Genter Julie Anne; Tisch LindsayJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): The previous speaker Alastair Scott asked what the alternative vision is from Opposition parties. He said he had not heard it so I would like to use my speech to lay that out. Obviously this bill the Appropriation (2015/16 Supplementary Estimates) Bill is about the additional appropriations that have been made since Budget 2015 was finalised. An example of that is the $150000 that the Government appropriated for the Shewan inquiry which was the Government inquiry into foreign trust disclosure rules which of course was released very recently and demonstrated that there are serious shortcomings with our foreign trust rules on which of course the Opposition parties have been calling for constructive changes. In fact many of the recommendations in the Shewan inquiry go further than Opposition parties were suggesting. The Government was denying that there was a problem. Like most New Zealanders I am here because I love New Zealand. I love our natural environment and I want to live in a country that is fair—where everyone has a fair go. What has the National Government achieved through its eight Budgets including this supplementary estimates bill? Well we finally got a narrow surplus this year—just a couple of hundred million—and aside from that we have seen it achieve a mastery of spin in the media. It has also achieved more expensive houses especially in Auckland but all over the country; more people living on the streets or sleeping in their cars; and more pollution—60 percent of our rivers are now unswimmable and carbon emissions are up. And I note that in the supplementary estimates bill there is actually an additional $115 million to subsidise carbon polluters. That is $115 million spent on free carbon credits for polluting industries. There is more inequality. We have got information just released today from Statistics New Zealand that the top 10 percent of New Zealanders now own 60 percent of the wealth. That does not seem fair. In fact inequality is at the worst point that it has been for a decade. And of course that is not going to change under this National Government because ultimately it is gutless and focused on protecting the status quo.Well I have a message for the National Government. Budgets are all about priorities—what we choose to spend money on. Mr Scott was asking Oh who is going to pay for these things that you want?" like education and houses and the things that people actually need. Well we are not going to spend as much money as the National Government does helping out its mates. We are not going to spend as much on tax cuts for the wealthy because you do not build a strong economy by helping those who are already doing very well; you do it by investing in your people the ones who actually need the most help. We are not going to spend it on Saudi sheep deals. We are not going to spend it on subsidies for polluters. We are not going to spend it on Skycity or Rio Tinto or Chorus. We are not going to spend it on infrastructure that does not stack up economically. The National Government is focused on dams like the Ruataniwha Dam which does not even make sense in economic terms let alone in environmental terms. It is the same with transport infrastructure—the Government has managed to find billions and billions of dollars for motorway projects that will not reduce congestion. They will not make it easier for people to get to work or to get to school and they certainly will not do anything for our carbon emissions and pollution.There are smarter ways to do things. We could take the same amount of money and spend it on making sure that kids are not hungry in schools. We could spend it on protecting our environment and having a transport system that actually makes it easier for people to get around. Imagine that—imagine a rail link to the airport or to the North Shore. We could actually do that for less than the idiotic motorways that the Government is prioritising.A strong economy as I said is not achieved by privileging those who are already doing well and giving handouts to businesses that are already making money by screwing over the environment. Actually a strong economy is developed by protecting our environment and investing in our people and that is why we in the Green Party would prioritise affordable housing and smart infrastructure that reduces pollution—smart infrastructure that uses our water better in our cities and creates more people-friendly streets. There are so many things that we can do and we have shown how we can pay for them. That is the kind of New Zealand that I think most New Zealanders would like to live in.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Meka Whaitiri—5 minutes."