Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. Ki a koutou ōku hoa Pāremata huri noa i Te Whare ngā mihi o te Tau Hou ki a koutou katoa.[To the House greetings. To you my parliamentary colleagues throughout the House happy New Year to you all.]The day that New Zealand declared a national state of emergency and went into level 4 lockdown there were 50 new cases—50 new cases on just that one day; 50 cases that took the total number of cases from 155 to 205. That's a one-third increase in the total number of cases from just the day before. At that time it seemed that we were on our way up an exponential J-curve of human misery mortality and mourning. And on that day as we passed the motion to declare a national state of emergency I said that everything that we do from now onwards we are doing to protect the people that we know and love and also those that we don't. And over the past seven weeks people in every home and every community and every business across New Zealand have done exactly that. There are today only a handful more active cases in total as there were new cases the day that we went into lockdown.Over the past seven weeks every one of us has protected and cared for every one of us. But none have done more than those we have come to know as our essential workers. These are the people who left their families every day and risked their own health every day so that the rest of us could be cared for and get everything we needed—like the ingredients of sourdough bread: our nurses and our pharmacists doctors and midwives paramedics and social workers aged-care and community workers and caregivers more generally our police officers our customs officers those who worked to get our homeless into emergency housing our farmers and food producers our delivery drivers our supermarket staff and dairy owners—the people who it turns out are actually the ones that make our economy run.These people have always been essential. And yet there are people in this House members of this House who still do not believe that these people deserve to be paid enough to live on. I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition thank our essential workers for carrying this country through the state of emergency—and they do deserve our thanks of course. But they cannot eat thanks Mr Bridges. They cannot heat their homes with thanks. They do deserve our thanks but they need our support. And now that the worst of the health crisis does appear to be behind us let's make sure that these people have the lives and the livelihoods that they truly deserve. That is what this Budget is all about: livelihoods jobs—jobs that see us through this crisis and that craft a future that works for everyone.Actually Mr Bridges said he's got a five-point plan. Well I'm going to do it in four. This Budget is about first of all keeping as many people in their jobs as possible. Second where that's not possible it's about getting people the training and the education that they need to get a new job as soon as possible. Third it's about supporting people who don't have a job to be able to support themselves and make ends meet and provide for their families in the meantime. And fourth it is about investing directly in the creation of new jobs—jobs that provide a good day's pay doing meaningful work building an even better country than the one that went into lockdown just seven weeks ago.One of the best ways to create meaningful well-paid jobs quickly is by investing in nature. From today our Government will invest $1.1 billion in green jobs restoring our natural landscapes our native bush our wetlands our coastlines and our waterways. That's about 11000 jobs over the next four years of meaningful well-paid work for people to access so that they can continue to provide for their families whilst we weather the economic storm of the pandemic crisis. This $1.1 billion investment will not only create jobs in our hardest hit regions it will help to ensure that future generations now and in the future have healthier forests rivers and harbours. And it will help to soak up a fair amount of carbon dioxide too.Our jobs for nature programme includes $433 million for restoring wetlands rivers and estuaries all around New Zealand and in particular our country's largest harbour the Kaipara. There is $200 million for a new jobs for nature fund partnering the Department of Conservation with councils tourism businesses communities iwi and hapū all over the country; $147 million for pest control and eradication advancing the vision of a predator-free New Zealand and working with iwi to save North Island forests; $154 million for the Department of Conservation to work with the Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust regional councils landholder groups and farmers to roll out jobs that improve indigenous biodiversity on both public and private land—you see I thought they'd like that one.There is $100 million for wilding conifer control—also on both public and private land; $27 million to get on top of the wallaby population in the Bay of Plenty in the Waikato in Canterbury and in Otago; $7 million to control pests and weeds in riverbeds and to eradicate aquatic weeds in Lakes Wakatipu and Wānaka. There is so much work to be done in this country making things better for everyone.All Governments ours included should be judged on what they do to improve people's quality of life in a sustained and a sustainable way. Now since we came to power we have been advancing towards that goal laying the path towards a net zero-carbon economy building thousands of new homes and making education more accessible for more people. And then the pandemic arrived. Almost immediately COVID-19 revealed one particularly troubling aspect of our economy: just how fragile it is. It showed that we have been operating on a very thin margin for many years. We squeezed everything out of global supply chains in the name of just-in-time efficiencies and the pandemic has shown us just how vulnerable that system can be. But we also squeezed everything out of our people and the pandemic has shown just how vulnerable they are when a crisis strikes.The vast inequalities of our economy may be easier to see now but the truth is they existed long before COVID-19 came to New Zealand. So if we want to truly build back better this time we have to deal with the underlying conditions of