Hughes Gareth: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 29 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:366. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green):Kia ora. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to welcome the new members to the House. I would like to congratulate the returning members. I congratulate and acknowledge the Speaker the Assistant Speakers and the Deputy Speaker. Most of all I want to thank the voters the public—everyone who put up a billboard for a party no matter what colour; everyone who scrutineered or acted as an official; everyone who played a role in our democracy. That is what makes our country strong and I would like to acknowledge all those people.In this speech I want to pick up where Metiria Turei left off in her response to the Prime Minister’s reply to the Speech from the Throne. Metiria left off on the issue of climate change one of the defining issues of our generation. I am glad to be back in Parliament working on energy IT and innovation issues again this term. What we saw in the Prime Minister’s speech—he was sort of the comedian-in-chief. That is the approach John Key took. A nugget of information we got in that speech was that there are going to be more taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels. What he said was there is going to be more seismic survey information for the oil industry.This is an industry already favoured by the current Government. We see $46 million in annual tax breaks and $25 million in free information handed out to the sector on a platter. We see laws for hire the navy pulled out when protesters get in the way laws being passed under urgency over Easter trading and the crackdown on what New Zealander of the Year Dame Anne Salmond said was a breach of our right to be able to protest.What we need in this country is a separation of oil and State. What we need to do is break the bonds that see our Government in the Speech from the Throne setting out its legislative agenda for the next 3 years announcing that it is going to publicly subsidise fossil fuels. Right now we have the International Energy Agency the OECD and numerous international bodies calling for an end to fossil fuel subsidies for the very reason that we are using taxpayers’ money to burn the planet leading to climate change.Climate change is happening. I know that some people dispute the fact with their sort of folksy homespun science that keeps their heads in the sand but the fact is that when you look at the science the peer-reviewed articles it is happening. It is real. It is happening faster and more severely than scientists predicted only 5 years ago. If you have read some of the international scientific documents you will know that it is pretty bad because their reports from 5 years ago were pretty dire. What we are seeing is droughts intensifying. Storms are becoming stronger. Our ice sheets are melting decades ahead of projections. Our oceans are becoming more acidic. Great holes are even appearing in the Siberian tundra where methane is literally exploding out of the ground.I have got two young kids aged 3 and 7. I know that not everyone in this Chamber is here to listen to me bang on about climate change; they are here to listen to some maiden speeches. But on hearing some great contributions from various members I reflected on my maiden speech. I had talked about why I entered Parliament. It was for my two young kids Arlo and Zoe. My background is in working on climate change because I want them to grow up with a safe stable climate future. I want them to be able to play in the sun and enjoy the beach without ocean acidification. I do not want to see hundreds of millions of climate refugees which is what the world’s bodies like the United Nations are warning us of.What we have seen under the current Government despite the great challenge of this threat to which New Zealand is exposed is our emissions—our contribution to pollution in the atmosphere which is warming the planet—at 20 percent above where we promised it to be. Under the Government’s own projections it is going to be 50 percent above. Just this week we saw the 28 European Union nations commit to reducing their emissions by 40 percent. Similar nations have managed collectively to work out how to do it.I believe we are a can-do nation. That is something we pride ourselves on. We should be able to rise to one of the biggest challenges of our generation. I know that when you turn on the telly it is pretty concerning what with Ebola and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and inequality around the world. Some of these issues do feel far away and remote from New Zealand when they are on the television but the fact is that they are real and present challenges just like climate change.Being at the bottom of the South Pacific does not insulate us from the threat of climate change. No nation can escape the challenge of climate change—no matter how rich or poor big or small remote or near. The fact is that New Zealand is vulnerable. We are an agricultural nation that depends on a stable climate to be able to run our economy. We are a nation that is exposed to extreme weather events.One of the most harrowing experiences I have seen in my life was when I travelled to Kiribati a low-lying Pacific atoll nation less than a metre above sea level. It is on the front line of climate change. It is actively preparing. But sadly the response of the people in that developing very poor nation is that they are literally building sea walls out of rubbish next to the coast in their towns to try to stop the rising waters reaching in. That image will always be burnt in my mind. We need to play our part in the world to support our Pacific neighbours and all people in the world.New Zealand was elected to the United Nations Security Council because of our tradition and our background as a country that plays its part in the world which has been picked up on this debate. We have a very real and genuine role to play on the Security Council—for good in the world be it for peace be it for sustainability. When it comes to climate change it is a challenge but New Zealand can play a role at the globe’s top table. Climate change is a real challenge a hard one but it is not intractable. The answers are obvious available now and they will benefit our economy.One of the great experiences of election campaigning and why I love election campaigning is that you kind of get out of this place and you get to talk about your vision for the future—your values your solutions. We actually get to talk about policy. I know we did not talk a great deal about policy in a personality election but there was some talk about policy. What we launched in the election campaign were ideas for a carbon tax cut something that business commentator Rod Oram said would fix the emissions trading scheme scam. We saw people like John Armstrong in the New Zealand Herald say: “In one deft stroke the policy has the Greens saving the planet helping the poor giving big carbon users an incentive to be more efficient”.What we wanted to do was send a reliable economic signal to businesses use and harness the power of the markets so that people can make efficient investment decisions—to send them an economic signal—but also not to just have a tax grab as many taxpayers are sceptical of. We wanted to recycle the revenue to Kiwi consumers so they were better off. We wanted to establish a Green Investment Bank as the UK under David Cameron has done. We wanted to see solar panels on our schools so that schools could spend more money on their kids. What we identified with an investment of $20 million to put solar panels on 500 schools is that schools could save money.We heard from principals and boards of trustees up and down the country and one of the most pleasing moments was when they announced what they would love to spend their savings on. Some of our schools are spending more than $70000 a year just to keep the lights on. These schools said they would rather spend the money on things like literacy programmes playground equipment or music classes. This is what our schools could be spending their money on—on the kids—if they were saving money by producing their own power and doing it cleanly.We wanted to help Kiwi families go into solar homes with a low-interest loan. We wanted to set a bold ambitious target that was achievable feasible and affordable—to get to 100 percent renewables. We wanted to continue the successful home insulation programme that we have worked on with previous National Governments and we wanted to help Kiwis get into electric cars.In Metiria Turei’s speech she offered a challenge and an opportunity for National to work together with us. We have worked together in the past on issues where we can agree. When you look at the big issues facing our country why can we not put some of the partisanship aside for a minute? Why can we not work together as the voters intended with a mixed-member proportional system—with MMP? That door should be opened because no matter where the idea comes from Kiwis should be able to see our politicians work together for good ideas in the public interest.I want to wrap up on this point. When it comes to climate change this challenge is not just about the penguins or the polar bears; it is about the people. It is not just a political or an economic issue; it is a moral issue. We as New Zealanders pride ourselves on doing what is right. Let us do what is right and let us employ people to install solar panels on people’s roofs and insulation under them and embrace the smart Green innovative economy that we know is going to produce more jobs and more prosperity. That is something that should be able to unite this Parliament and we will still work with anyone in this Parliament on issues where we can agree. Thank you. Kia ora koutou.