Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I just want to acknowledge the kind remarks that have been made about the member who has put forward this bill Damien Smith. Of course it's important that every member of this House has the opportunity to put forward legislation they believe in.The Green Party's view and longstanding view is that the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment. We have limited natural resources. Land in particular is limited. We need to use that in a way that is sustainable and equitable. In order to achieve that we need to reverse some of the trends from the 1980s and 1990s which were all about enabling certain people to get enormously wealthy off exploitative types of activities which include ownership. You know foreign ownership is not good for New Zealand. So the Green Party is not going to support this bill. We'd like to see more restrictions on foreign ownership of strategic assets in New Zealand. The Green Party absolutely supports an inclusive approach to migration and to relationships with other people in our country—you know we want to be part of the global community. But enabling foreign ownership of strategic assets in New Zealand does not help New Zealanders. Foreign investors often are rent seeking; they are exploiting and extracting profits not creating wealth and there's a really important distinction about that.The economy is just one part of how humans interact with one another and how we achieve support for our societies. There's a whole lot of work that people do that is not paid that does not pay off. The idea that somehow private foreign ownership of things is helping New Zealanders is unfortunately wrong. I think most New Zealanders inherently understand that. Of course the Green Party has long advocated for a much more sustainable approach to trade and a fairer approach to trade. We want our trade agreements to prioritise fair pay and a sustainable use of natural resources because right now the way that global trade is set up it enables certain people who already have most of the wealth to extract even more of that. What we end up doing is exporting pollution exporting you know poor labour relations—to the detriment of people and the environment in New Zealand and around the world.So unfortunately this bill is not a bill that the Green Party can support. We will continue to advocate for a sustainable and inclusive approach to the economy which recognises that money is just a symbol—it is a symbol. No it doesn't grow on trees; it's created by banks. What we need to recognise is what creates true value for our people. Without clean water without clean air without healthy soil we have nothing. Without sustainable forestry products that are available to people here in New Zealand we're not able to build houses. We saw what happened when there are global supply chain shortages. Even though we are growing wood here in New Zealand it was difficult to get processed timber for builders here in New Zealand. Some of that is the legacy of the 1980s and 1990s taking this neo-liberal approach opening up New Zealand selling off assets that had been built up by generations of citizens and residents. We don't want to see that trend continue so the Green Party will continue to advocate for a different approach one that will protect our climate and protect people and get fairer outcomes not simply enrich those who already have the most wealth and who have no stake in New Zealand.