Delahunty CatherineCATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker kia ora anō ki Te Whare. I have been listening carefully to the speeches and I would like to applaud Jan Logie and Denis O'Rourke. I also found it really positive what Shane Reti just said about going and engaging and creating opportunities for young people seeking work. Those are constructive responses. The rest of this is a depressing load of rubbish. Actually the one thing that those of us in our privileged bubble do not want to see is what is happening in our streets. I have lived for 63 years and I have never seen so much poverty on the streets and I am glad it is visible. We need to face it. We do not need to be intimidated by it but we have plenty of laws. If we need the law because someone is being threatening or intimidating or is about to commit or has committed an assault there are plenty of ways of dealing with that. That is not the problem. The law is not the problem. The problem is that inequality is being acted out before our very eyes and some people are finding that—for the 90 percent of the window washers who are not violent and intimidating—uncomfortable.Yes it is uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable to see so many people so desperate that they are down at the intersections washing our windows for money. We look into their eyes and we go: There but for the grace of God go I." Actually they are us and our children. They are not a different species. To create more fines and more punishments when we need to be looking for solutions is not what this House should be for. We are not here to reflect intimidation or to increase punishment. We are here to try to build a country where people are able to participate with some kind of dignity and equity. Part of this bill is a bit of a filler. It is a bit of like: "What is the least important issue on the streets? Let's deal with that rather than something that is substantive and more controversial." But part of it is also maintaining the idea there is a "them" and "they" are a dangerous horde out there that must be controlled and let us not talk about the causes of people who are forced into washing our windows for enough money to get through the day because then we have to talk about how many people are actually living on the edge. This is the edge on the intersections.This bill is not about road safety. It has got nothing to do with road safety. It is to do with punishment when we already have plenty of laws to take care of people who are threatening violent or intimidatory. There are plenty of ways of arresting people if their behaviour goes over the line in a public space. So we are just going to add another one specifically focusing on a group of marginalised workers who have no rights or protections who are trying to make a buck to get through the day. That is why I applaud Dr Shane Reti for actually going down and engaging with these people and trying to find a solution but I do not applaud the National Party or anyone else for supporting this bill because I think it is ugly. I think it is another way in which we inside our privileged bubble can go "Oh well you know they're the bad guys." without any empathy or imagination about what it might be like.I drive in Auckland every week. Sometimes I have money in the car and sometimes I do not but I look at the faces of these people who are at the edge. They are not saving up for their holiday with their family in New Caledonia. They are trying to get through the day. They have nothing else but the street. We need to face the street and do something a whole lot more constructive with the people who have to live on our streets and scrape a living out of washing windows for people who can afford things that they have not seen for a very long time like a nice car. So I am proud that we are opposing this bill. I am disappointed that we are even talking about it because there are so many more important things. There are also so many more things we need to do to make sure that we have full employment and respect for all the people who are at the bottom of a heap that has been created not by nature but by an economic system dedicated to structural unemployment and political inequality. So happily we say no. This is not good enough and it is not the solution. Kia ora tātou."