on healthy food guidelines for schools—even though these have since been thrown out for no good reason so as a nation we are doing nothing to improve our eating habits which are fuelling the epidemics of obesity type 2 diabetes and dietary-related diseases. Other highlights include working with the Government on the Natural Health Products Bill initiating inquiries into ambulance services natural health obesity type 2 diabetes and the future of bees and even helping to save Wellington’s trolley buses and the Johnsonville line. 
But I would like to devote the rest of my speech not to my own achievements but to some observations about democracy. We tend to be somewhat complacent about democracy but parliamentary democracy like everything else needs constant renewal or it will become stale and tired and less and less relevant. There are some days in Parliament when I think it has become all of those things. 
In particular I despair about the polarised and confrontational way that we so often do business in this House. Much of the time it is trench warfare in here. MPs gather for question time as if for a military confrontation. The aim is to do battle to defeat the enemy on the other side not to debate or listen. The heavy hitters the point scorers the alpha males lead the charge and hurl abuse at the other side so question time which ought to be the showcase of our democracy routinely degenerates into a pointless scoring match. The rest of us have become so used to this belligerent behaviour that we end up thinking it is normal and acceptable. 
But outside of Parliament many people find this behaviour childish and off-putting. A group of 14-year-olds observed question time in 2002 and wrote a report about it. MPs mocked each other shouted at each other interrupted each other and seemed to have no respect for each other or for different opinions they wrote. There was no sense of working together toward anything. They called on MPs to stop the bullying behaviour and develop a more cooperative culture instead. Naively I suggested we set up a cross-party working group to look at their report and ways of improving our working culture but this went down like a lead balloon and nothing much has changed since then. So unfortunately there seldom is constructive dialogue or really thoughtful debate in this House and much of the time no one is really even listening to our debates. 
On the other hand away from the cameras in the select committees a lot of tremendous cross-party work takes place in a mostly constructive and positive working environment. A total of 106 bills have passed one or more stages under urgency in this Parliament—most of them not urgent at all—and there is urgency of course tomorrow. I think the excessive use of urgency with the bypassing of select committees and public submissions undermines our democracy and fuels a growing distrust and disillusionment with politics which is eroding people’s confidence not just in politicians but in our entire political system. 
Not long ago under first past the post Parliament often operated as an elected dictatorship with the executive completely controlling this House and ramming its agenda through Parliament. Thanks to MMP this is no longer the case. When Governments are forced to negotiate with smaller parties they cannot completely control this House or the select committees which now have some measure of power and influence. But even so the executive still controls a great deal of what Parliament does and I believe that the House needs more independence so that it can counterbalance the power of the executive and better hold Governments to account. 
Mr Speaker you have tried to make Ministers answer questions and to make the Government more accountable and I congratulate you on that. But I would still like to see more independence for the Speaker and a rule such as exists in the UK that the Speaker is elected by a free vote of Parliament and severs all party affiliations. 
MMP has made Parliament far more representative it has breathed new life into our democracy and it has brought in new parties new ideas and new ways of working. But more changes are still needed I believe if we are to make Parliament more modern and more capable of responding to the challenges that confront us. We live in a time of rapid change yet our Parliament is a 19th century institution hidebound by rules and conventions and it still operates quite a lot of the time like an old boys’ club. So I believe that a major overhaul is needed of the way that Parliament works to make it less remote and more relevant and accessible to ordinary New Zealanders. I believe we owe it to New Zealanders to lift our game leave behind the tribal warfare and the adversarial way in which we so often do politics and adopt a more constructive approach. 
We live in a time of financial and ecological crisis. The glaciers are melting bees are disappearing the oceans are acidifying and everywhere there are signs of ecological collapse. Our global financial system is teetering on the verge of collapse too and our society is growing more unequal by the year. Yet in Parliament far more energy is spent on trying to win the daily media battle than on grappling with the crises that confront us. The media too often seem more interested in scandals and the trivia of politics than in serious policy issues or debate. All the focus is on the battle between warring parties—who is winning who is losing who is up who is down—rather than on how we are going to steer ourselves out of the mess that we have created. 
The problem is that for a healthy democracy we need an informed electorate. But if there is less and less serious content in the media people will not be sufficiently informed to make an informed choice at the ballot box. Diverse and independent media are critical for a healthy democracy. Worryingly we are one of the only countries in the world without mainstream public service television and even our outstanding public service radio is limping along on the back foot with its funding frozen indefinitely forced to sell off its grand pianos to survive. Four overseas-owned companies control most of our media and we have one of the most deregulated media environments in the world with no rules around foreign ownership cross-media ownership or anything else. So there is actually nothing to stop Rupert Murdoch or anyone else from taking over any or all media in New Zealand or setting up a Fox-type television channel that pushes a particular political barrow and does not even pretend to be impartial. I believe we need to review our media ownership rules and set up a strong and more independent media monitor. 
The growing influence of corporate lobbyists also concerns me. Lobbyists operate in secret so it is almost impossible to work out who is lobbying whom in this place and on whose behalf. In other countries the activities of lobbyists are publicly disclosed on a register of lobbyists and I have been seeking to bring transparency to lobbying here through a member’s bill. Corporate donors and lobbyists have far greater access to Government than ordinary New Zealanders and some I believe are able to exert undue influence on policy and legislation as a result. The problem is that they pursue the vested interests of the corporations they represent not the public interest so the growth of lobbying is shifting the political landscape in favour of corporate interests at the expense of the public interest. 
Finally I want to salute the unseen workers of Parliament: the friendly security guards the cleaners the cooks the Hansard staff and all the courteous and patient people who keep this institution going. Special thanks to the magnificent librarians who have provided me with so much invaluable information over many years. 
Thanks to all the people from various organisations I have worked closely with over the years some of whom are here today—SAFE GE-Free New Zealand the Soil and Health Association the Safe Food Campaign the Nurses Organisation the Service and Food Workers Union the Charter of Health Practitioners Alcohol Action Grey Power and many others—I could go on and on. I would have achieved little without their collaboration and support. 
Thanks to all my fantastic colleagues and friends in the Green Party caucus. It has been fantastic being with you all for the last 12 years. And thanks to the wonderful and talented Green Party staff and in particular the person I call my secret weapon Dr Meriel Watts and—how to describe him—the wonderful Kevin List. Thanks to all my hard-working and supportive executive secretaries from Dr Sean Weaver Dr Charlie Chambers Councillor Iona Pannett through to Angela McLeod. Thanks to the students who have worked with me as interns over the past decade to my family—my mother my late father my sister and brother my stepchildren my extended family—and to my wonderful family of friends many of whom are here tonight. My greatest support has come from my family especially my incredibly supportive and political astute husband Denis Foot and my awesome son Zachary Kedgley-Foot who from a young age has had to put up with a mother who is a politician. 
It has been an enormous privilege being a Green MP and now it is time to hand the baton to another generation. It is incredibly comforting to know that Keith and I as the last of the original Green MPs leave the party in such good heart and that another group of talented and energetic New Zealanders is waiting in the wings for their turn in Parliament. Thank you very much. 
Sitting suspended from 6.05 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.