Abel SteveSTEVE ABEL (Green): Kia ora koutou. Thank you Mr Speaker. I acknowledge the local iwi—Te Atiawa Ngāti Toa Rangatira Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga—on whose rohe we stand.Bish-boom bish-boom bish-boom bish-boom bish-boom bish-boom—that's the sound of my heart. I have a damaged mitral valve. That whooshing sound bish" is the sound of a little blood flowing back the wrong way which in part explains my attitude to the world perhaps.When I was an infant we lived in the best home our parents could afford a typical damp cold weatherboard house in Mount Albert that backed on to the railway tracks. And when I was three years old I fell very ill. A doctor came to the house late one night and listened to my chest for a long time and sent me straight to hospital. I had rheumatic fever. I survived with a lifelong heart murmur thanks to penicillin and the public health service. But when anyone asks why an environmentalist cares so much that every child in this country should be raised in a warm dry affordable accessible secure home I carry that belief in my heart with every beat.When I was four we moved to another house and my sister Kate came along—and Kate you are there with Isabel and Sophie. I planted a tōtara seedling in our backyard when I was seven years old that had come free from the school fair. E noho ana au ki raro i te maru o Maungawhau [I am residing under the protection of Maungawhau]. I planted it in the rich volcanic soil on the lava flow of Maungawhau. The seedling has grown now far taller than me. I can't even get my arms around it. And for me to stand in the shadow of something that began no taller than a child's thumb and will if let survive far exceed a human lifespan is to feel the awe of my early wonderment of nature which I believe all of us experienced in our childhoods.And for the sake of livable cities and a livable planet I am prepared to work with Chris Bishop to bring back general tree protection. We can do this Chris—mana rākau. When I was eight years old I came home from school believing I was dumb in the terminology of the day. I couldn't read. Mum found a teacher—Margaret Hooten—who assessed dyslexia and taught me to read through phonics but school had already lost me. It is a matter of mental survival for a child in that if the system doesn't believe in you you cannot believe in it. I had a distrust of the education system and a cynicism towards authority which has never really gone away. One thing I will support this Government in is use of structured literacy in the classroom and debunking this failed system of whole-language learning that has harmed so many through illiteracy in this country.In 1981 I was 11 and my parents took me down to Fowlds Park to assemble for the protest against the Springboks playing the All Blacks at Eden Park. The organiser said I was too young and I had to walk home. But at that age I had a strong sense of the need to be part of this movement against our country playing sports with an apartheid State.I joined a march against nuclear weapons when I was 13. I understood the existential threat of nuclear holocaust and the vile nature of US hegemony. When the audience stood and applauded as David Lange completed the Oxford Union debate in February 1985 on the moot that nuclear weapons are morally indefensible I remembered the distinct feeling of pride at being represented by this articulate leader taking this principled stand on our behalf as a small nation. Lange's retort to the pressure of the US to accept nuclear weapons was "It is self-defeating logic just as the weapons themselves are self-defeating; to compel an ally to accept nuclear weapons against the wishes of that ally is to take the moral position of totalitarianism which allows for no self-determination which is exactly the evil we are supposed to be fighting against."I am dismayed that as the United States descends further into genocidal hegemony we are so quickly willing to burn that hard-fought nuclear-free independence by signing away our status out of ANZUS and putting us back into AUKUS. New Zealand belongs as a nuclear-free independent South Pacific peacemaker.When I was 15 I learnt how to play David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on guitar: "Ground Control to Major Tom". David Bowie is still my spiritual guide. It would set me on a path of music making and songwriting that is a profound salve and sanity in my life. Into the abyss we stare and art draws us out into pure air.At the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art many years later I saw a 40000-year-old Chinese flute exquisitely crafted from an ostrich bone. Music and art are a much more ancient and universal necessity of being human in the constructs of industrialism capitalism consumerism individualism and money. Any society that wants to be healthy and intelligent supports the arts. A shout-out to my beloved friends paying their rent in the "Tower of Song".When I was 16 some kids brought the petition against homosexual law reform to Mt Roskill Grammar. A group of us went around telling other students not to sign it; that it was a bad thing. Even as I was just discovering who I was I knew that no one should be made illegal for expressing their sexual identity—and that goes for gender identity too.My mum was raised in the provincial Bay of Plenty in the 1940s and 1950s. Her mum Kathleen had lost her first husband in the Napier-Hastings earthquake. Mum's was a disrupted upbringing. She fell pregnant out of wedlock in the late-1950s; the options were adopting the kids out or illegal and dangerous abortion. In the convent where she was sent unmarried mothers were expected to give birth to their illegitimate children in shameful silence and the babies were taken without ever being seen or held by their birth mothers. When I was 19 my sister Kate and I were able to meet our sister Chris and our brother Stephen. It's great to have you here today Chris—where have you gone? You were there and now you've gone! Mum said there should be some place on Earth that you can walk in the front door and make yourself a cup of tea without asking anyone permission. That was her definition of home.My father was courageous and loving. He adored his children and he would spoil us to a fault. He was a rower a computer systems analyst and won a seat on the Auckland Council in 2004 as a City Vision Green opposing drinking-water privatisation. Mum had been a land girl and a herd tester. She worked six years in the Norwegian Merchant Navy visiting 42 countries in 1960s before she met Dad. She was part of the playcentre movement the Child Poverty Action Group and was a silver grand master bridge champion. Just weeks before her death in 2010 she arrived at the bottom of Queen Street in her wheelchair she was riddled with cancer. She came to the 40000-strong