Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. At the beginning of 2020 before COVID-19 had reached our shores officials from Treasury and the Reserve Bank of New Zealand produced advice for the Government. It was later Official Information Act requested. That advice said that if we were to cushion the economic impacts of COVID-19 through what was once called—and I don't think it anymore can be called—unconventional monetary policy we would experience what they called distributional impacts". Distributional impacts is a nice way of saying increased inequality.The Government knew this when it made the decision to rely heavily on unconventional monetary policy. The Government knew that the alternative was to use more heavily fiscal policy which is a nice way of saying "Taxing and spending". Yes taxing and spending is something that all Governments of all stripes do indeed do. The Government and in fact all of us have seen those distributional impacts. We've seen it in house prices rising by more than $300000 on average across Aotearoa. We've seen it in the $1 trillion estimated transfer of wealth to the wealthiest New Zealanders. The Government has seen that increase in inequality not through some natural process but as a result of decisions that were made and decisions that were not made.The word "ideology" is thrown around a lot in this place and it's usually one side accusing the other of doing something without any other justification than they believe in it. But the thing is all of us have ideologies because all of us have values and philosophies. Those values and philosophies are actually the things that we run election campaigns on. They're the underlying principles of our policies that we take out on the hustings and we ask the people of this country to vote for. Almost all of us can find evidence for the things that we believe in but of course not all of that evidence is made equal.The very basis of the scientific method starts with a hypothetical answer to the universe's many questions then rigorously trying to prove yourself wrong. Your hot takes the things you've extrapolated from your life experiences your reckons—there has been a lot of ink spilled and millennia of academic years spent arguing about how we format these hypotheses about who's hypotheses are given air time to be tested or not about whose life experiences and brains get inside of institutions like our universities—and in fact even this very debating chamber—to translate the inherently limited experiences and thoughts of each of our lives into ideas that we have the privilege of testing out. Science is the process of falsifying the things that you thought.But politics feels like doing anything to justify exactly those same thoughts and that is where ideology comes back into the picture. If we do not constantly challenge our views and values and political positions we form as a result of talking to people—yes people out there especially the people who are so far outside of institutions like this that come up with these ideas—then we cannot begin to pretend that any of us are any better than deeply dogmatic ideologues. Regardless even and especially when tested it will always ultimately be our values as people and as politicians that will allow us to accept or reject new information to either change our opinions and our policies or not to do so—in fact that's often the path that is rewarded in politics—and that is why it is so important that we are in fact straight up about these ideologies about our values our priorities and the things that we are willing to trade off.I am not just talking about rhetoric because in fact all of us—all of us—can talk about freedom and kindness and respect and fairness and justice and responsibility. All of those words though mean totally different things to all of us. What I am talking about is those values in practice and how when it really comes down to it we will have to prioritise things—how none of us in our policies or in our voter bases can have it all; how it is a complete and utter folly to pretend that there is somehow some middle road through really crunchy and difficult issues of poverty of racism of the climate crisis.Each and every one of us can give really nice speeches and use similar words on those issues but you cannot have a world below 1.5 degrees of warming without taking the necessary and now requisite radical action to actually achieve that. That means you cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. You cannot end poverty without raising benefit levels to livable incomes. To do otherwise is to decide that some people deserve to live in poverty. You cannot get house prices to affordable levels when you refuse to define what affordable levels actually are let alone refuse to let house prices fall down to what we all kind of think is a vibe of affordable levels. You cannot say that you are pulling all of the available levers while ruling out land back a capital gains tax a wealth tax and rent controls. You simply can't say that you're using all of the cutlery available to you when you leave the knife and fork in the drawer.Today I asked the Finance and Expenditure Committee to hold an inquiry into the COVID-19 economic response. Unfortunately a Labour majority voted it down—and do not take that as some glowing endorsement of the current state of the Opposition. Because we know that inequality today is worse than it was two years ago. All of this and all of us will say that we know how to deal with this problem; that we want to deal with this problem. But do we? Because when it really comes down to it you either reduce inequality or you don't. That means being honest about our ideologies about our values and who and what we will prioritise when it really comes down to it. I've been told that I have offended landlords by standing up for renters. I've been told that I have offended some in university hierarchies by standing up for students. It is of course the case that actions and the words that we as politicians speak have consequences and we all will try our best to negotiate solutions amongst parties that have differing opinions. But you genuinely cannot have it all because when you are genuinely fighting for something when you are genuinely fighting for people you will have to choose a side. And we must be honest about it.That is why I am so deeply proud to be in the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. Obviously our name is Green and our colour is green; so a lot of people can draw a lot of extrapolations about that. In our founding document our charter principles the underlying principle is a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and that is something which we will continue to do our best to live up to. Embedded within that is a commitment to what we call "ecological wisdom"—note that these are terms that were come up with I believe in a hui of a hundred-odd Greens back in the day. But ecological wisdom is a recognition that the resources of this planet are finite and if we accept that as a premise then we must accept that in order to have our second core principle of social responsibility or social justice fully and properly meet those finite resources must be shared amongst people in a way that enables us to have a cohesive society.We also hold steadfast to the vision and the value of appropriate decision-making. That means boiling decision-making powers down to the level where it actually affects people. It's where we are such staunch and stoked advocates of things like localism and empowering our local communities. We also believe fundamentally in non-violence. And while for some that of course is making sure that we are doing our utmost to engage in non-violent direct action to stand for the things that we believe in it also means bringing people around a decision-making table—voices that are not always heard—representative of all in a non-tokenistic way to ensure that we come to a creative and constructive solution.My question to all of the other parliamentarians who will engage in this debate today and tonight is: where really when it comes down to it do you stand? Who and what will you prioritise when those hard decisions around climate action around inequality around housing affordability around Te Tiriti o Waitangi are truly on the table? Because actions speak louder than words and I implore my fellow parliamentarians to be honest. Kia ora."