Shaw James: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: General Debate[Sitting date: 25 May 2016. Volume:714;Page:11252. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): We have had 8 years of Mr Joyce speaking to his own backbenchers rather than to the country. We have had 8 years of crowing and self-congratulation rather than talking about how this Government plans to solve the great challenges of our time. Seeing as Paula Bennett raised it in her response to my questions in question time earlier today let us talk a little bit about the population of New Zealand.In 1973 when I was born the population of New Zealand was just shy of 3 million people. Today 43 years later it stands at a little over 4.5 million. In other words we have added half again to our population in the time that I have been alive. By the time I die—and there are some benign assumptions in this equation—our population will have doubled. In other words we have gone from being a country where we could pretty much carry on as we liked—we could take whatever we wanted from our forests our rivers our aquifers and our seas confidently believing they would replenish themselves naturally—and we could dump our waste into our atmosphere into our rivers into our oceans and into our land with little visible consequence.Today we have a Government that carries on as if that were somehow still true—as if it ever was true. It stopped being true some time ago. For 8 years now we have had a Government that has actively invested public money in the pollution of our rivers our aquifers and our oceans. For 8 years now we have had a Government that would rather run a Budget surplus than save our endangered birds. For 8 years we have had a Government that believes stopping climate change will be more expensive than living with deeper droughts worse storms and rising seas.Tomorrow just as Mr Joyce did now the Government will sit and crow as it delivers its second-to-last Budget. There will be the usual smattering I guess of headline-grabbing announcements designed to make it look as if it is doing something whilst doing absolutely nothing at all—or as little as possible rather than everything possible in order to solve the actual challenges that face us today. When I say that we have a Government that has put public money into the pollution of our rivers our aquifers and our oceans I am speaking of its active involvement in converting New Zealand farmland into intensive dairying which has led to a situation where two-thirds of our rivers are now unswimmable without the risk of catching some horrible disease. I expect that in tomorrow’s Budget the Government will crow as Mr Joyce has just done about some minor clean-up programme but that in another year our rivers will be just as polluted as they are today if not more so.When I say we have got a Government that would rather deliver a Budget surplus than save endangered birds I am speaking of its consistent underfunding of the Department of Conservation (DOC) for the last 8 years. In every year of the National Government’s tenure Government funding for DOC through Vote Conservation has been on average $55 million less than the last Labour Government’s. That is $336 million that DOC has had to manage without for the last 8 years. As a result 142 species have had their threat status increased towards extinction over the last 8 years of this Government’s watch. DOC huts bridges and tracks are in disrepair. I expect that in tomorrow’s Budget there will be another gimmick designed to make it look like the Government is doing something about it but in another year’s time our endangered birds will be just as at risk of extinction as they are today.When I say that we have had a Government that believes stopping climate change is more expensive than letting it happen I am talking about the fact that New Zealand’s net greenhouse gas emissions are 19 percent higher since this Government came to office and since we put in place an emissions trading scheme the purpose of which is to reduce our emissions. Every year the news carries stories of record storms floods fires and droughts. The 2013 storm—the worst in 60 years—left 30000 Wellington houses without power and $31 million of insurance claims. The same year’s drought wiped $1.5 billion off our economy. Last year there was catastrophic flooding in Whanganui and in South Dunedin.This year the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment mapped out tens of thousands of properties that will be at risk from rising seas over the coming decades. In tomorrow’s Budget I expect yet more platitudes from a Government that wants to be seen to be doing something whilst at the same time is continuing its polluting industries. After 8 years of “a brighter future” we have declining water quality more at-risk endangered species and more greenhouse gas emissions. Change is coming.