Delahunty CatherineVALEDICTORY STATEMENTSCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Ā tēnā koe Mr Speaker tēnā koutou Te Whare Pāremata me te tangata whenua o Te Motu me ngā Tangata Tiriti katoa. Tenā rā koutou nau mai haere mai ki Te Whare Pāremata Te Whare Raruraru Te Whare Mamae Te Whare Kaha![Thank you Mr Speaker and to you collectively Parliament House indigenous people of the country and all Treaty people. Salutations indeed to you collectively welcome and come hither to the House of Parliament the troubled House the House of pain the House of strength!]I make this speech with profound gratitude to all the people who have helped me do this job for the past 8½ years and with few regrets. Possibly my greatest regret is not being in the Government so I could establish the Ministry of Pākehā Affairs" and create the national standard for honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. "Dear Mrs Brash your son Don is well below again."However before the thankyous I need to name the inspiration that has carried me and the deep disquiet that keeps me awake at night. Che Guevara said: "The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth." I have been guided by this view and by this whakataukī: "Whatungarongaro he tangata toitū he whenua."—"People perish but the land remains." Thank you to kuia Betty Williams for what you have taught me. These two statements are not contradictions; they are complementary truths. If this makes some of us green-red watermelons how sweet is that? The watermelon is the most colourful refreshing and delicious fruit imaginable.But all is not well in the garden of Aotearoa. In the past 8½ years we have seen this country become even more unequal and dirty. I could be referring just to the quantity and quality of our water but it is a universal degradation. In the past 8½ years politics has become depoliticised celebrity-trivialised and empty. This is not an accident of Facebook; it is a consequence of neo-liberal strategies to reduce citizen's scrutiny of the concentration of power at the expense of our survival on earth and our humanity towards each other. "New Zealand Inc." replaces Aotearoa as the brand we must embrace while the beggars on Lambton Quay are just a necessary price they must pay for failing in the great competition of hypercapitalism. While we read about Bill English cooking up some tasteless folksy food designed to fabricate Kiwi authenticity the real game show grinds on glamorising consumption ignoring the chaos of the climate and the collapse of endangered species—the cruelty of a stripped-down irresponsible State under corporate control. How about they go take their social investment rhetoric and insulate their invisible social housing with it?In my time here we could have had the overdue deeper national conversation on Te Tiriti - based constitutional change. Tangata whenua are ahead of us as usual offering collective wisdom in the face of colonisation's mutating virus—Aotearoa a Pasifika nation whose double-hulled waka could float in a storm with all crew safely on board instead of sitting in a cold broken flat watching rich men race superyachts around in circles.There are many alternatives to the current degraded state of the nation. As the poet Pablo Neruda said: "You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep the spring from coming." What might a transformed spring look like in the 21st century? Spring inevitably has indigenous roots vibrant with reimagined political structures based on caring distributive steady-state economics the technology of respect and a few wealth taxes thrown in—full employment housing for all free education and healthcare not market economics. That religion is over and it failed to provide. We have to start with an economic system that supports the collective dignity of indigenous people the unemployed and working class women children refugees exploited migrants and the so-called disabled. As my satirical poem "Double the quota of white men you can never have enough" so crudely states it is time for a different definition of whose voices matter. I may not see this in my lifetime. I want it for my mokopuna. The alternative is our "down home" version of a Trump dystopia and it is too here and too now.In my time in Parliament I have been proud to work with so many people on public education inclusion in education mining clean awa Te Tiriti rights and toxic sites. I have been champion of some of the least-popular causes ever brought before this House—[Interruption] it is true; thank you people—connected to disability human rights and contaminated land. I am most proud of the work that I have done with others—I have just lost my place here. That is the trouble with reading when you just like talking eh? I am most proud of the work for a free and independent West Papua. Our Pacific neighbours are violently occupied by Indonesia and their resources and human rights plundered while our Government is literally useless. I hope my colleagues in the MP network will keep making this issue visible. I will be on your case from the outside. Political freedom gives us responsibility.One of the reasons I am looking forward to going home is the necessity we have in the Hauraki-Coromandel to stop multinationals from goldmining. After 30 years of activism I want to honour the Coromandel Watchdog family and all our communities that have been willing to protect home. We have a Government whose economic plan is dirty water development and holes in the ground. We will never accept this. We are motivated by the love of the land not the dollar. I am also proud of what can be practically achieved in Opposition. My partner Gordon Jackman and I negotiated a memorandum of understanding with Nick Smith that set up a national register of contaminated sites. Working with Chris Finlayson we changed a clause in the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Act to ensure archaeologists must demonstrate cultural competency to hapū and iwi. I have had a number of members' bills—five selected—that have raised the issue of things like a disability commissioner and the Public Works Act and Māori land not to mention the seemingly eternal struggle to get pulp mill waste out of the Tarawera awa.Thanks to all the groups and individuals who have taught me so much about all these causes. I give particular thanks to the rangatahi who have given me their honest feedback about the education system. This quote is from Crystal Te Moananui from the youth rōpū Te Mata Rangatira of Hauraki—kia ora—"You