Davidson MaramaMARAMA DAVIDSON (Green): Thank you very much Madam Assistant Speaker. The Green Party is pleased to support the Taxation (Research and Development Tax Credits) Bill. We have long realised—and the evidence as the Minister reiterated does indeed show—that improving research and development is the key to unlocking actually how we address the biggest crises we are facing in the world today which include climate change and inequality. We've always been clear about that in our policy. I applaud this bill coming into the House and going through the path of our House.What we've got at the moment are living standards where not everyone is having a decent go. What we've got is worrying environmental degradation and biodiversity failure actually—habitats and living systems are being ruined around the world which is threatening the life of native and indigenous species; rivers and oceans are being polluted and continually damaged; and we've got a problem with waste. We have got a real problem with how we deal with waste and the fact is that there is no such magic away place that any country can afford to take for granted any more and certainly not our one. We also have an issue today of not all families having good jobs and working conditions and quality living standards of life.Research and development is a core part of—not on its own—transforming the way that we relate to each other and our planet. So this particular bill will provide a 15 percent credit rate for eligible expenditure on research and development up to $120 million and a minimum threshold of $50000. This is an essential step in my understanding in moving it away from the grant approach providing a little bit more equity across diverse enterprises and organisations and businesses rather than just a cherry-picking approach.I wanted to talk about how earlier this year I think or last year a Māori woman came to me we met and she gifted me this exquisite piece of fabric made solely from harakeke. Now she had to go offshore to the UK in fact to a research and development centre to actually be able to work—oh harakeke there's an English word: flax" I'm sorry—to be able to work flax through to a state of being I would describe it like the most high-quality linen fabric that you've ever felt that you've ever touched. She had this one precious piece of fabric that pulled on her indigenous knowledge and combined it with research and development to finally after years coming up with fabric that I have to say as I spoke to kuia—elderly aunties—around the country they said they didn't think it was possible and said it was such an incredible plant to try and work with to try and get it into a fabric state. This young woman who wanted to innovate not only around a sustainable species use of our own but also as a community-building enterprise—a collective cooperative enterprise—had to go offshore to get an offshore research and development agency to assist her. I want to hope that this bill is part of how we will fix that problem.We are a smart country. We have got potential here to be doing things on site here without having to go offshore. Adding value is not just about not shipping off raw logs; it's about our own people as our value our own mātauranga—our traditional knowledge—and our unique New Zealand Aotearoa scientific knowledge working together and collaborating. That is the stuff that actually is going to solve and address the big issues before us. That is the stuff. We need new ways not just of operating: new ways of thinking about our relationship and sustainability for how we use our resources and our living systems new ways of working with each other and making sure that we are pulling on the gifts and the talents from people in our communities to be able to have these cooperative enterprises these new ways these new ideas.This piece of fabric blew me out of the water and I've got it sitting at home covering my dresser. It's world-leading stuff. We are world leaders—we have been that for quite some time our nation—but our thinking at our grassroots and in our communities needs a hand. It needs a hand to get to this incredible place.So yes the Greens support this. I wasn't supposed to be this long; I got a little bit carried away. So yes the Greens support these steps in the right direction for research and development. Of course like most pieces of legislation it doesn't stand on its own; it's got to work alongside other funds like the Green Investment Fund like the Provincial Growth Fund—other funds and other projects actually—to make sure that we can also allow equity across empowering social innovators. I know that that's the intent of this piece of legislation. It's actually so that it's not just favouring already established players and that's one of the most important things for me. The bill wants to commit to allowing for new innovators for new businesses to come through and that for me is really really core.Just to say that I'm really pleased to stand up actually and have an opportunity to have a kōrero on this bill. More of it more of the thinking more of allowing New Zealand's unique talents and our living systems—oh another example was the nannies on the coast. On the East Coast where I come from where I whakapapa to they are long-frustrated and hōhā with raw logs being sent off that have been plucked out of their ngahere and their whenua but they see the potential in mānuka products and having our young rangatahi on the East Coast actually working and drilling down into the science and finding out that it is East Coast mānuka in particular which has some of the highest-potency properties in the world. That's also allowing our young people to become the researchers and the innovators and is training and building capacity in those skills.So we've got it here. We've got it all here. We can absolutely continue to be world leaders and I look forward to seeing how this bill helps us on that step. Kia ora."