Menéndez March RicardoRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. The Government has made it so clear whose side they're on and it's not on the side of children living in poverty renters or workers who struggle to make ends meet. It's on the side of mega landlords of mining CEOs and those already raking in millions. No amount of empty platitudes from the previous speaker Chris Bishop will hide the fact that this Government's own advice has warned them time and time again how much damage their own policies will be causing to the children who are living in cold damp homes and struggling to put food on the table.Let's look back. In February the Government was warned that up to 13000 more children will be pushed into poverty as a result of benefit changes. And when I asked Louise Upston Minister for Social Development and Employment about cuts to benefit increases she said it's not a cut. But let me tell you the Government's own advice tells us that it will be a cut that more children will be plunged into poverty as a result of decisions. Time and time again politicians have told us that child poverty is somehow inevitable but it is not. It's a result of political decisions made by successive Governments who have failed ongoing generations. This Government is absolutely complicit with children living in hardship.Now let's move forward to July. The Government quietly shrank its own child poverty reduction targets which will see over 20000 more children experiencing material hardship—a definition that means children will be struggling to actually meet their essential needs. And yet at the same time this Government wants us to believe that we should join in celebrating tax cuts that will actually benefit those families the least while benefiting the richest New Zealanders the most.Sam Uffindell: No that's not right.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: So let's make it clear—yeah I see Sam Uffindell saying no. It seems like Sam Uffindell needs to read his own Government's advice and realise the facts. But facts as Chlöe Swarbrick has said are not enough. We need to actually go beyond the facts into our communities and organise so people on the benefit renters and others struggling to make ends meet make this Government a one-term Government because our communities deserve far better. They deserve a Government that is willing to make the hard choices not the easy choices of continuing with a broken system that has given billions of dollars to landlords who are enabling more children to live in poverty—a Government that has seen rents rising at a rate faster than inflation. So while they talk about inflation going down they ignore the fact that rents continue to be the driving force behind inflation behind the cost of living the cost of inequality crisis that we have in this country. The Greens campaigned to end child poverty once and for all because we know that it is not impossible that if we put forward policies that will see the wealthiest few paying their share we can absolutely eliminate poverty in this country. But again I see the members sitting to the opposite of me just looking confused and looking angry. They seem to be angry at the facts that are being presented to them the facts that they have probably read and just ignore because they don't care. They don't care about children living in poverty. They don't care about rents going up faster than inflation. They don't care about the fact that they're celebrating more State housing tenants they kicked out of Kainga Ora homes. They don't care about the fact that they have been celebrating more people losing their income—sorry what was that?Tim Costley: Just make the whole speech up while you're going.RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Well they say Make the whole speech up." I'm not. The thing is what we are doing here is putting a line in the sand and saying enough is enough. Child poverty doesn't have to be a reality that is accepted. And let's make it clear: this isn't a decision that the National Party has made alone. This is successive Governments that have failed to tackle the difficult challenges that we face because no amount of passing the ball between successive Governments and passing on the blame will actually alleviate people's hardship. No amount of stunts by politicians to donate their tax cuts to charities will eliminate the fact that they're making child poverty worse.So the Greens will keep fighting to ensure the wealthiest few pay more tax to make sure that we can end poverty build enough State housing and make this a society where everyone can thrive rather than the Government washing their hands and accepting more children going without. Because that is what's happening. The members opposite to me are enabling more children to live in poverty because of the decisions they have made. They have actively—actively—pushed more children into poverty. No matter what they say it does not hide the fact that this is in their own papers. This is the reality they're facing and they need to confront the hard realities that through their own decisions they'll make life harder for those struggling to make ends meet the people who will least benefit from their tax cuts."