set us up to fail in a system we don't fit now you ask for my compliance my forgiveness. Well I resist. Until your debt is paid and education includes my world. Take what you have offered leave my pounamu and take your pearls." She was 15 when she wrote that.I want to thank the Green Party for giving me a place and at this very moment inspiring me again that we stand for all people and for justice as well as for the environment. The Right is desperate to keep us in a tidy little green box focused on the environment minus people. It will fail in the attempt because our mission has always been the commitment to the inseparable solutions of environmental healing and social justice. Many of us believe that if we are neutral and allow injustice to continue to happen we are siding with the oppressor. Today is a particularly good day to reflect on that.When I joined the party we started working on our commitment to honouring Te Tiriti. Not settling treaties but honouring them is the task as Moana Jackson has reminded us. I am proud to be one the few Pākehā to stand in this House for Te Tiriti because it is only via this kaupapa that we the dominant privileged with our oft-denied default racism can transform ourselves into tangata Tiriti—people of honour with a place to stand.To everyone who wants change so badly this election let us be brave and honest. A pallid centrism will not serve us or this country. The era of the slick bland slogan is over; truth to power or as some unlikely leader said for the many not for the few.I have many people to thank. Firstly the cleaners messengers security library IT staff and the Copperfields staff—you have been most kind most professional people to work with. Some of your wages are a disgrace but you are the opposite. Thank you too to the Chamber staff for all your work and the Clerk's Office. All of you guys have been so patient and so professional.To my entire office team starting with Liz Robinson Frances Mountier Asher Goldman Jess Bignell and Himiona Grace: only you know how truly incompetent at basic tasks an MP can possibly be. Also grateful thanks to Elinor Chisolm and Mary Davies Colley for their short-term help. Thank you for helping me to find "Bold" on the computer.Hon Members: Ha ha!CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: You think I am joking? You have all given me hope for a generation and held me to account. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. To all the Greens staff—the hard-working dedicated and patient champions—thank you all for all you did to make a better collective effort for which I got the credit that belonged to us. Thank you also to where I come from for Te Tai Rāwhiti and Hauraki-Coromandel Greens who work so hard for the common good and to all the people who are here because they are not only political allies but true friends. Thank you politicians from across the House for the small courtesies that keep us human in this status-ridden patriarchal institution that needs a shake-up. Man you are going to miss these speeches!To the other women who walked out of this House together to reject any disrespect of our very selves as sexual assault survivors I am proud to be one of your number. We walk this painful path for all the daughters everywhere. I want a Prime Minister—or co - Prime Minister; hang in there Metiria we love you—who does not have to be told not to touch a woman's ponytail or that a river is not a commercial property flowing out to sea and wasting itself. This MP job is for grown-ups not shallow gamblers.We are lucky in the Greens. We stand on the shoulders of Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons. My thanks to all my Green colleagues past and present especially Sue Bradford and Rod Donald who encouraged me in this perilous venture. And to our current caucus thank you so much. Thank you for putting up with my ranting bad jokes and other character flaws. I am so proud to have been here with you through all of this especially today and I wish you all the best. Kia kaha; do not give up. If you get power be very careful and listen hard to the outside voices. Remember power and leadership is a shared kaupapa that can be exercised in many forms.I want to say to the younger generation of Greens—and yes I do mean you Jack McDonald—whose energy and idealism inspires me that it is not natural for politicians to become more conservative and compromised. I am living proof. Of course I am the typical person! But privilege and high status can do that to anyone. This place creates an unusual and somewhat delusional experience of power and we must be held to account for our own sake as well as for the country.Finally to my family. In the time since I have been here we lost both our parents who were here for my maiden speech. I am glad that I was here in Wellington for that time and I need to thank everyone but especially three people: my sister Sarah who cared for our parents and for me throughout this whole time and who has shown me what caring for others looks like; my daughter Esther for the kindness and the encouragement and for always being on my side telling me what to wear and where the stains were on my clothes and our shared life as a mother and a grandmother which has kept me sane; and to my beloved partner Gordon Jackman my rock my brain my scientist my guide your love is the reason I am still standing upright—your politics your generosity your sacrifice.Lastly I want to say to my grandson Leo this is all for you my darling—you and your generation who have a huge challenge ahead. I believe in a better way for you and thank you for making Nannie play soccer every Monday and not be able to talk at the same time.Metiria Turei: Well done.CATHERINE DELAHUNTY: Yeah well I tried. Right now I also want to particularly acknowledge my co-leaders Met and James. They rock.I am done with this place although I nearly changed my mind—like David Lange—this morning because I thought: "I want to fight alongside my brothers and sisters." However I am done and I have some views which I have written down. More of that later but in the meantime I will see you on the steps outside but from the other side of the barrier. I am looking forward to the fresh air out there. He mihi nui ki a koutou katoa he mihi nui ki te whānau whānui; tēnā rā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa.[A huge appreciation to you all and to the extended family; acknowledgments accolades and congratulations to you collectively and to us all.]Now do not clap; we are going to sing.Waiata"