Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. As the Hon Megan Woods said earlier—I believe in the second or third speech in this debate this afternoon—what we're not debating is the Budget. What we are debating is of course the Appropriation (2022/23 Supplementary Estimates) Bill. To that effect what it is that we're talking about is not anticipated spending but adjustments that have to be made in light of particularly unprecedented events such as for example as highlighted flooding and cyclone events. However I think it is important to note as many other speakers have in their contributions thus far that all of the decisions made in here with regard to spending and actually also the decisions that have been made to not spend in certain areas are of course fundamentally political decisions. And to that effect to those following along at home who may not be particularly familiar with the work of the Finance and Expenditure Committee—the wonderful committee that it is—and the levers that are available to us as a Parliament and the levers that are available to the Reserve Bank—because there's been much made of for example increasing mortgage rates—I think it's really important to kind of outline what those levers are that are available and how they work hand-in-glove or are supposed to work hand-in-glove together as economic levers at our disposal through requisite authorities that of course are empowered by the legislation of this place our Parliament. So fiscal policy is of course the stuff that the Government does. It is largely tax and spend. And even for members of the Opposition I think they would agree and understand that Governments of all stripes do that thing of taxing and spending and that again belies the kinds of behaviour that we want to incentivise inside our economy. As the Minister the Hon David Parker has made much of over the past few years actually subsequent to the former National Government's tax switch of increasing GST and decreasing income rates that has resulted in changes in behaviour inside of our economy and some of that distortionary impact which in turn has perhaps seen that aggregation of wealth in fewer and fewer hands. However Madam Speaker—just noting for those following along at home that we have the change of Speaker—fiscal policy is the stuff that the Government does. Monetary policy is the stuff that the Reserve Bank our central bank does and of course the main lever at our Reserve Bank's disposal is the official cash rate (OCR) the ability to raise or to lower that. And we saw throughout our time in the Finance and Expenditure Committee in the many hearings that we have had with the Reserve Bank on record from the Reserve Bank Governor at the end of last year an intention as noted by Adrian Orr to aggressively pursue the increasing of the official cash rate to—what he said in his own words when I put that to him—manufacture a recession". That is why it was a little bit confusing when we had seen those projections from the Treasury off the back of the Budget documents released a few months ago now—that we had a projection from Treasury that we would see the OCR remaining stable at that point. Obviously just subsequent to that we saw an increase of 0.25 basis points—but there was going to continue being this aggressive line pursued by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ). RBNZ of course has a mandate that is twofold. The first is around financial stability and the second is around maximum sustainable employment. Just on that point I think it would be remiss of me not to address the points made by the honourable member from the ACT Party Damien Smith about hard work and about who is rewarded for hard work in this economy and the society and the rules that we have put in place. And to that effect I'd just really like to make it really really clear that what we're talking about when we're talking about hard work is those who were at the front lines during our COVID-19 response throughout the pandemic those who are out there working hard every single day and actually don't necessarily see the benefits of it in terms of the income that's afforded to them—our teachers our nurses our firefighters and our front-line emergency workers. So when we're talking about hard work in the context of the high-wealth individuals report I'd just really like for members to be really explicit about what it is that they're talking about and define what it is that they mean when they're talking about hard work. Now we've heard from many particularly in the context of the Supplementary Estimates that we're debating this afternoon about unprecedented impacts. And here again it'd be remiss of me not to mention what's just been occurring on the East Coast just over this weekend with the state of emergency. Once again we are seeing climate change - charged weather events continuing to ravage cities and towns and communities and homes and whānau across this country. And I think that that's where it's really the place of this House to actually reconcile with the reality that this stuff just is not unprecedented any more. We have the science very clearly as we have had for decades that if we continue to behave and operate our economies in the way that we presently are then we will continue to see far more greenhouse gas emissions put into the atmosphere which in turn will continue to supercharge these already climate change - charged weather events. And to that effect speaking about the quality of spending or the types of spending that we'd like to see undertaken I've noted that many have spoken about how we need to shift the focus from mitigation to for example adaptation. To those we in the Greens say that genuine mitigation is in fact adaptation not least as the Hon Michael Woodhouse put in his contributions when we're talking about transport for example. If we want a resilient transport network it is one that decarbonises and provides those transport opportunities for New Zealanders across our towns and cities and indeed in our rural landscapes as well. To that effect all spending actually has to be climate spending because unfortunately unlike many in this space who like to pretend there is a trade-off between the economy and the environment it so happens that the economy exists within the environment and that jobs happen on the planet. We need to consider these things of course holistically. And again to that effect we've heard a lot in this debate about GDP a metric which obviously was refined by Simon Kuznets in the early 1900s who took it to the US Congress and was like: hey here's a really good way to measure economic transactions inside of the economy but God forbid do not use it as a measure of what he called welfare and what we now call wellbeing of those who operate and live in our communities. The reason for that is that GDP is simply a measure of economic transactions. It doesn't measure the distribution of those transactions the quality of them or if we even want them to occur in the first place. GDP goes up when there is a natural disaster such as we've experienced across the North Island over the first six months of this year. GDP goes up when there is a car crash when somebody gets cancer because there has to be economic transactions in order to undo that social ill. That perhaps is the underlying perversity in those very Treasury projections with regard to GDP and with regard to how they had projected as the member from the ACT Party noted that we would avoid the technical recession that we are now in—ironically and perversely by virtue of those climate change - charged weather events and the Government spending that was necessary to do the clean-up and the wash-up subsequent to it. That again is why we need to be looking at all of this stuff far more holistically and why the Greens consistently plead for us to have this climate lens to all of that spending that we as a Parliament are undertaking. Of course that is precisely what it is that we are debating this afternoon. If I may just finally in wrapping up this contribution which is the sole contribution for the Greens in this part of the debate on the bill—earlier today throughout this debate we heard from the deputy leader of the Opposition Nicola Willis. She was prosecuting largely the same point inside of question time earlier today—making the point that in a recession technical or otherwise as it may be we shouldn't be looking to redistribute wealth and making the point that now would be a terrible time to impose for example an asset tax or a wealth tax or capital gains tax or otherwise; of course completely neglecting the history of this very country where fewer than 100 years ago in the midst of a Great Depression there was the introduction of the Social Security Act 1938 which led to a pretty much guaranteed—Hon Judith Collins: It was actually at the end of the Depression.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —standard of living for most New Zealanders and decades of prosperity the Hon Judith Collins. That was paid for off the back of taxes imposed on those who had profited handsomely during a time that was incredibly challenging for many. It was the foundation of the social contract to say that all of us are in this together and actually you don't end up with freedom of choice inside of an economy inside of a society if you don't have access to those basic economic means for all of those who live within it. So when we have IRD research that's telling us that the top 311 families in this country own more wealth than the bottom 2.5 million New Zealanders combined and that they also pay a lower effective tax rate less than half of what the average New Zealander pays—all of this is exposed. All of this is exposed to be simply a matter of political decisions and a reflection of the values of this House. The Greens are incredibly clear that we stand for people and planet. And while the Government has made some good moves in some good directions there's far more mahi to do. Thank you Madam Speaker."