Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Leader—Green): Kia tau te rangimarie o Te Rangi e tū nei o Papatuānuku e takoto nei o te taiāo e awhi nei ki runga i a tātou. Tīhei mauri ora! E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare ngā mihi o te wā ki a koutou katoa.[May the peace of the Sky Father standing here Mother Earth lying here and the embracing environment be upon us. Behold the breath of life! Salutations to you Mr Speaker. Acknowledgments of the moment to you all.]I'd like to start today by acknowledging our new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. I first met Ms Ardern about 10 years ago in London when she was the newly minted president of the International Union of Socialist Youth and straight off the bat I asked her if they still let socialists into the Labour Party these days. Clearly she has forgiven me because otherwise she would've never made me her Minister of Statistics. I did ask for that—I did ask for that in more ways than one.Anyway not too long after that she had to head home to New Zealand to become a member of Parliament where her values and her shrewd judgment and her warmth and her empathy gained a much wider audience. So Jacindamania" did not come as a surprise to me but it was only truly after this election during the negotiation process that led to the formation of this Government that I came to appreciate just how formidable those qualities are. They played a key role in forging the bonds of respect and trust that bind the parties that form this Government together. This is—and it's been said before—a true MMP Government and I can assure the people of New Zealand that its leadership is in good hands.I'd also like to acknowledge the Deputy Prime Minister the Rt Hon Winston Peters who also knows a thing or two about negotiations and his colleagues in the New Zealand First Party. Our parties as has been documented do not agree on everything but we do agree—as has not been documented—on far more than we disagree and we do look forward to working with them over the course of the coming years to find common cause and to deliver the best for New Zealand in what will be a historic and transformational Government.I would also like to acknowledge the Rt Hon Bill English and his horde. Although we disagree on you know everything I do respect Mr English's service to his country and the fact that his party was nearly as popular after nine years in Government as it was when it was first elected. I expect National to be a formidable Opposition. I welcome that because I believe that our Government will be better for that. So you know we were off to a good start yesterday with Simon Bridges flexing his muscles which he works on so hard in the gym every day and we look to see more of that in the future.It is 27 years since the Green Party was first founded with the goal of bringing the principles of ecological wisdom social responsibility appropriate decision-making and non-violence to New Zealand politics to solve the problems that traditional politics could not. It has been a very long and a very winding road but today the Green Party has arrived in Government.I'd like to pay particular tribute to the long-serving founders of the Green Party and in particular Rod Donald and Jeanette Fitzsimons. It was their courage that set us on this path it was their vision that guided us and it was their strength that sustained us. I know that their eyes are on us weighing our actions and holding us to the highest ethical standards of behaviour that they expect from their successors and I know this because Jeanette Fitzsimons keeps telling me this. I'd also like to acknowledge our former leaders of the Green Party Russel Norman and Metiria Turei and all of our current and our former members of Parliament. And I would like to thank our staff and our many volunteers and all of those who stood as candidates who voted for us and who supported us. Our country and our world will be the better for your support. We carry your support and your work and your expectations with us into this Parliament and now into Government.On the night that the formation of this Government was announced the Rt Hon Winston Peters said that "too many New Zealanders have come to view today's capitalism not as their friend but as their foe. And they are not all wrong." Two days later our new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that when it comes to housing the poor capitalism had been a "blatant failure". Now I agree with both of those statements but I know that many in this House do not and some of their supporters do not. They believe that the Government should not interfere with the economy. They believe that people's life outcomes are the fair and just results of market forces and that what they earn is a fair and true reflection of their value in the economy. They believe that government cannot create value and that government is not the solution to the problem; it is the problem. That has been the prevailing view expressed in this House earlier.Amongst many politicians and economists in this country and across much of the developed world for the last 30 years our politics our economy and our society have been dominated by a belief in the efficacy of free markets but there is a fatal flaw at the heart of that argument: you cannot exclude government from the market because it is the Government that enables the market to function. To say that you want a free market without Government interference is like saying that you want a house but you could do without the roof or the walls or the floor which is perhaps why so many Kiwis are living in cars these days.The State creates and enforces the laws by which our economy functions. When people say they want less government in the economy what they're really saying is that they want different rules and usually they're saying that they want different outcomes—ones that favour themselves and the interests that they represent. But they're also trying to create the illusion that the economy can be neutral that it can be fair and that it can be impartial when what we've had in New Zealand in recent years is anything but that.What we've had is an economy with high inequality low wage growth low productivity and runaway inflation in our housing market; an economy that has poisoned our rivers and threatens the extinction of thousands of native species; an economy that is failing to act on climate change; and an economy that is failing to deliver for far too many New Zealanders. And the market itself did not decide to do any of those things. Previous Governments set laws that allowed those things to happen. The market was an excuse for those Governments to hide behind while they did it and to claim that the unjustness and the unfairness of the rules that they set were somehow fair and just just because they were the will of the market.Well while the Green Party is in Government we will be open and we'll be honest with New Zealanders about our values and our goals. We are here to support families and to lift children out of poverty. We are here to save our rivers and our endangered species. We are here to solve problems that the market cannot and the first and the greatest of those is climate change.It is a great privilege and a great