Davidson Marama; Mallard TrevorMARAMA DAVIDSON (Co-Leader—Green): For a healthy society where communities feel connected to each other where all people can live good lives we need to in this House reduce inequality. We need to reject too much wealth in too few hands. Inequality as we know is much bigger than just wealth and income but incomes are a good measure of what sort of country we live in and the gap between incomes is a good measure of what sort of messages and what values we stand for. Now the Greens know that connectedness between communities and between groups of people suffers when we allow for some people to thrive and far many more to struggle. We all do better when we realise that all work has value when we realise that all people have value no matter what the circumstances. We all want some pretty basic things: to be able to pay our rent pay our mortgage have proper healthy kai pay our bills—pretty basic things. But for too long politicians have put up barriers to prosperity for working people and this is why the Greens are disappointed with the outcome of the review into MP pay announced just yesterday The plan that was announced is that we are going to revert back to an older system for setting MP pay and put it back to the Remuneration Authority. And while this should prevent some of the massive increases in MP pay that we have seen recently for us it is still not good enough and we need to send a clear signal that everyone deserves to live good lives that politicians are in some way connected to ordinary people that we are not the only hard workers in society and I do absolutely uphold that each of us here work hard to do our constituencies and our communities the absolute best. In saying that all work has value the Greens want MP salary increases to be tagged to the dollar amount of median wage increases. So for example in 2014 where MPs' base salary rose by about 2.2 percent $3000 a year the median income rose by only $780 and that is the nominal the dollar amount increase that we would have seen as acceptable. In the context of the barriers to prosperity that politicians are responsible for we've got plenty around us: people lining up outside my local Work and Income office in Manurewa because housing costs are incredibly unaffordable for people receiving a social security income but also for people who work in paid employment. I've been hearing from unions that their members are paying up to 80 percent of their income. That is not acceptable 65 percent is not acceptable but when people are paying any more than 50 percent it's hard. It's a struggle to make ends meet. Wagamama staff just here in Wellington have had to fight for their wages holiday pay and entitlements. That is theft of their wages and we have got ordinary people having to fight for what they are already owed while we in this House are comfortable with the massive pay increases that we are likely to get with the system that we have announced today.The mental health stresses of people just trying to get by—just trying to get by—again come back to the prosperity that politicians can be responsible for can make a difference in. When societies are more equal we will not see the rate of suicide that we are seeing in our country. When societies are more equal we will not see the ridiculous the shameful level of homelessness that we are seeing in our beautiful country. When societies are more equal we will have less mental health illness and people seeking mental health services in our communities. We had an opportunity here for New Zealanders to feel more connected to what MPs do and to our whole entire political system by not moving MP salaries so far away from what the rest of working New Zealanders have come to expect. And I want to acknowledge that the Greens have been putting up this fight since at least 2014 with former Green Party co-leader Russel Norman announcing that this is what the Greens stand for—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.