Rurawhe AdrianHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Mai i ngā maunga ki ngā ngāhere mai i ngā awa ki te moana e rere aku mihi ki a koutou katoa. Tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa. E rere hoki aku mihi ngā whenua huri noa i te motu me koutou anō hoki o tēnei wāhi Taranaki Whānui tēnā koutou katoa. Rātou kua whetūrangihia kia rātou tātou ngā kanohi ora ki a tātou tēnā tātou katoa. [From the mountains to the forests from the rivers to the ocean I acknowledge you all. Greetings to you all. I acknowledge all the tribes across this land as well as those of this area Taranaki Whānui I greet you all. Those you have passed on and those of us present I greet you.] Mr Speaker I never intended to be an MP especially after working in the Government research unit and then as a ministerial press secretary in the late 1980s and seeing the hours MPs worked. But Nick Smith and Rodney Hide changed that when in March 2010 they axed elected regional councillors on Environment Canterbury me included to install commissioners more sympathetic to irrigation development. I was angry that a Government could so easily cancel an election overturn local democracy and pass legislation under urgency with no public submissions. Anger became action.Thank you Grace Taylor for the mentoring and encouragement to stand and the Aoraki Greens especially Prue Kay Roelien Rosemary Tim Nikki Jacinta Dot Jan Bruce and so many others for all your support and campaign mahi over the last 12 years.In 2011 with Russel Norman and Metiria Turei as co-leaders and an energetic party organisation the Greens got 11.1 percent of the party vote—still our highest-ever under MMP and I hope exceeded this October. That saw me Jan Logie Julie Anne Genter and 11 other MPs elected with 14 MPs returned again in 2014.One of the things I am most grateful for in the Green Party is our strong kaupapa. MPs move on but we keep pushing on our priority issues until we get change even if it takes years. The dirty rivers clean water" campaign which Russel Catherine Delahunty and I all worked on at different times during six long years in Opposition is just one example. Alongside NGOs and local communities we highlighted the damage to rivers and streams from agricultural intensification we helped stop the Ruataniwha dam and built the public mandate to end Government subsidies for irrigation in 2017 and for David Parker to implement stronger national direction on freshwater. Stronger regulation is now making a difference but cow numbers and nitrate pollution of waterways and methane emissions remain too high. I look forward to Steve Abel and Lan Pham being elected and continuing to push on issues such as tighter drinking water standards for nitrate.Last month Federated Farmers CEO Terry Copeland said—and I quote—"We have seen peak cow in this country. With hindsight should we have done so much dairying in Canterbury? Probably no." Scientists such as Dr Mike Joy and Dr Russell Death former Canterbury medical officer of health Dr Alistair Humphrey environmental NGOs Fish and Game and the Green Party have all been saying that for 15 years. Government and MPs need to listen more intently and act more quickly on public concerns and be less persuaded by vested interests.Thank you Russel Norman for your strategic smarts and leadership as a political campaigner. The Keep Our Assets campaign to oppose the partial privatisation of our energy companies built a mass movement. It changed public opinion about State asset sales. A National Government ignored the successful referendum results but no further assets were privatised.I acknowledge Metiria Turei whose championing of justice for people and planet has not been properly recognised here. Metiria's honesty in a speech at the 2017 Green AGM and her critique of the social welfare system and need for reform so everyone has what they need resonated with the public. The bump in Green support in the polls helped propel Jacinda Ardern to Labour leadership and victory.The 2017 election and its aftermath was a time of heartbreak and excitement: heartbreak at the forced resignation of Metiria and the loss of caucus colleagues Mojo Mathers Denise Roche and Barry Coates and excitement that the Greens were in Government. I got a dream job as Minister of Conservation Minister for Land Information and Associate Minister for the Environment with responsibility for waste. Thanks to an energetic cohesive and professional ministerial office team of advisers and private secretaries who worked closely with agencies we got heaps done over the next three years. In conservation this included the largest addition to an existing national park—thank you Sandra Cook Ngati Waewae and Ngāi Tahu; a revised Threat Management Plan to better protect Māui and Hector's dolphins; changes to the Conservation Act to benefit our threatened native fish; and a new Aotearoa New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy Te Mana o Te Taiao.In Budget 2018 we got the biggest funding increase for conservation in 16 years and then in 2020 $488 million of the $1.2 