Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Green): Yeah thank you Madam Speaker. So I thank members around the House for their kind words and I've been considering how to respond to some of the arguments made in that light. First of all I would like to thank the Labour Party and Te Pāti Māori for their support for the bill. And I do want to recognise Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for her speech which I thought was probably actually the most evidence based considered and logical argument that I heard this afternoon making those connections for exactly why the state of the environment does actually affect our human rights and therefore why it is important that we recognise that as such.I just want to respond to a few of the other points before I move on. One of which is you know the argument that David Parker made around the kind of slippery slope argument: the idea that if you introduce this you might have to introduce a number of other things—I think Rachel Brooking actually sorry made this point—one of which is around property rights. I would just say if you want to create a human right to property you'd want to be very careful what you wish for because you might have to hand back all the land that was stolen and swindled and confiscated. I want to say that this bill is a limited and a special gate—it will not open the flood gates to other rights being introduced into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.There was the fantastic speech by Simon Court. Of course he said Here's a reckon"—and it's probably true hence outlining how this Government makes its decisions: pub talk translated into Government policy. Despite the fact that they've got this steadfast commitment to actual evidence in their coalition agreements—this idea of just like "Oh wait here's some reckons. They're probably true. Let's govern the country on that basis."I'd like to thank Lawyers for Climate Action particularly Jenny Cooper KC and Dr James Every-Palmer KC for proposing any drafting and promoting this amendment and more recently their executive director Jessica Pelairet for her support as the bill made it to first reading.I also want to thank the 59 King's Counsels who supported the amendment—and if David Parker wants a debate about what the appropriate place is I can find him 59 King's Counsels to have that argument with—as well as organisations like World Wide Fund for Nature who are supporting it.Now I was first introduced to the concept of ecocide wild law and nature's rights law by a UK barrister Polly Higgins. Those conversations with Polly inspired me to make the rights of nature part of my work here in Parliament which I laid out in my maiden speech. Now sadly Polly died of lung cancer in 2019 which is the same year that Lawyers for Climate Action first proposed the bill. But I do want to thank Polly for her leadership and I dedicate this first reading to her and all of those who are working for Earthjustice.I want to thank Ngāi Tūhoe Whanganui and Taranaki iwi for having introduced nature's rights law into our legal framework here in Aotearoa. The country owes you all a huge debt of gratitude.I also want to acknowledge the Hon Christopher Finlayson for his leadership on the Crown side of that story as well. And a brief story which was I think during the 2011 election campaign—I was covering for Russel Norman in the seat of Rongotai. So I was in a debate that Christopher Finlayson was in. The Whanganui River settlement had just gone through. I said to him "How did you get that past Cabinet? You've just introduced nature's rights into the New Zealand statute. How did you get that past your colleagues in Cabinet?" And he looked at me and he said "Well it's a very interesting area of law." and then walked off. In other words I suspect they had no idea what was in it.So look I want to conclude with another comment from my maiden speech which is that my first female ancestor in New Zealand Annie Mathilda Baggett was the granddaughter of a Jamaican plantation slave during a time when slavery was seen as a vital component of the global economy and the abolition of slavery was opposed as a threat to financial stability and economic development. People pollute the atmosphere. They destroy rivers and species and ecosystems for the very same reasons that they used slave labour or seized land that once belonged to a people that they considered to be inferior. There is always debate and controversy about the expansion of rights. Whenever the status quo is threatened there are always doomsayers saying that civilisation will collapse or vested interests that are predicting that the economy will be destroyed—and we heard some of those arguments today. But the changes that seemed so threatening never are in hindsight and the warnings that seem so serious to so many people always sound so absurd to subsequent generations. Thank you Madam Speaker. [Applause]"