Genter Julie Anne; Tuiono TeanauHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Can I congratulate you on your appointment as Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare.I think for the benefit of people who might be watching at home we should put our speeches and language into a context that means something to ordinary people. I think to ordinary people the work of the Reserve Bank is not always clear. The impact of monetary and fiscal policy on people's everyday lives when we use that kind of jargon isn't always clear. This bill is not likely to make any substantial difference to inflation in and of itself. There is absolutely no reason to believe it would make a difference to inflation.As I showed members opposite last night in the second reading on this bill if we look at Consumers Price Index (CPI) inflation right around the globe New Zealand tracked right along with other countries like the United States Denmark the United Kingdom and Australia. In fact New Zealand's inflation peaked at a lower level and while CPI inflation has been slower to come down ultimately it's the same general shape and that's because the shock that affected New Zealand affected the whole world and reserve banks around the world responded in similar ways—the constraints on people going to work because of the COVID pandemic did result in supply chain shortages and there were other factors like the invasion of Ukraine by Russia which affected gas prices and oil prices which flowed on to energy prices here in New Zealand.So the main takeaway for people at home is that New Zealand has been through a similar experience to many other countries—that the new Government is trying to blame these arbitrary things on that result rather than looking at the factors that genuinely contributed to prices going up here in New Zealand. Once we got into a situation of inflation and the Reserve Bank started tightening which means raising interest rates that has almost a cyclical effect—like it tends to reinforce the price rises that were happening. So now food producers' interest rates are going up—they're passing that on in the price of food. Interest rates going up for mortgage holders interest rates going up for landlords—so they're putting up rents even when they probably already own the building outright and don't have a mortgage on it. So we get into the situation where the fact of increasing interest rates while it can only bring down the price of so many things definitely has an effect on asset prices like housing but not necessarily consumer goods.Ultimately what the new Government wants people at home to believe is that they have the answers that they are the masters of the economy and that they're going to improve everything for everyone in the country. The truth is that they have been put in these positions by wealthy donors and vested interests to look after the interests of those people especially from the ACT Party but also from Nicola Willis the Minister of Finance in the National Party. There is a dangerous ideology which is the belief that letting rich people get richer is good for everyone—well obviously that's not true—that implementing the failed neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s will somehow make New Zealand more productive and lead to everyone being richer. But the truth is that what works for individuals to get wealthy in this current system does not work for everyone.So when you say for example that we're going to reward people for being landlords—which means that they do no work and they earn a return on their asset and they don't pay tax on that—everyone in the country cannot get wealthy through being landlords. I mean think about it: can every single person in New Zealand be a landlord and get rich that way? No. Property owning is a type of rent-seeking which is not part of the productive economy but the people opposite cannot tell the difference between what is good for them and their donors and what is good for New Zealand as a whole. They can't tell the difference and the reality is that if New Zealanders want to see genuine sustained improvement in our quality of life we need to protect our environment we need to make sure our water is clear we need to accurately price pollution and externalities and we need to support people by investing in public services by raising benefits by limiting the growth of rents through things like rent controls and that will genuinely create an environment in which people have an opportunity to succeed.We all do better when we share the wealth not hoard it and that's what the Green Party will continue to campaign for.Debate interrupted.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The House is now suspended for lunch and will resume at 2 p.m.Sitting suspended from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.