Ngarewa-Packer DebbieDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori): Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Ka hora te marino Ka whakapapa pounamu te moana Kia tere te kārohirohi i mua i tōu huarahi.[May the calm be widespread May the ocean glisten as greenstone May the shimmer of light ever dance across your pathway.]I rise to send the aroha of Te Paati Māori to everyone around the country bunkering down keeping safe looking after their whānau and battling rising floodwaters. My thoughts are with emergency service workers our Māori response leaders who are going above and beyond to serve their communities and save people from terrible situations. My heart aches when I hear news of firefighters trapped—are missing—workers stranded on roofs and towns in rural areas cut off from essential services. Ka nui te aroha. This cyclone comes only weeks after catastrophic flooding which hammered Te Tai Tokerau Tāmaki-makau-rau Waitomo and Hauraki and all of those rohe have been badly hit. Te Tai Rāwhiti has been hit time and time and time again and no effort should be spared in getting these rohe the short-term medium-term and long-term help that they need. We are glad that a national state of emergency has been declared and we acknowledge the Government for that. The seriousness of this cyclone has been obvious for days and while some don't want to politicise today I've left my community to send a very political message: the seriousness of this disruption was clear from the ground and yet it clearly wasn't for National who yesterday at the Business Committee blocked Parliament being able to meet virtually claiming this would be a one-day event which clearly it's not. As these extreme weather events occur more often with greater severity we need to adjust and ensure our Parliament can still operate even if MPs can't make it to Wellington. As MPs we should be focused on the ground looking after our communities and whānau checking on kaumātua and disabled dropping off kai—these aren't one-day events. We can't just carry on like nothing has happened. It seems like some want to ignore communities and lead this nation from the comfort of their chambers. People like that aren't fit to lead this nation and we have to be real—real with our neighbours real with our whānau and real with ourselves because climate change is here it is now and we are seeing it before our very eyes. It is forcing us to batten down the hatches as we sandbag our homes and stock up our supplies. Government must take responsibility for their response to these disasters and I acknowledge the Minister's mihi.As always we are seeing that marae iwi and urban Māori organisations are the first to set up emergency response centres. They must be properly resourced recognising they are always leading from the front. We have long known that we need much better strategies and infrastructure to respond to these extreme weather events. The Minister of Climate Change should be establishing an equity-based adaption fund to ensure we have that infrastructure and that whānau have what they need whether they are insured or not. He also needs to secure funding for whānau hapū and iwi to establish climate change adaption plans so that we can protect marae homes and communities. All of this is long overdue and communities across Aotearoa are now paying the price for Government inaction. We have not seen the transformative action that was promised. These disasters have not just exposed flaws in infrastructure but they've also exposed flaws in leadership. We didn't need a new Minister for Auckland; we needed a whole-of-Government response to climate change. We needed coordinated radical action and for climate adaption to be a top priority not a nice-to-have. We must have the central leadership role of tangata whenua respected and acknowledged. Aotearoa deserves a better climate leadership. We must demand change. To our whānau: it is timely to reflect on the teachings of our tūpuna listen to our maramataka and restore our awa moana and whenua. There is nothing that we can't survive no crisis too great no challenge too much as long as we stand together. Nō reira e te iwi maranga mai. Kia kaha kia māia kia manawanui. We've got this. Kia ora rā.