inequality and environmental degradation that our economy has for decades made worse. Then and only then can every part of the economy go to work to create prosperity that is more equitable more resilient and more restorative of the natural world that we depend on for our very survival.Now if we are going to bring forward billions of dollars of our children's money and invest it in rebuilding our economy then we have both a moral and an economic responsibility to put that money to work on the long-term challenges facing our country that our children would otherwise inherit and have to deal with and pay for themselves. Every dollar that we borrow from them to get through the pandemic crisis is a dollar that they cannot spend getting through another crisis—like the climate crisis or the housing crisis; like the crisis in our rivers and our lakes our oceans and in our forests; like the failing water pipes under our towns and in our cities; like our ever-expanding landfills; or the need for more and cleaner power to get us through to a zero-carbon economy.That is why the protagonists of our recovery story are not convention centres but people. Putting people into work restoring nature alongside the huge investment we are making to build 8000 new public homes will direct money into the parts of the economy where most people earn their livelihoods. Whether it's selling food in a cafe running a local business providing services to the community or providing after-school care these are the parts of the economy that people depend on. They are the parts of the economy that are sustained when public investment is directed at getting people into work and earning money that they then spend in their local community.The Green Party has always said that investing in nature is the best way to create good well-paid jobs. Twelve years ago our predecessors in the Green Party campaigned for a Green New Deal" in response to the great financial crisis. As an Opposition party at the time of course they weren't in a position to implement it. Put simply this Budget shows what it means to have Green voices in the Government—like the voice of Marama Davidson who when she took on the co-leadership of the Greens also took up the leadership of our campaign to end child poverty. Well today's Budget scales up the food in schools programme which when we were in Opposition we fought for from 8000 to 200000 students with $218 million of new investment.Golriz Ghahraman has campaigned for the rights of migrants and the refugees who will find it easier to rebuild their families after Budget 2020's injection of $33 million into the family reunification system; and Gareth Hughes has for a decade pushed to get people into work insulating homes making them warmer and more affordable. Budget 2020 has put an additional $56 million into the Warmer Kiwi Homes initiative; and Jan Logie's all-of-Government response to family and sexual violence has picked up an additional $202 million in today's Budget. Chlöe Swarbrick's work on behalf of students particularly in recent weeks has helped to secure a $20 million hardship fund to help students to weather the pandemic crisis.Julie Anne Genter's work with Phil Twyford has helped to deliver $1.6 billion in this Budget's infrastructure upgrade for metropolitan rail in Auckland and Wellington buses and cycling in Queenstown Auckland's new SkyPath as well as extra help funding councils to expand footpaths and roll out temporary cycleways—and that I have to say is on top of the $1.1 billion for the intercity rail network and the Interislander that Budget 2020 also delivers. Kia ora mātua.And of course there's Eugenie Sage. It's due to her groundwork over the past 2½ years that today our Government is able to scale up our investment in nature as the most essential infrastructure and the best job creator in Aotearoa. Brett Hudson: Digging holes in the forest.Hon JAMES SHAW: Why do you hate nature Brett? This is a Budget that does what New Zealanders sent Green MPs here to do—improve wellbeing provide support to those who need it the most and restore our natural heritage. This is a Budget that understands that the true source of New Zealand's wealth and prosperity are its natural and its human capital. It is a great start and it is just a start. The sheer scale of this stimulus that's required to get us through the recovery means that we have an opportunity now to embrace the potential of good science and good Government to support a clean-tech high-value economy that works for everyone.As we plan the next phase of our economic recovery we have a choice. We can choose to direct this stimulus towards a more circular regenerative economy an economy that is not degenerative by design but that is regenerative by design. If we do this ours can be a future where people have everything that they need to lead fulfilling and meaningful and prosperous lives where simple everyday tasks like making the morning coffee or travelling to and from work or warming our homes are powered by clean renewable energy; a future where instead of heading for landfill the leftovers from one production process be they food scraps or scrap metal become the source materials for the next and where the water coming out of our taps is safe to drink and never runs dry and the roofs over our heads are safe and warm—above all a future that is more equitable more prosperous more innovative and all within planetary limits. What we need in the long term then is not a recovery but a renewal—a renewal of our relationship with the natural world and with each other.This pandemic has opened a window on to something new something better. We can see it's out there but the question is whether we have the courage to step outside to find the space that we need to reimagine the economic house of cards that we've built for ourselves. There is so much good work to be done making things better for everyone. Of course we can choose to stay inside and be burdened with the knowledge that the people who keep us well and make our economy run will continue to be underpaid that our precious wild spaces will continue to be decimated and our atmosphere polluted or we can step outside and reimagine our world anew. This Budget is the introductory chapter to a longer-term vision for a more prosperous more equitable and greener New Zealand. Nō reira tēnā koutou tēnā koutou tēnā tātou katoa."