Turei MetiriaMETIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. It is 5 months out from the election and National members are already reaching for the Donald Trump book of the election the playbook for the election. The ABCs of Alternative Facts" is in the hot little hands of Steven Joyce. Like Trump they have decided against all evidence to the contrary that the path to prosperity is fossil fuels. That is right New Zealand: National wants to open up our conservation land to open-cast coal mining again—again.It wants to open up the beautiful red tussock landscape of the Buller plateau to mining. This is the habitat of the great spotted kiwi the fernbird the West Coast gecko and other rare New Zealand species. National wants to open up the remains of the Denniston Plateau which has already been stripped and scarred by years of mining. And why does it ask for that? Why does it want that? Well we are told that it is part of a carefully considered balance between economic and conservation needs. It is the old excuse: a balance. It is a balance where the conservation of our native environment loses every single time. This even as tourism surges into the lead as our biggest export industry an industry whose success is based on our clean green image and "100% Pure" brand. In the face of this to pretend that coal mining will bring us economic prosperity is to ignore reality. It is one of National's alternative facts.Globally the price of coal has plummeted with the rise of natural gas and certainly cheap renewable energy. Coal is the dirtiest most climate-polluting fossil fuel there is. We know that the existing stocks of coal cannot be safely burnt without threatening the stability of our climate. There is literally no point in digging it up anymore. The world is shifting to clean energy. In the US even the Kentucky Coal Museum has switched to solar power for the museum in order to save money. No one in their right mind is trying to revive the coal industry. No one in their right mind thinks it is worth digging up a kiwi habitat for virtually no economic benefit.The challenge for Government is to support economic development that regenerates the environment rather than destroying it for short-term gain which grows industries like tourism instead of threatening them. That is what a good Green Government would do. But unfortunately the National Government has no idea how to do that. Economic development under National is a policy of a scorched earth. We see this in the U-turn on the protection of our native forests allowing chainsaws back into conservation land. We see this with the proposal to pump pristine glacial water direct from Mount Aspiring National Park on to ships waiting off the West Coast.But National in desperation for an election year headline seems to have forgotten that New Zealanders do not buy into short-term profiteering at the expense of long-term environmental destruction. National seems to have forgotten the 50000 New Zealanders who marched in Auckland the last time that National tried to mine our conservation land. National has forgotten that the New Zealand people will stand up for the environment. New Zealand people will stand up for the environment and the Green Party will stand with those New Zealanders.We will fight to protect conservation land the land that we treasure against this lazy short-term thinking that the National Government suffers from. Coal mining is the past. The Green Party is the future. Thank you."