march against mining that I had helped to organise and Dad wheeled her all the way up Queen Street; she wouldn't have missed it for the world.For my values who I am and my compass on life I'm so much indebted to my parents.I travelled in my twenties. At 27 a site of extensive rain forest destruction for palm plantations in Malaysia set me on the path of the last 27 years of my life advocating for the protection of nature. I returned to New Zealand and on the wall of a friend's flat I saw a poster of someone standing in the canopy of a giant rimu tree. It was Pat McNamara and the banner said "Haere mai! N F A welcomes those who respect the forest". I found my band of likeminded brothers and sisters at Carlaw Park on Waitangi Day in 1998. When we stood in those ancient West Coast forests as young people and saw the blood-red sap on the freshly cut stumps of centuries old rimu we sometimes felt helpless but we learnt the art of campaigning under the tutorage of Nicky Hager. When 137000 hectares of native forest was eventually protected we experienced firsthand that through organised political action you can change the course of history. I'm blessed to have subsequently played a part in movements that stopped coal-fired power at Marsden B; kept our food production GE-free; protected our oceans coasts and climate from offshore oil and gas exploration; undid plans to mine our most valuable conservation land; save sea life from plastic bags; and most recently advocated that rural people should not be exposed to nitrate-contaminated drinking water. Shout-out to Native Forests Action Council Greenpeace and Mana Rākau friends here today—[Looks at clock] crikes the time is terrifying Mr Speaker.I believe in an interconnected world. We are nature; it is us. If the rivers are sick the people will be sick. The absurdity of industrial progress is that it promises a better life through destroying the only world in which we can actually live. For the few to degrade and pollute what is a necessity for all—clean water abundant oceans and forests a stable atmosphere—is more than merely an injustice to people; it is an act against all species and against the viability of life itself and therefore the most monumental harm that could be committed.A Parliament that is not able to meaningfully address existential risk threats itself risks irrelevance. If this House has a just purpose it must be to protect the common good from the ruthlessness of vested interest rather than as it so often does facilitate those vested interests to harm the commons.We make a grave error in not seeing Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the words of Moana Jackson as a profound visionary base upon which to build a country. The Treaty should be seen as a sacred bond. When I was a kid there was a black wall on Dominion Road with the words painted "Honour the Treaty." I didn't know what it meant. They didn't teach us anything about New Zealand history at school. On the inside cover of the school journal was Goldie's painting of Māori arriving in a sailing waka in despair and starvation. A vivid image like that is a powerful lie to load into a child's brain. I cannot stand the wilful sowing of ignorance particularly by those with political power. To quote Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol on ignorance he said "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes and make it worse. And abide the end." To still suggest Māori ceded sovereignty is an audacious erasure of history in actual texts let alone a betrayal of human relationships. People do not cede sovereignty. Not my ancestors the Scots not the Irish not the West Papuans not the Palestinians and not tangata whenua Māori. Self-determination and autonomy are deep human needs. Any nation that truly believes in freedom does not want that only for itself while denying that same freedom to others. As tangata Tiriti I will uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi and tino rangatiratanga for Māori. That is the Pākehā price of citizenship.As climate change bites with ever greater ferocity it will be the society that we hold together and the values of that human society that matter more and more. What is the foundation of the life we make in this earth? As a culture it must be based on plurality on justice on respect and understanding and ultimately love. The most useful line in our otherwise pretty average national anthem is "in the bonds of love we meet"—in the bonds of love we meet.Thank you all for being here. It's wonderful to have you here. Special mention to the Greens and particularly the awesome west Greens. The south Greens are quite good but the west Greens and Sinéad and the voters who got me here—I'm stoked to be part of this amazing caucus.My life did not lack meaning before fatherhood but afterwards it became the meaning. My grandfather George of the Aberdeenshire Abels born in Invercargill would say that parenting was greatness thrust upon you. It's true. You are great Quinn. Boom! Gotcha! He's going to hate me for that.Quinn was born three days after the Petrobras survey ship left te Whānau-ā-Apanui's customary waters—his middle name is Raukūmara; his age 12 marks the years since they left. I want to thank Rikirangi Gage Dale Takutimu Rob Ruha and all the Apanui crew for that powerful alliance we made between Greenpeace and you. And Mike Smith and Hinekaa Mako who instigated the bond—it's great to have you here Bianca. I met Rawiri in that struggle—I know you're not here Rawiri; I'll stand with you any day to stop the oil drillers. I know I'm not meant to mention people who aren't here but you are my hero. I'll stand with you any day Rawiri to stop the oil drillers and Megan for that matter and any of you for that matter—join the side of life.I know people on all sides of the House; I'm not a natural partisan I believe that dialogue across difference is vital for harmonious society. And I love you Niamh it's great to have you here thanks for backing me in this crazy thing. Good to see you here too Emmet and all the Deighton-O'Flynns. And Glasgow in the House Lucy Cusick—team beestaay there—let's go.Finally on the day my mum died she had lost the ability to speak but was still completely cognisant. Her brother John called from Katikati—he was too unwell to make her passing and he said "Recall to Jan when we were children we took the horses down to Pāpāmoa Beach. We took off the saddles and the bridles and we clung to their manes and we rode them bareback into the breaking waves screeching with laughter. It was ecstatic; the horses loved the sea and so did we." That joy and ecstasy of interaction with wild nature that is what it is to be a child. That is what it is to be human and that is what we must defend for all children now and to come. Kia ora koutou kia ora koutou katoa.[Applause hongi and harirū]Waiata"