Genter Julie Anne; Borrows ChesterJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Our new Prime Minister has already let us down. Now I have respect for Bill English. He has always struck me as a bit of a principled compassionate conservative. I do not share all of his principles but I respect him for having some. That is why it was such a let-down when he put his principles and values aside with his wishy-washy response to President Trump's racism. New Zealanders do not share Donald Trump's values and our Prime Minister could have said that. Now more than ever we need leaders who will stand up for what is right. Just because someone is in power it does not mean their actions are acceptable. There have been despots and tyrants in the past. We all know that what Trump and his administration are doing and saying is wrong. He is a bully he is an autocrat and while we might pity him for the obvious pain that he suffers we must never condone or excuse actions that hurt others or that go against democratic principles. Just because he is in power it does not mean we have to stand by silently and accept bad behaviour.There is a quote from Edmund Burke: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." Hundreds of millions of Americans are doing what they can to resist the policies of the Trump administration. How bad does it need to get before we stand up in solidarity with those Americans and say: "New Zealand does not support racism. New Zealand does not support sexism. New Zealand does not support xenophobia."? How bad will it need to get before we stand up and defend our values: tolerance equality inclusion religious freedom science?Leadership is having the courage to stand up for what is right even when—especially when—it means defying the interests of those who are in power. When our children's children look back on 2017 will they say: "Thank goodness our Government of the day stood up for what was right."? What would they think if we silently stood by betraying our values and tried to stay on side with whoever was in power?We have so many challenges before us right now—climate change inequality. We also have all of the solutions. There are no real technical barriers. We can end the use of fossil fuels. We can clean up our waterways. We can end poverty. We can make sure that every child in Aotearoa has a warm dry home and that they can walk and cycle safely to school where they can learn well because they are nourished with healthy food. The only reason Bill English and the National Government he leads cannot achieve this is that they are unwilling to stand up to the people benefiting from the status quo and say: "You've got enough. You've done very well. Now it's time for us to look after those who do not have as much. Now is the time that we are going to invest in the future. Now is the time for us to protect that which is precious to us."The Green Party can and will show leadership on the things that New Zealanders care about most. We reject powerful economic elites who let multinational corporations get away with paying tiny amounts of tax when those tax dollars are desperately needed to fix up our schools and our hospitals. We reject Trump's idea that climate change is a hoax made up by China. We listen to the climate scientists and we believe them because they have evidence-based science.Climate change is an opportunity to transform our economy to change our ways of producing food and getting around and to work with our environment instead of exploit it. But the climate change Minister said today that she sees no problem with ditching our electric trains and replacing them with diesel trains. We could easily afford to invest for the long-term and complete electrification of our rail network but the National Government would rather spend the money on infrastructure that increases pollution.In 2018 we can have a Government that uses its opening-of-Parliament speeches to announce things like a target to end child poverty and a strategy to achieve it and a plan so that New Zealand stops importing so much oil and burning so much coal. We can have a new Government that recognises 40000 homeless people. An average Auckland house price of more than $1 million means the housing market is broken. We are in the days of a tired old Government—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member but her time has expired and as I mentioned earlier to the member for Rangitīkei speeches are not to be read. It seemed to me that the content of her speech was core to the beliefs of her party and she should not need to read those. I call Barry Coates—a 5-minute call on behalf of the Green Party."