Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I rise to speak on the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill and I would like to start my comments by responding to some of the comments from previous speakers from the other side of the House. I do seeing as he raised it want to touch on Brexit—the decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union that was raised by the previous speaker Chris Bishop.But I thought that I would start by responding to some of the comments of Mr Bennett who spoke a bit earlier about how the EU was a failed State. I would imagine that some of the EU ambassadors will shortly be making their way to Mr Bennett's door because I do think that the European Union does not fit the definition of a failed State and neither do any of the countries inside the European Union. Germany for example has a higher productivity rate than New Zealand. Germany's wages are higher than New Zealand's. Its environmental standards are higher than New Zealand's. Its employment relations are stronger than New Zealand's. Germany is moving further and faster on climate change than New Zealand. Germany is also pulling its weight substantially when it is coming to resettling refugees from Syria and other distressed countries. I think that it is an extraordinary assertion to suggest that it is a failed State.Moving on to Brexit to the decision by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union—and it is relevant to this Appropriation Bill because in his analysis that this kind of appropriation bill giving effect to this Budget is exactly what we need for this kind of time of instability—Mr Bishop overlooks the fact that it is exactly this kind of Budget and appropriation that leads to the underlying social and economic conditions that give people a reason to vote for leaving the European Union. Because the very same set of conditions in the UK that led to the rise in discontent in the United Kingdom with the people who are running the United Kingdom with immigrants coming into the United Kingdom with the general state of affairs is what drove that protest vote and the decision to leave the European Union. It is exactly the same set of social and economic conditions that is giving rise to Donald Trump in the United States. It is rising inequality where you can have an extended period of significant increase in GDP but at the same time a large portion of the population is getting left further and further behind. That is the trend in the United States it is the trend in the United Kingdom and it is also the trend here. We did start later. It started here in about 1991 whereas it had been going on in the United States since the late 1970s and in Britain since the early 1980s but the same trend does exist here and if it continues you will see the same kind of resentment and backlash that built up in both of those countries present here today. That gives rise to populism and to nationalism. It gives rise to anti-immigrant feelings and to social discord. We absolutely cannot let that continue in New Zealand and it is exactly the kinds of policies that are enacted in this Appropriation Bill.Today we had the news from Statistics New Zealand from the household net worth statistics that the top 10 percent of New Zealand households now own half of the country's total wealth. So 10 percent of our families own half of our wealth while the bottom 40 percent of families own just 3 percent of the wealth. So you have got 10 percent owning half the wealth and 40 percent owning 3 percent of the wealth and that trend is continuing. And that is exactly what we saw in the United Kingdom and it is exactly what we are seeing in the United States and in several other countries as well. When you have the kind of wealth inequality that is that stark and when it is growing it is clear that the economy is not working for everyone.So you can have a headline number that says gross domestic product is increasing 2.4 percent a year and that is you know Great news!" but if it is not shared in by people all across the economy then it is not working. The economy is not working. That is what you are seeing here. That kind of wealth inequality is driving the housing crisis particularly with the kinds of measures that you continue to see in this Budget which enable people who are already property owners—it is extremely easy for them to leverage their existing assets to buy yet more assets whereas people who want to buy their first home are completely locked out of the market. It means that you have got people who cannot afford their rents any more.Many of the people who are living in garages and in three-bedroom houses with 11 people in them—these are people with jobs. They actually have jobs and so when I think it was Anne Tolley asserted in the last few days that National's plan for eliminating poverty is to grow the economy well the economy has been growing at the same time as poverty. Poverty has been growing in this country all of these years even while gross domestic product has been increasing. So the fact that GDP is growing actually is meaningless just by itself in terms of what that means for people at the bottom of the heap. If the kinds of policies that the Government is enacting continue to be applied then those people will continue to get further and further behind. What you have had here in New Zealand since about 1991 is that the top third of income earners in New Zealand have done very well so their incomes have increased. People in the middle—we call it the squeezed middle; the middle third of income earners—have just managed to increase but as cost of living has increased as well they are holding on by their absolute fingernails. They are getting increasingly conservative because they are worried that any change will rock the boat and that will cause them to slip under the waves. But in the meantime the bottom 30 percent of income earners in this country have got further and further behind because their incomes have been rising lower than the cost of living has been increasing so they have actually been going backwards in this country.These are exactly the kinds of outcomes that are exacerbated by the Budget this year and by the Appropriation Bill that we are debating here today which gives effect to that Budget. I concur with the previous speaker Chris Bishop that these are uncertain times and that we need to navigate carefully but the problem is that Mr Bishop's Government is doing exactly the same kind of thing that the United States and the UK did that created the conditions that caused the kind of resentment that is leading to the rise in populism and nationalism and racism in those countries and that would be a disaster if we allowed that to continue here in New Zealand as well.We have some other specific criticisms about the Appropriation Bill that is in front of us today as well. We have said consistently that we were looking for an improvement in the state of our rivers. We have been campaigning on that for many years. The supplementary estimates include $3.816 million for ensuring successful implementation of the national policy statement. But of course all that does is maintain a pretty low level of water quality in New Zealand. You would have to say that $3.816 million is not a significant allocation of money.In housing this is another perfect example of a Government that is trying to be seen to be doing something while actually doing as little as possible. When it could have been really changing the conditions in this country it has actually done pretty much nothing at all just what it can get away with. We need tens of thousands of houses and this Government is not doing anywhere nearly enough to ensure that that actually takes place.On climate change I want to note that there is an additional appropriation here of $115.760 million of allocation of New Zealand Units to trade-exposed emitters—in other words a subsidy by the Government to our major polluters in this country. So we are handing $115.5 million of public money to the worst polluters in the country—that is $115 million of free carbon credits to subsidise pollution—and it is no surprise therefore that when you subsidise pollution it continues to increase. We learnt about a month ago that the emissions trading scheme which has now been in existence for 9 years—during that period of time our emissions have actually increased by 20 percent which is extraordinary. Why would you have an emissions trading scheme if you actually did not want emissions to go down? So this Government is short-sighted and—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry to interrupt—JAMES SHAW: Very well Mr Assistant Speaker I shall sit down."