billion Jobs for Nature package. Thank you to Grant Robertson for recognising the importance of natural capital in your Wellbeing Budget framework and to James Shaw for helping get it and a new revenue tool—the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy across the line.The increased Budget funding enabled Te Papa Atawhai to undertake its biggest-ever predator control programme and Predator Free New Zealand Ltd to support iwi and hapū councils and community organisations establish more landscape scale projects. If anyone wants advice on effective lobbying I suggest they talk to Te Whānau-ā-Apanui and Ngāti Porou. With the help of a helicopter they dropped me deep in the forests of the Raukūmara Range to see how large numbers of deer had not only eaten out the forest understorey but also stripped the trees of bark. I was close to tears seeing the collapsing forest; there had been no pest control for decades. But that resulted in Raukūmara Pae Maunga. It's a tremendous Treaty partnership between Te Whānau-ā-Apanui Ngāti Porou and Te Papa Atawhai with significant funding to help control pests goats and deer over 150000 hectares. We really do need to get on top of rising deer numbers throughout our forests.Banning single-use plastic bags was not a priority for Ministry for the Environment (MFE) officials in 2017 and one guffawed when I first suggested it. We made it happen partly because of the deluge of letters on the issue from school students especially to the Prime Minister. It was an honour to be a Minister under the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern with her formidable intellect and support for action on waste. To any tamariki listening: your letters matter.I am proud of the work that I and the ministerial office team did with a small group of MFE officials to kick-start a major work programme on waste. It included properly regulating outdoor tyre storage to prevent tyre fires starting work to standardise kerbside recycling phase out single-use plastics such as tableware and establish mandatory product stewardship schemes for refrigerants tyres and electronic waste. All of that work has continued and increased under the current Government—except the development of a beverage container return scheme; that should restart.We expanded and increased our only environmental tax—the landfill levy. It's expected to generate around $260 million to help fund central and local government minimise waste with community organisations. Imagine what a wealth tax could do. As Minister for Land Information it was satisfying to work with top-notch policy folk at Land Information New Zealand to develop and introduce the Crown Pastoral Lands Reform Bill. It stopped tenure review and required a stronger sustainability focus in the management of 1.2 million hectares of South Island high country. High country leaseholders opposed the bill but the sky hasn't fallen since it was finally passed under Damien O'Connor last year. Increasingly the public understands the scale of the twin crises of climate and nature. A powerful remedy to existential despair is connecting with others to promote change. That creates hope and eventually political action. I am so grateful for the advocacy and activism of citizens and community organisations who have a vision for a better future informed by science matauranga lived experience and practical doing. People who call decision makers to account and make life uncomfortable for Ministers and departments who connect and strengthen our communities are treasures in our democracy.Chairing the Environment Committee this term has been a privilege because of engaged colleagues talented select committee staff and the range of business the committee has dealt with—some it like the Natural and Built Environment Bill formidable in size—but nothing deters the Office of the Clerk and staff supporting select committees. They and the Parliamentary Library the Parliamentary Counsel Office and legislative counsel facilitate a huge volume of quality work within often tight deadlines.Ministers and MPs may be the face of politics—thank you news media—but our democracy exists because of the work of so many people in this building and beyond. Thank you for your dedication and expertise. But select committees need more staff and resources to counterbalance executive power especially with complicated and technical bills. Having a separate financial appropriation for Parliament approved by the Speaker rather than by Treasury and the Minister of Finance would strengthen Parliament independence and could help here.To all the Parliamentary Services staff and contractors—cleaners buildings security ICT finance travel and Copperfields—thank you for making this place function and for your humanity. Thank you to Green Party members national office staff and parliamentary and ministerial staff past and present. They see MPs at their best and worst. As a colleague said "MPs get on this train called politics while staff provide the tracks to keep us going in the right direction beyond whatever today's limited focus is." They