Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I really couldn't disagree more with the previous speaker Andrew Bayly and Mr David Seymour in their speeches. On behalf of the Green Party I rise to if anything criticise the Government for not having stricter requirements of Air New Zealand—in terms of the money that taxpayers are putting forward to Air New Zealand that they do more in terms of climate change. I have no doubt that the company is interested in that and that the Government as the largest shareholder is interested in taking action on climate change. Really what's at the heart of the criticism from the National Party and the ACT Party is a kind of ideological belief—a religion—that really permeated economics departments from the 1980s and 1990s. Despite Mr Seymour's claim for the evidence to be on his side it actually really isn't and I refer Mr Seymour to papers by the IMF and others who have talked about where the ideology around neoliberalism actually went too far and has resulted in less economic growth and has resulted in less efficiency. Perfect examples of this are the privatised trains in Britain which require heavier subsidies than they did when they were publicly run; the privatised health system in the United States which delivers healthcare at a far higher cost than countries that have public health systems. When it comes to things that are public goods—and transport is one of those things where it's very difficult to commercialise the full benefits and the impacts of transport infrastructure and transport vehicles are far beyond the individual people using them. Airplanes have an impact on the climate they have an impact on the people who live near the airports they have a benefit for the people who are flying on the airplanes but they also have external impacts. It is entirely appropriate in this day and age where we've seen—post the global financial crisis post-COVID—in the age of needing to respond urgently to climate change that that failed ideology of the 1980s and 1990s which is still well and alive in the most right-wing parties in our Parliament—has been proven wrong. We cannot rely on individual organisations focusing on maximising their own private monetary profit to deliver better outcomes for the whole world. It's just not going to. That should be obvious.So when we think about a company's shareholders being required to think of the best interests of the company it's got to be beyond the best interest in terms of financial return to shareholders. Because the company exists on planet Earth and it exists in relationship with other people. If planet Earth is overheating and we're being hit by massive storms that make it impossible for people to travel then that's going to negatively impact the company. So we're thinking about the company as more than just an individual organisation that is looking to make the most money possible. Because they can do that by externalising their pollution costs they can do that by abusing their staff and underpaying them they can do that in all means of unethical ways and it actually hasn't worked. One more example for the right of the House: large oil companies that deliberately hid information and ran campaigns against scientists to confuse Governments confuse people about the reality of climate change until now when it's almost too late and we almost don't have enough time to act. They did that so they could sell as much oil as possible—SPEAKER: Order! Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Come on Mr Speaker.SPEAKER: It has run pretty wide right from the beginning but I think we've now got well beyond State-owned enterprises and Government companies.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Well Mr Speaker it is absolutely relevant to my argument. It is impossible for me to respond to Mr Seymour's debate without referring to the evidence that rebuts what he said in his speech—that private organisations are always more efficient than public organisations that letting private organisations pursue private profit for shareholders is better for everyone. It is simply not true. We have evidence of decades of environmental devastation of biodiversity loss and that is relevant. It is relevant to our view in the Green Party—and I think shared by the Government—SPEAKER: If that was a point of order the member's won keep going.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: —that the Government has a responsibility on behalf of its citizens and the environment in which they live to use its collective power to get better outcomes for all of us. It's entirely appropriate to send a letter of expectation such as this to a State-owned enterprise or a mixed ownership model company like Air New Zealand expressing the values that we would like to see the company operate with. If anything we need more of that because in order to face the challenges that we are collectively facing we need greater accountability. The requirement or legal responsibility of company directors to pursue the best interests of the company in this narrowly defined idea of maximising the return for shareholders has cost us. But actually this is entirely consistent with the best interests of the company because the company—Air New Zealand—is going to be better off in a world where climate change is not an existential threat. Air New Zealand is going to be better off as a company in a world by training its employees well and being a best-practice employer which it has been. Indeed I think this is entirely consistent these expectations are actually consistent with how Air New Zealand has operated and why it has such a good reputation and why it had such good staff retention for a very long time. Absolutely it's appropriate for the people of New Zealand to say We have a stake in this airline and we want to make sure that it's meeting our needs as a country our needs for our people to get around."Now of course one of the other points that I would make is that what we've seen in Europe is that where there's been extensive investment in passenger rail now countries are actually shutting down flights where passenger rail services exist. This is something that is beyond this particular debate but we are actually limited in New Zealand because the privatisation of our railways for many decades means that we're not in a position to have really great passenger services. We're in a position of playing catch-up and that limits New Zealanders' ability to be able to get around the country while reducing emissions. So obviously that's more than Air New Zealand could address but being able to look into sustainable fuels is certainly something that they will have to do and they would be aware that they have to do anyway to be able to be successful as a company in the future.So I see no problem with this letter. I think it's appropriate and if anything it could have gone further in terms of expectations around the environment and climate change but I am still hopeful that Air New Zealand will be thinking about those issues for other reasons. To the right side of the House I say wake up. It's not 1988 anymore. We have decades of evidence about what is actually going to be better for our people and our planet and it is not the maximising of private profit at the expense of everyone else."