Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. The Green Party doesn't have a really strong opinion on this bill. I mean we understand the reasons for it; they are perfectly understandable. We didn't support the urgency motion. We do think this is something that could have been handled in another way other than urgency if it had been dealt with sooner but we are supporting the bill.I just want to make a couple of comments about the importance of the Auditor-General—that the work they do is really critical to the transparency and function of democracy; that their statutory requirements are incredibly important. But many of the other inquiries they've undertaken are also really useful to the functioning of our country. It is totally understandable in the post-COVID environment where they've undertaken a lot of extra work because of COVID like many other private and public entities in Aotearoa New Zealand that this has led to scheduling issues as well as the shortage of auditors internationally and here in New Zealand.Now I guess the only thing that we can say aside from supporting this short-term measure to deal with the constraints is the overall long-term changes that are needed so that this sort of problem doesn't arise in the future—that there is sufficient capacity in bodies like the Auditor-General to undertake this really important work. And I guess that just speaks to the overall need for building up capacity and support of the State of the Government to undertake these public-good activities. That is something that will not happen if you get an ideological right-wing Government like the National Party or the ACT Party who consistently run down public services—Government services. I mean obviously we're still sort of dealing with that because ultimately after National had nine years with ACT in part to do this unfortunately when the coalition Government came in we had a lot of promises about things that we wanted to deliver that had great public benefit but there wasn't the revenue promised to enable it.So because we're stuck in this environment where we're not raising enough revenue from the wealthiest New Zealanders—like for example with a capital gains tax or a wealth tax—we've had an enormous increase a windfall increase in the value of property in New Zealand and all of that is going into private hands rather than some of it coming back to the public to the things that actually benefit the public; public services like the Auditor-General which are really important and they need to be properly funded. And I think most of the Offices of Parliament haven't had major increases in their funding and a lot of commissions haven't either over the years and that means they aren't able to do that work that benefits all of us in a variety of different ways.So ultimately building up that capacity for public-good functions requires a commitment to us working together as a country and it also requires a fair tax system which sees those who have gained the most from the status quo putting back to the things that benefit us all. And of course there will be those in this House who I can hear just love to demonise the whole idea but really it's not low-income or middle-income people who need to pay more tax; if anything they pay too much. It is the highest-income earners but mostly the wealth owners and the properties owners who are getting rich off no work of their own just by being in the right place at the right time and the quantitative easing that the Reserve Bank has engaged in—just general inflation. It makes sense that that financial representation of our efforts as a country that some of that comes back to the public good that benefits us all.And so the Green Party supports the bill and we will continue to support a fairer tax system where the wealthiest pay their share.