responsibility to be the first Green Minister for Climate Change and Associate Minister of Finance for the Green Infrastructure Fund. All of the things that we care about whether it's a better society a fair economy conserving our environment or sustaining our future—all of those things intersect on this one issue which is the gravest and the most formidable danger to our country our society our economy and our environment that we currently face as a society.In New Zealand previous Governments have been noteworthy only for their inaction on climate change. We had a previous Prime Minister who actually took pride in saying that he was not a leader but a follower on climate change. Instead of actually reducing our emissions New Zealand purchased fraudulent carbon credits offshore and claimed that this somehow met our obligations. Since that time the previous Government budgeted hundreds of millions of dollars to buy more offshore credits instead of investing that money here at home in our economy and solving our problems first.Under this Government that commitment to do nothing—that commitment to be a follower rather than a leader—ends now. As of this moment today New Zealand shall join with those countries that seek to lead the fight against climate change. The previous Government's approach to dealing with climate change was to say "Look we're a small country. We can't make a difference. Why do we even try? Let's do nothing." Our Government's approach is to say "What can we do? Let's make that happen." To coin a phrase: let's do this.So what can we do? Well New Zealand is in a unique position in the world to make a global contribution to this great cause. We are a small but advanced economy but we have the emissions profile of a developing economy. If this country can solve the technological and economic challenges of transitioning our transport and our energy and yes agricultural sectors over to a low emissions model then we are solving that problem for the rest of the planet—and that is intellectual property. We are a small part of the world and we are a remote part of the world but we are still a part of the world. It is in our strategic interests to save it. We can make a difference and we will.Now one thing I learnt in the private sector is that you can only manage what you measure. This is at least as applicable to the public sector and that is why I am also very proud to serve as the Minister of Statistics. As one wag on Twitter pointed out the Greens have seized the production of means. The previous Government also knew that measurement is important. That is why they fought so hard against measuring child poverty in New Zealand because if they didn't measure it they couldn't therefore be held accountable for it. This Government will make the measure and will take the measure of child poverty. This Government will take responsibility for child poverty and this Government will reduce child poverty.This Government will also take the measure of our economic performance beyond the measure of gross domestic product. Now GDP is a useful tool but the economic output of a country's economy is not the same thing as the well-being of the people in it or of the environment that sustains us. We have had 29 quarters of real GDP growth but wages are not keeping up with the cost of living; 29 quarters of GDP growth but two-thirds of our monitored rivers are unfit to swim in; 29 quarters of GDP growth and the most unaffordable houses in the world relative to incomes; 29 quarters of GDP growth and 29 quarters of traffic gridlock in Auckland City; 29 quarters of GDP growth and about 3000 native species at extreme risk of extinction; 29 quarters of GDP growth and climate pollution levels that are 19 percent higher than when the National Government came to power; 29 quarters of GDP growth have not filled the bellies of the kids who go hungry to school.Governments have got to aim higher than that. Governments have got to aim higher than merely increasing the market output of their economies. High levels of population growth have delivered economic growth because when there are more people there is more economic activity. We have been listening to Messrs English and Joyce you know pretend that that somehow is real growth for the last decade. But that population growth was not matched by investment in infrastructure or regional development or emissions reduction or environmental management or frankly any kind of coherent plan to lift or improve the wages and well-being of New Zealanders. Mr Joyce famously said "We don't do strategy." Well that's clear.This will be a Government of change. Some people are afraid of change and that is understandable. It is natural to want things to stay the way they are especially if you're doing well out of the status quo. But we don't have that choice. Change is already here. Our climate is changing. Our environment is changing. Our economy is changing. And our society is changing. That change can either be unplanned and catastrophic or it can be anticipated and well managed. Simply sweeping the great challenges of our time under the carpet and hoping that they will go away or that nobody notices is the kind of expedient and short-term thinking that gives politics and politicians a bad name.In my maiden speech three years ago last Wednesday I said that "I enter Parliament as a member of our country's loyal Opposition. My role is in part to hold to account to challenge and to speak truth to power but I am not committed to partisanship for its own sake. Political tribalism is I believe the single greatest barrier to creating enduring solutions to the great challenges of our time. I know that the first step in finding the answers is to work together. Time is too short for resignation. Things are too bad for pessimism. It is too big a task for petty politics. It is too important for partisanship. These things we must transcend and transform. If any other member of this House from any political party or any member of the public hears this challenge and wants to rise to it my door is open."When I said those things it being a maiden speech I was speaking for myself. But to me it also sums up the Green Party's way of doing politics when we are at our best: seeking to solve the great challenges of our time putting solutions above partisanship and focusing on the long term. Being in Opposition or on the cross benches for the entire 18 years of our parliamentary history gave us a lot of time to get good at that. It is my hope that the new Opposition takes a similar approach—and a similar time scale. If we as a nation are to restore and replenish our forests and our rivers and our birds if we are to end child poverty and if we are to lead the global fight against climate change it will take longer than three years. It will.Today is just the beginning of the beginning. Today is the day that the Green Party has to take up the responsibility of Government and to deliver on the promises that we have made over successive decades to the people of New Zealand. And it is time for New Zealand to again show the world that although we are small we can be a great nation who can play a great role in a great cause and that role starts today. Thank you Mr Speaker. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa."