Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Today we are debating the fifth long-term fiscal position statement He Tirohanga Mokopuna produced by the Treasury. The last one was produced in 2016. In 2016 climate-changing carbon dioxide concentrations in our atmosphere reached 403.3 parts per million. In 2022 Hawaii's Manua Loa Observatory tells us that they are 420.66 parts per million—that is a rather frightening trajectory. And for context for those in the House: carbon dioxide levels of 280 to 350 parts per million were the atmospheric context that created and enabled humanity to feed and build the modern world. In 2016 median house prices were $489000. In 2021 median house prices were $830000. The 2016 version of He Tirohanga Mokopuna very clearly laid out what was then required and is still required for a healthy economy—the economy being those rules we set up about how we relate to each other and our planet and how we exchange value. That 2016 report stated Intergenerational well-being relies on the growth distribution and sustainability of the four capitals—financial and physical capital; human capital (e.g. health and skills); social capital (e.g. institutions and trust); and natural capital (e.g. water and biodiversity)." I raise this today because whilst so much of this debate has already been consumed by the politics of today there is real value in determining whether we as policy makers pay any real heed to the concerns that outlive a three-year political cycle. The 2021 report makes it clear that there are choices to be made about what happens next in setting the rules of our economy and that each of these choices have trade-offs. The level of comfort that each of us have in what those trade-offs are and the things we will prioritise as outcomes are a matter of our respective political values. Of course these are our ideologies. So let's talk about those ideologies about those trade-offs and those priorities. As the Greens we have always been clear about our four core founding charter principles that rest on the foundation of recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of this country. The first of our principles is ecological wisdom. That is recognition of the fact that resources are finite. Even those resources that do regenerate need time and space and God forbid some planning in order to regenerate. The second of those principles is social responsibility. That is in realising and grappling with the reality that we do have those limited resources from an already heavily-exploited planet we must realise that those resources are to be fairly and justly shared in order to have a stable society. The third principle is that of appropriate decision-making. That is that decisions should be made with those who are directly impacted at the core of that decision making. The fourth principle is that of non-violence. As power-grabs fights over resources and callous wars with untold casualties unravel across our planet we have to decide whether we want to stand for evolved conflict resolution or to be complicit—let alone participate—in further unnecessary destruction and devastation. He Tirohanga Mokopuna tells us and I quote "policy options present trade-offs for current and future wellbeing in several ways". And further on "the balance of policy measures is largely a value judgement for governments". The Greens are not willing to trade-off the wellbeing of future generations let alone their rights to a liveable planet. Nor are we willing to let inequality—this country's shame I might add before COVID-19 came along and supercharged it as a result of the policy decisions throughout the last two years. We cannot continue to let inequality fester which robs New Zealanders today of their right to participate to contribute and to live their best lives. So let's address three of the key issues that this report reflects and exactly those policy decisions in front of the Government and one big opportunity to learn from the economic response to COVID-19. He Tirohanga Mokopuna tells us that we must raise more revenue if we want to continue to provide a similar level of public health infrastructure and continue to keep superannuation at the age of 65—which of course we can see that the National Party Opposition is rallying against it wants all of those hard-working New Zealanders to continue hard-working for many more years to come—let alone if we want an increase in providing better public services and infrastructure. Despite all of the long-stated myths we know for a fact that Aotearoa New Zealand does not have a broad-based low-rate tax system. In fact as this report explicitly states "New Zealand's tax system currently relies heavily on a small number of tax bases." Therefore there is a really massive opportunity here as always as has confronted Governments of the past to make a decision to broaden our tax base to make it more resilient; to re-orient its reliance currently on consumption taxes and income taxes; and actually to go about addressing some of the inequality by taxing massive capital gains or wealth as this report touches on. I reflect on the fact that the top 1 percent of New Zealanders presently own 25 percent of the wealth in this country and the bottom half own just 2 percent. Treasury noted at the Finance and Expenditure Committee in hearings on this report that they supported a capital gains tax and said in a report on the capital gains tax that it would "improve the allocative efficiency of saving and investment by ensuring more economic income is taxed neutrally would be progressive and would improve the integrity of the tax system." Despite being referenced a number of times throughout the 2016 report this is the very first time that climate change has received its own section in this long-term projection. In the most value-neutral way possible Treasury tells us in this report "Adaptation efforts may involve upfront costs but [they] also have the potential to reduce the total costs from climate change over the long term." We are here of course talking about—in very emotionless language—the financial implications of living in an island nation impacted by rising sea levels; coastal erosion; less predictable seasons; more once-upon-a-time once-in-100-year weather events; potential food insecurity; mass human migration; and a potentially far harsher quality of life. These are the things that the National Party and the ACT Party trade off when they talk about reducing our nation's role in doing anything about the crisis before us. Even as the Treasury says in this report "There are also costs associated with inaction. Not proceeding with a given action to reduce emissions implies that other actions—with their own costs or benefits financial social and broader economic—will be needed if New Zealand is to achieve its emission reduction[s] targets." You can't negotiate with chemistry or physics. To prevent a radically warmed and drastically-changed world we must act now. The world is changing—the question is whether we want to make a choice in how we respond to how that is occurring which brings me to the very recent example of having made policy decisions that did make explicit trade-offs much like He Tirohanga Mokopuna informs us that we must do and we must confront.At the beginning of the pandemic Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Treasury warned the Minister of Finance about what the balance of fiscal and monetary policy might look like. The Government was aware that an over-reliance on unconventional monetary policy that would flood our markets with cheap debt available disproportionately to those already with assets would have what they called a "distributional"—to the rest of us "unequal"—impact. And we've seen that in house prices increasing by 30 percent. We've also seen intergenerational impacts—the Financial Services Council survey of 2000 people in January found that 18- to 39-year-olds 60 percent of whom rent were hardest hit financially by COVID. They were least confident about the future they were the most concerned about house prices and the most worried about wage stagnation. A third did not have enough cash saved to last more than a month without income. I've seen commentators over the past few weeks talking about and detracting the number of young people who are currently getting support from their parents. But so few of those commentators have been willing to engage in uncovering the network of systems that have created exactly this problem and that need for some for dependence. Quite frankly we cannot afford to continue with the status quo. It is exhausting people and it is exhausting the planet. And things are changing regardless of whether we do. So the question confronting all of us in this House and the question confronting the Government is "What kind of country do we want to live in?" Do we want to live in one which is climate-ravaged which exists with extreme amounts of poverty with deep inequality with run-down infrastructure? Because none of those things are natural phenomena. They are as this report so frankly puts political choices."