Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. Congratulations on your appointment. It is a huge privilege for me to stand in this House at the beginning of my fifth term for the first time as the member of Parliament for Rongotai and the Chatham Islands. It's a huge privilege for me to represent my community and to have welcomed also so many Green MPs who have joined us in our caucus—a caucus of 15 MPs the largest it has ever been—and in my neighbouring electorate Wellington Central Tamatha Paul has been elected. For first time ever a Green MP—a wahine Maōri MP—for Wellington Central. In both Wellington Central and Rongotai I am happy to say that the Green Party won the party vote.How did we do this? Because we consistently put out positive practical policies that will give effect to a vision of an Aotearoa where everyone can live in dignity and we are protecting nature—te taiao—and our climate and I am somewhat appalled and I'm sure many of my constituents would be to see the environment Minister and the climate Minister now outside Cabinet. It is a clear signal from this new Government that they do not intend to take the environment or climate change seriously because it conflicts with their policy agenda which is largely about representing vested interests who want to maintain the status quo. I'll speak very briefly to some of our amazing policy that led to us achieving this historic result like ending poverty together. We can pay for critical public services for everyone. We can ensure that no child in Aotearoa is growing up in poverty or in a cold damp mouldy home where their parents are paying so much on rent that they can't afford to heat the building or they can't afford to put kai on the table. No one in Aotearoa should have to make those choices. We could pay for all of that if we had a tax system that was truly fair. I'm sure that there are members opposite in the Government benches who truly believe in achieving equality of opportunity. That's a value they hold dear. But unfortunately the policies that they support do not promote equality of opportunity. That is the sad truth.New Zealand's tax system has ranked 136th out of 162 countries for promoting equity—that is the reality. If we want to truly encourage people to work why is it that income from capital assets is not taxed whereas work from labour is? It's wrong and it's an inequity that this Government could address but they will choose not to because ultimately they represent the elite interests of the landed gentry—those who own property and want to continue to have the benefit of untaxed capital gains where that wealth becomes concentrated and that means we can't afford to invest in public services. It means we can't afford to end poverty; yet we could. That is a political choice that this Government will make and I would say it's a political choice the last Government also made hence why the Green Party was not a member of a coalition in the last Government.While I'm sure many members of this House agree on the outcomes that we would like to achieve we have to be guided by the evidence and the evidence is there are certain actions that we must take if we believe in equality of opportunity. If we want to enjoy the benefits of living in a society where we're investing in our people rather than spending the money to build prisons to lock them up to punish them for being poor or for being addicts it's not right. I come from a country that has gone down that sad road of promoting inequality. While a small percentage of hundred-millionaires and billionaires enjoy their private jets we have a society that is increasingly divided. We see it in the United States where 50 million people can't afford healthcare and they're spending more money on prisons. It doesn't make sense.So sadly while I would like to say that I was encouraged by the comments in the Speech from the Throne I was mainly appalled at how backwards they were how totally detached from evidence about how to build an inclusive and prosperous and a just country. The members opposite—many of them may not actually believe in human-caused climate change but that doesn't change the fact that we are facing it and it will totally change our way of life and our way of doing business in the world. The sooner we jump on board with a truly sustainable way of living and doing business the better off we will be as a country. Now in the Speech from the Throne I saw the comments on infrastructure and transport and I wonder how the rural caucus in the National Party feels about the fact that the priority of the Government is spending money on motorways in our five largest cities where they will make the least difference if anything—Andrew Bayly: Come to Pukekohe and see how you can get to Auckland Central. Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I know. Look members opposite have grown up in a car-dependent culture. They don't understand that it's possible to have economically rational investment that improves people's options to alternatives but the reality is—and we have 50 years of data on this if any of the members opposite would like to see it—that urban motorways do not reduce congestion; they make it worse; that the billions of dollars spent in central Wellington on an extra lane an extra kilometre of lane is not going to make it easier to get to the airport; and that those billions of dollars spent in central Wellington and on the fringe of Auckland and in Christchurch are billions of dollars that this National-led Government will not be spending on the rural roads in the regions that actually need investment. Not even $500 million was spent in the entirety of Northland on roads over the 11-year period—nine years of that was under the National Government and they are planning to spend over $2 billion for an extra kilometre lane in central Wellington because they believe that it will make it 30 seconds faster for them to drive from the airport to the Beehive. Sadly we know that's not true because of induced traffic. But the question is if this Government truly represents the economic concerns of the people living in rural areas why are they proposing to spend billions of dollars on highways in the urban areas where they are more expensive where they make traffic worse? It's because they're ignorant. They are ignorant fools this Government and I would love to be able to say that we could work with them to propose some economically rational projects that would actually improve the economic productivity of our cities that would improve the health and wellbeing of our people and of our children. It would be entirely possible for a National-led Government to do this but they choose not to. They choose not to. They choose to go down the failed roads of the past that will make congestion worse. Perhaps it's because the direct beneficiaries of these highways are the greenfields land bankers who probably donated to all three of these parties and that is the truth. However well-meaning many of those individuals might be the reality is this is a Government that was bought and paid for by vested interest by the super-rich who want to continue to maintain a hierarchy who want to roll back the protections for workers because it means that they can have cheaper labour to make bigger profits.This is the story of the late 20th century and the early 21st century in many English-speaking countries. I think that after three years of this group of—sorry I can't help it—dinosaurs being in power the public will see that in fact they do not have the real solutions that will address cost of living that will address degradation to our natural environment that will address climate change and that will truly enable people no matter where they're born no matter what colour they and their parents are no matter what their circumstances that they actually truly have an opportunity to grow up in a warm healthy home with enough kai and an opportunity to get a good education because the reality is that in order to do that in order to have equality of opportunity you have to have redistributive policies that ensure that wealth does not become unfairly concentrated in the hands of an oligarchy.Suze Redmayne: Equality of opportunity not equality of outcome.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Yeah equality of opportunity cannot be achieved if you do not tax income from capital at the same rate that you tax income from work. You don't believe that because you're a bunch of landlords who want to keep getting richer at the expense of everyone else. That's the truth. I've been here 12 years; I call it as I see it. I'm happy to work with you at any point on an economically rational approach to infrastructure and transport but the people of New Zealand need to realise sooner rather than later that there is a true alternative that the Green Party is here with practical proven solutions that will help address the issues that are most important to our people. Kia ora.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Just before I call the next speaker interjection is great but there's been a lot of conversations and walking around going in the House this afternoon while speakers have been speaking. I would just ask—and it's been both sides—and I would actually ask you just to be a bit limited in your private conversations but interjections are fine because it is one of those heated debates. With that I'll call on the Hon Andrew Bayly.