Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. Before I begin my contribution I just want to acknowledge my colleague Celia Wade-Brown who was making some really important contributions—particularly around the work that central and local government are yet to do together. I think it really speaks to the other side of the House because I was paying attention to the interjections. It really speaks to the approach around this from the other side of the House when they would rather mock style than substance and when they themselves are making 12-second contributions because they cannot substantiate the bills that they're putting forward because they just want to go home. For a party that talks about hard-working Kiwis and yet are not able to work hard to back up their shabby bills I think they owe the public a bit of respect when it comes to for example this nonsense of a bill. All it will do is actually deprive local government—it will continue to widen the divide both in relationship but actually in resources of central and local government. It says a lot that this bill was introduced under urgency at a time—Carl Bates: Efficiency.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —when actually we should—it's not efficiency. I want to pick up on that comment because this Government thinks as we have debated through urgency that doing poor non-robust work to produce legislation is efficiency. They think that putting bills that ultimately impact those who have the least resources the most amounts to efficiency.The reality is that they're so desperate to create savings that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel putting legislation in place that touches actually on a subset of criminal offences that as has been well traversed impact low-income communities the hardest. This is something that is reflected in the regulatory impact statement and the members haven't been able to give contributions as to the substance of this. So I think it's really important that we contextualise this bill as I said before in the broader Budget a Budget that is cake for those who have it well and crumbs for everyone else.I want to go back to the regulatory impact statement. They talked about not just low-income people but Māori Pasifika disabled people and other communities who are most disproportionately impacted—and young people as well. In fact the criminal offences that we're going to touch on here—or the subset of those—affect young people the most. People with fine debts are also as stated in the regulatory impact statement more likely to be under 45. In fact 73 percent of those are aged under 45. When we look at for example the previous bill that we were discussing it's easy to see why this is not just an attack on the poor but also an attack on young people.Yes fines can sometimes play a role in changing behaviour but we have to remember that fines at the end of the day—because they're basically a flat amount and they're not actually increased by your income—are basically a free pass for those who can afford to pay them. So when it comes to changing behaviour we have to also remember that ultimately it's not just the behaviour that changes; it could actually result in people being put in a position of hardship. Whereas if the members to my left commit anything that results in them having to have these fines it amounts to nothing. They don't have to make any tough choices to pay these fines. But for somebody who's on benefit—a disabled person who relies on income support—and receives those fines actually it can be the difference between putting food on the table or paying the rent.I'm seeing frowns on the left side of the House but the reality is this shows their disregard for the communities least benefiting from the tax cuts yet most affected by this unserious piece of legislation this desperate desperate attempt at producing savings from a Government that is ruling for the wealthy few but not the many. The Green Party will continue opposing this bill and calling out the absurd behaviour from a Government that is absolutely fiscally irresponsible. Rather than seriously investing in public services that reduce the cost of living like free healthcare and free education they're actually cutting back subsidies putting out this shamble of legislation and actually exacerbating the cost of living crisis.