SpeechHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Conservation): Tuatahi māku e tuku he mihi ki a koe e te Māngai o te Whare nei i raro i te taumahatanga o te āhua kei waho rā. Ā heoi anō kei roto i tēnei Whare kei te mihi ki a koutou ki a tātou katoa.[Firstly I'd like to send a greeting to you to the Speaker in consideration of the difficult circumstances outside. However inside this House I send my greetings to one and all.]I stand here to unreservedly speak in support of the Prime Minister's statement. I want to just commend our boss the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. At a personal level I feel incredibly privileged to be standing on this side of this House under the mantle of her leadership. She is a person that is a humble leader. She is a woman driven with a sense of compassion who has this innate wisdom and a very clear sense of purpose which provides a sense of clarity for all of us on this side of the House as we navigate some of what have been the most tumultuous of waters standing here amidst a global pandemic—and we do.Right now we are living in a time of a global pandemic that is stretching out across the world and—with my emergency management hat on—we are also living in a time that we have seen some of the worst weather that has hit across regions having absolutely gut-wrenching results up and down the country. We have people currently that have had their homes destroyed. Two states of emergency were declared down in the West Coast over the past three weeks. Up North we have fires that have been tearing through the environment there for a month and there's a sense of uncertainty that people are feeling that I don't think people have felt in quite some time. But what we have seen through it all is that our country men women—people from across the isle—have come together. We've pulled together and we've done our hardest done our damnedest to make the best of what has been thrown our way. Minister Parker just left some encouraging words on the floor and he stated it quite clearly: New Zealand has been one of the only countries really that did beat Delta. Yeah we had incursions left right and centre but nothing that was predicted. Here we are standing at the forefront of this wave that is Omicron and we saw some of the highest numbers come in this morning. But here we are with a population that is up in its mid - 90 percents for double vaccination and getting boosted at a rate that is incredibly high per day. Our young children from the age of five and upwards have commenced their vaccination programme and as far as a country could be prepared for this incursion that is Omicron we could not have been better prepared.Hon Members: Oh really?Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: And if anybody has any doubts across the other side of this House I would love to have heard a single plan but for the one that they proposed. What was it—what was it? It was Open up the borders." "Shut the borders." "Open up the borders." "Shut the borders." "Get rid of MIQ now—I mean not now. Maybe a little bit later—no no just get rid of it altogether." "Oh no do it last year."—I don't know. We've all been on a bit of a wave a wave as they've gone through their turbulent times with their leadership. We've been on a wave as they've gone through their turbulent reckons when it comes to this pandemic. Thank goodness they haven't been anywhere near the helm and thank goodness they have not been anywhere near the purse strings of this country as we have weathered this storm because it sounds like during the midst of a pandemic all the folk on the other side of the House want to see costs cut but they won't tell you what programmes they're going to cut—no no no. Anyway it's not about them. They can dither in their own whatnot.But what I do also want to commend is our Minister of Finance and Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson. Grant Robertson the Minister of Finance—Hon Kris Faafoi: Top man.Hon KIRITAPU ALLAN: —is a top man as Minister Faafoi says. He has ensured that our economy is positioned as being on track better than any other in the OECD or is one of the few that is in the position that we are in due to better than expected financial accounts and our record of incredibly low unemployment.We've always said that whilst we've been enduring the tides that are before us we too have been just cracking on with the day-to-day business. For me the thing that is bringing me joy at the moment is seeing how many New Zealanders are getting out there and protecting our environment. As our economy became afraid—with the wisdom of the Cabinet prior—they saw that we were going to have to offset some of the economic turbulence by creating programmes that would ensure that we could capture those that had been displaced as a consequence of COVID through programmes like Jobs for Nature. As part of the Government's economic recovery we continue to roll out the Jobs for Nature programme. For the Department of Conservation - led projects Jobs for Nature has delivered nearly 2700 jobs so far. More than 1 million hours have been worked up and down Aotearoa by young men and women and people who strap on their boots day in and day out to get out there and look after our environment. We're only 18 months into this programme and there is plenty more to come. Under the Department of Conservation (DOC) mantle—it's a three-tiered beast. But under the DOC component that I'm responsible for we have 200 projects on the books as we are rolling out into 2024.Alongside driving our economic recovery this year we'll see a huge focus—as has been stated across the House by Minister Parker just prior and others—on climate change across all of our portfolios. While the climate crisis is well-known something that many of us have been yelling for folks to hear too is that we also have a biodiversity crisis. That is often seen as a bit of a poorer cousin to climate change but it is incredibly important to our country's values. I strongly believe that both of these crises are interlinked and the more we can deliver nature-based solutions and protect and enhance biodiversity and reduce emissions the better. A big part of my focus this year will be on implementing the Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy 2020 and we'll have more to say on that in coming months including how our collective biodiversity response can help drive our emissions reduction.In December I announced as well that we will be stepping up work to address longstanding problems in conservation law while laying the foundations for future law reform in conservation. Better legislation will equip us with the tools to deal with some of the biggest emerging threats to biodiversity today: invasive species climate change habitat loss pollution and the fragmentation of landscapes and ecosystems. We can start making improvements now to help relieve the pressure by tinkering with the way in which concessions work which are leading to unsatisfactory outcomes across the board and that will be a part of the law reforms that we are tackling this year. We've also launched a first-principles review of the Wildlife Act which is over 60 years old and is often incredibly unclear unfit for purpose and incredibly difficult to implement. It doesn't do a good job when it comes to protecting some of our most endangered species and to be honest it doesn't really work well for anyone. Good progress has been made on a crucial stewardship land review and reclassification process a task where far too little ground was made when DOC was established in 1987 and it was a promise that we undertook to do then. We've kicked that up into full blow this year and it's rendering some results.Over the last four years Labour in partnership with the Greens has delivered the biggest ever investment in nature and biodiversity protection. Kiwis back us on this up and down Aotearoa as we traipse up and down the country. They know the value of our natural landscapes both for our identity as people and for our economy and brand in the world. National's track record for nature is poor: funding freezes and cuts to DOC polluted rivers opposition to any real action on climate change and unrestrained and unplanned land use conversions. However may I please just take this opportunity to thank the Greens for their constructive work alongside us and in particular their conservation spokesperson the Hon Eugenie Sage for the work that we do together.This is an exciting time to be in Government albeit sometimes a little challenging. But on this side of the House we're up for the challenge and I stand to speak and commend the Prime Minister's statement.SPEAKER: Before I call the Hon Michael Woodhouse I'd just like to ask the Hon Kris Faafoi to turn off the torch on his phone. When he moves it around it's sort of getting me in the eyes. It's not as bad as the lasers that are coming in from our friends out the front but it does hurt. Thank you."