Roche DeniseDENISE ROCHE (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker tēnā koutou e Te Whare. It is my privilege to speak in this debate the last speaker for the Greens on what hopefully will be the final Budget of the National Government. When I look at the Budget that this Government has delivered I would say that what we have here is a lost opportunity. We have a vision where all our people especially our children have warm safe dry homes to live in; where families have enough to get by on—to live on not just to provide shelter and currently most families are spending a huge amount of their income on providing that shelter. So not just to provide the shelter pay the rent or the mortgage; not just to buy the bare essentials to get by like food and clothing; and not be in the situation of having to choose between feeding the kids and paying the power bill: we have a vision where our families have enough to live on. We have a vision where kids go to school with full bellies with shoes with raincoats; where they go to well-funded schools where they are ready to learn; and where the teachers are not exhausted from the underfunding and overwork that they are facing and where they are paid adequately too. We have a vision where our water is treated like the taonga that it is where we can trust that what comes out of our tap will not poison us where we can swim in our rivers without getting sick. We have a vision. We have a vision where not only our children but also our protected species are thriving; where we can arrest the decline of our endangered birds like our takahē our kiwi and our kōkako; and where our treasured places our wild places are protected and are protected from exploration by mining companies that are greedily wanting to suck the minerals out of the ground and destroy it for all of us. We have a vision where our country stands up and takes our place globally where we say to the rest of the world Yes we will increase our refugee quota. We won't have just 750 quota refugees that we will accept in this country." like we have since 1987. I know that it is going up to 1000 next year but we could do so much better than that. We have a vision where we could have 5000 refugees 4000 of them as quota refugees and another 1000 supported by ordinary Kiwi families. We could do that and that would bring us up to just what Australia is doing per capita. I do not know about you but I actually hate being beaten by the Australians in anything.We also think that taking our place globally means that we would do more to meet our targets about reducing our emissions. We absolutely signed up to reduce them but we have relied on sleight of hand to try to meet those targets. We have been buying credits spending about $10 million a year to make us look better in the eyes of the world when we could actually be doing real things. We have a plan where we could keep that $10 million. We have a plan for an investment infrastructure fund. We have a plan where we could invest to reduce our emissions. Instead of enriching other countries where they are using that money to really become carbon neutral we could do that here and what a difference that would make to our economy. It is such a smart way of spending the money that we gather as a nation. Instead Budget 2017 lacks vision. This Government has delivered the usual election bribe of tax cuts to the wealthy while our people our public services and our environment lack investment. The Government's insistence on sleight-of-hand tactics is a false economy. Rather than address the fact that there are 215000 children living in poverty in this country—and that costs us about $8 billion; that is what child poverty costs all of us—rather than invest in those children this Government gives tax cuts to the wealthy to the people who do not actually really need it. This Government has lacked investment in building homes homes for the 41000 homeless people in this country and it is shameful that there are that many people who do not have homes in this country. Instead of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on temporary solutions like putting families up in motels we could have been investing in our people by building social housing the social housing that they desperately need. That is definitely what we need. Meanwhile in Manurewa where my colleague Marama Davidson comes from two rough sleepers lost their lives in the last month because this Government has not invested in its people.This Government shows no compassion. This Government has ensured that Housing New Zealand does not house New Zealanders; it actually makes it more difficult for them. The free market is broken. It does not work for the most vulnerable people in our communities and it never has. Those who are vulnerable remain vulnerable. Where is the investment? I would say that investing in private prisons which this Government seeks to do under this Budget is not the right investment. That is not housing. Well I suppose it is a type of housing but it is a false economy and it is an irresponsible Government that does that. I believe that we should be judged as a Parliament on how we treat our most vulnerable.Mr SPEAKER: I apologise for interrupting the member but in accordance with the determination of the Business Committee I call on Catherine Delahunty to make her valedictory statement.Debate interrupted."