go above and beyond repeatedly.Thank you to caucus colleagues for your glorious individuality and all of the laughter. James Shaw thank you for giving it your all to push the law and policy changes and investment we need to avert climate catastrophe. Your single-minded focus has seen more achieved in the last 5½ years than the previous 30. Marama Davidson: wāhine toa extraordinaire. I acknowledge and honour the strength and purpose of your leadership your dignity integrity warmth love of and connection with people.When I directed the Department of Conservation to implement a much-neglected statutory plan to control and reduce Himalayan tahr numbers so that alpine plants stood half a chance there was an outburst of misogyny and online hate. Marama Golriz Nanaia Mahuta and Jacinda Ardern and others have faced down much worse for much longer. They are strength and courage personified. We must all call out inflammatory statements and personalised attacks which feed the trolls and instead promote debate about ideas.I leave here with some frustration about what has not been done. On land we have long recognised the benefits of protecting land and waters plants and wildlife for their intrinsic value human health culture and wellbeing; 30 percent of Aotearoa enjoys some protection from extractive uses as conservation land and waters. Why is it so hard to do the same in the sea? Less than 0.5 percent of our oceans are protected. There are no protected areas in our entire exclusive economic zone despite it being the fourth-largest in the world. All of it is open to fishing despite our responsibilities under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Protection around Rangitāhua the Kermadecs is no further ahead than when I mentioned it in my maiden speech despite the best efforts of David Parker and mana whenua.It was challenging to get change on anything involving fisheries and oceans last term even when this was a ministerial priority. Seabirds are amongst the most threatened groups of birds globally and fisheries bycatch is one of the greatest threats to many species. It's unacceptable that commercial fishing kills an estimated 13000 seabirds each year and yet there was so much resistance to a zero bycatch goal in the reviewed National Plan of Action for Seabirds. All we could get was "New Zealanders work towards zero fishing-related seabird mortalities by 2050". That's not good enough. No new marine protected areas have been established in six years and despite pushing for a network on the south-east Otago coast they have yet to happen—four years after ministerial decisions and 10 years after the South-East Marine Protection Forum was established. Work was under way on reform of the Marine Reserves Act but progress since is not obvious. It would be wonderful to debate legislation to establish new marine protected areas in the Hauraki Gulf before the House rises. There are many extremely dedicated people in the Public Service but across Government agencies we need to recognise the urgency of action for nature and climate and act as if our lives depend upon it because they do. The oceans have buffered us from the worst effects of climate change. They can protect us if we stop harming them. Many in the agricultural sector know that land use and on-farm management practices need to change. Good farmers are retiring steep hill-slopes planting stream banks trying more diverse pasture species and reducing stock numbers yet too many in the commercial fishing industry continue to deny there is a problem in fisheries management and with methods such as bottom trawling.What's next? I don't know yet but there's no shortage of issues where people and nature need a helping hand and this unfit body could do with some exercise. I have too often been an absent friend and family member because work has taken priority. I look forward to reconnecting.My parents Tony and Meryl Sage were in the gallery for my swearing in but are now with the stars. Their unending love and support and a rough and tumble childhood with three brothers—John Phillip and the late Stephen—have helped me survive here. With most of my immediate family living overseas thank you Mike Chris Diana and the wider Suggate whānau for always being so welcoming. Kia kaha Jesse and Claire—thinking of you. Biggest thanks go to my life partner and anchor Richard Suggate who has encouraged listened loved done way more than his share of household chores and kept me going when it's all turned to custard. Thank you for so much practical aroha including for Mother last term—love you lots.It's been a privilege to be a paddler on the Green Party waka in the parliamentary fleet. It's been hard work but hugely rewarding. I'm delighted to pass the paddle on to others and wish everyone well. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa. Noho ora mai. [Applause hongi and harirū]Waiata—Purea NeiSPEAKER: Kia ora. Am I correct and we're swapping out audiences? We are. So can ask members' folks that are in the gallery above me to make room for the friends and family of the Hon Poto Williams."