Hague Kevin: AdjournmentText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Adjournment[Sitting date: 31 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19831. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green):As the last speaker for the Green Party in this Parliament I begin by again placing on record the gratitude of the entire Green Party caucus to all of those many workers around Parliament who enable us to do our work and also to the Green parliamentary and party team of both staff and volunteers. We appreciate you all very very much.I extend our best wishes to those in the House who will be leaving Parliament at this election. There are those who do so willingly at the end of their service—and I especially acknowledge my fantastic colleague Holly Walker—and I also acknowledge that there are others around the House who will not be back to join us despite their intentions and hopes.Phil Twyford: For whom the bell tolls.KEVIN HAGUE: Indeed.I do my best to find common ground with others across the House and across party lines. I think that doing so is an essential part of politics. In fact it is the art of the possible. It is also a fundamental Green value. At this point I want to particularly highlight one of the achievements of this Parliament and that was in marriage equality. We were proud to be part of a coalition of members across the House from parties both within the House and outside the House and with communities. That was I believe a great model of how we can go about making a positive change that will make a big difference for many people’s lives. But having a vigorous contest between beliefs and values where they impact in important ways on people’s lives is also another part of politics.I have just recently wrapped up a national speaking tour on the big issues in health. The last slide in the presentation that I put on for audiences had five points which were that health care should be a fundamental right for all New Zealanders; there should be no barriers to access especially not financial ones; services should be universally available; services should be preventive in focus; and services should be integrated. I asked the audiences whether they could guess where that list came from because although it sounds like a summary of Green Party policy it was not something that I had written. In fact just two people out of literally thousands on this speaking tour have guessed it right. They are the objectives of the New Zealand public health system that was established by the Savage Government in the 1930s.When I tell audiences that there is usually a visible reaction of shock and indeed I experience it myself. I feel a chill in my cheeks the hairs on the back of my neck—if there are any—stand on end and I think it is just so amazing that something from the 1930s should actually still feel so fresh and relevant almost 100 years later. That is because we have had a succession of Governments since at least 1984 that have seen the role of the State in a very different way. They have seen the role of State as being to maximise GDP growth and in that model people count either as the labour input to the firm or as consumers and the natural world counts as either raw materials for the firm or waste disposal. That idea of government has driven this country in entirely the wrong direction.I believe it also stands at the heart of why so many people feel alienated from the very process of government and have not been participating in voting. What we stand for and what Savage stood for is an entirely different idea of what the Government should be about. We believe that the State should be the embodiment of our collective responsibility to care for each other and to care for the natural world and to prepare the ground for those future generations. We believe that the point of the economy is to help us deliver our social and environmental goals not the other way round.We have tried to work with this Government where we could. We are proud of our formal relationships with it to insulate and heat cold damp unhealthy homes to build a national network of great cycle trails to document and clean up toxic sites and to improve pest control through resetting traps. We put forward many other ideas on how we could work together on areas of common policy and we were disappointed that they were all rejected by National.We have also been proud of our resolute performance in leading the opposition on the insidious and corrosive effects of child poverty and increasing inequality the shocking deterioration of the quality of fresh water the privatisation of public assets the imbalances in the New Zealand economy freedom for West Papua calling out the atrocities of Israel against the people of Gaza in recent days irrational transport planning and funding decisions ongoing cuts to health and education services the cynical attacks on citizens’ basic privacy rights through the Government Communications Security Bureau bill and other legislation the egregious money-for-policy Skycity deal the sick culture of disentitlement at ACC the erosion of services for women who experience sexual violence and attacks on workers’ rights. Sometimes we have won.Back in the early days of the Green Party our political opponents used to accuse us of being too idealistic. We do not hear that any more. The public has noticed that we have successful co-leaders and a stable united caucus. Our contributions are consistently principled and we have proven ourselves to be ready for Government with transformational ideas that are grounded in practicality properly costed and affordable and supported by the key opinion leaders amongst those who would be affected by them.National’s weapon of choice now is the false dichotomy—along the lines of Fox News’ stance of saying either you support the war in Iraq or you oppose freedom—along with National’s disdain for evidence and science. We have shown consistently that it is possible to create great jobs by creating a smarter greener economy that works for everyone while also restoring our environment like cleaning up our rivers and protecting our beaches from oil spills and delivering a fairer society where every child has enough to thrive. We do not have to sell off the family silver and accelerate the stupid economy based on extracting non-renewable resources. We can instead invest substantially in innovation research and development capitalise on new flexible technologies like 3-D printing ensure we have the internet access and speed necessary for weightless industry provide capital for the smart transition of our economy through having a green bank and restructure the electricity industry to deliver cheaper greener energy and incentives to increase solar power.We do not have to further erode the law or the rights and incomes of workers and beneficiaries to increase big business profitability based on the religious belief that this will somehow trickle down. We can instead provide affordable secure and healthy housing for everyone who needs it through our Home for Life programme ensure that income support provides the most benefit to those with the greatest needs shift minimum incomes towards a living wage properly fund the services that people need provide free primary health care up to the age of 18 and recognise and resource the role of schools at the heart of communities.We do not have to accept that environmental damage and extinctions are inevitable and that the pollution economy is the only way. We can instead ensure that every river and lake is safe to swim in and that our beaches are protected from dangerous deep-sea oil drilling. We can save the Māui’s dolphin from extinction and enable it to thrive again. We can implement a climate action plan that will actually reduce emissions delivering significant net tax savings for the average household or business.Yes we are still a party of ideals but we are also a party of ideas that will take our country forward rather than into the Dickensian stagnation that National offers. Smarter fairer cleaner—party vote Green.