Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. As my colleague Golriz Ghahraman just said before me we are very proud and thankful to be here in Aotearoa New Zealand where we had excellent Government leadership in the response to COVID-19. We have many lessons that we can learn from our response and its success one of which is to listen to the science to work together and that we all do better when we're working together and thirdly to take a health response and a good health response was the best economic response. That was the Government's position and I think it was absolutely proven right.I think that these lessons have to be taken when we're looking at facing even greater challenges like the climate emergency the incredibly rapid and terrifying rate of biodiversity loss. In order to respond to climate change effectively and I have heard it mentioned numerous times by Government MPs and in the Speech from the Throne that they are serious about climate action we will have to listen to the science we will have to work together and put our collective common good ahead of some individual rights or preferences and that a response that is looking after our planet and our climate is ultimately the best economic response. The sooner we act on climate change the better off our society will be. There is no real trade-off between the economy and the survival of civilisation on our planet. Obviously by prioritising the survival of civilisation on our planet that's the best outcome for our economy which is but one part of human society. And in order to take an effective climate change response there are two things that also need to happen that have long been priorities for the Green Party and will continue to be. One is honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi because the reality is indigenous peoples around the world have been at the forefront of the fight for effective climate action and recognising and honouring Te Tiriti appropriately will be and must be part of our response to climate change.The second one affects all of us and that is inequality. There is no way we can have an effective response to climate change when a certain portion of our population is living in economic insecurity or poverty. There's no question that the housing crisis is part of the contributor to this economic insecurity—it's not the only thing but it is part of it—and our high levels of child poverty. I know that child poverty is something that the Prime Minister takes very seriously and I would just very humbly say that now is the time following COVID-19 to revisit the long-held assumptions about what is politically possible in Aotearoa New Zealand. What may have seemed unpopular in 2019 because there was a vociferous and misleading campaign against the comprehensive capital gains tax from the National Party at the time—we're in a completely different world. We've had COVID-19. We've now got unprecedented growth in house prices. That means that the average house in Auckland Tauranga Wellington Kāpiti Coast and Queenstown earned more in untaxed capital gains just in the final three months of 2020 than the average New Zealander earned in pre-tax income over the entire year. So these are unprecedented circumstances.Fair enough the Government said they were advised that house prices were going to drop. I'm not opposed to the use of unconventional monetary policy to address some of our issues but now is the time for Government leadership. Now is the time to take on those assumptions about what can or cannot be done and still get re-elected. And actually now is the time to do what's right. We can end child poverty. We don't have to do it slowly. It doesn't have to be 50 percent by 2030. We could actually do it next year with comprehensive tax reform that also helped address the increasing wealth inequality that has been caused by the unconventional monetary policy. That is fair and right. The owners of investment properties have become enriched by the Reserve Bank's response to COVID-19 but they can give some of that back. We can end child poverty. We will all benefit from that. That is part of how we reduce inequality and have effective environmental and climate action in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Green Party will lead on this if our Prime Minister will not.