Pham LanLAN PHAM (Green): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. It's a real privilege to be able to rise tonight to the very real implications of this Budget because here's the thing: the Government purport to be so laser-focused on their outdated very narrow view of the economy that they fail to see te ngahere for te rākau—or the wood for the trees. This Budget neglects the one thing that holds it all up; the one thing alongside the health of our people and our communities that is the only thing that has any true value. That is te taiao—our environment.I knew that the environment wasn't really a priority for this Government when they left all the environment Ministers out of Cabinet and scrapped really early on the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act. But what I didn't expect with this Budget was to have it so starkly laid out in these Budget decisions such a deliberate and comprehensive dismantling of our environmental reform and environmental management space here in Aotearoa. Especially at this time in human history when we need these environmental protections and legislation the most. And that's what all the weight of evidence and science and research is telling us: we need to protect and restore the environment or it's going to be to our own detriment—and it doesn't seem like that is reflected in any way in these Budget decisions.I did just want to step through a number of the most glaring and troubling Budget decisions. So cuts to Vote Environment have totalled $617 million over the next four years and these are across significant programmes of work like cutting $20 million from the indigenous biodiversity fund or cutting $47 million from the Freshwater Improvement Fund.Then we've got the gutting of both of our key environmental agencies. First of all the Ministry for the Environment has suffered a funding cut of $65 million—that's a crippling 39 percent. Now I want to spell out as well what this means in terms of the staffing implications. We heard really clearly that 200 staffing roles that were vacant will no longer be filled and then we have 303 roles that have been actively disestablished from these Budget decisions. I do want to point out that these roles are across public service in the fundamental domains of things like areas where we are protecting or researching or restoring or monitoring fundamental things like the air we breathe the water we drink from or gather kai or swim in or the biodiversity that we love and enjoy. So we are all worse off when we do not have these public servants doing the mahi and actually having benefits for te taiao and therefore ourselves.The Department of Conservation (DOC) is another environmental casualty that we've seen as part of this Budget. DOC is tasked with the very difficult job of protecting over 4000 threatened or at-risk or taonga species. They manage ⅓ of the country on a meagre shoestring budget and they've been awarded in this Budget a $48 million cut which will have very real implications for their ability to carry out their role. This includes the incredibly successful Jobs 4 Nature programme which goes up in smoke come the end of this month with a $55 million reduction over four years.Now what possibly could be the rationale for this level of underinvestment? Well we got to ask the Minister that during scrutiny and she believes that the balance had swung too far towards the environment. What was really concerning about that is that she couldn't point to any evidence within her own ministry that actually informed her of that view. But we heard very vaguely something about hearing from constituents and the need for housing and infrastructure. Now those are valid needs that you don't need to scrap our entire environmental framework in order to achieve.The Green Party are really concerned that our window for protecting te taiao is quickly closing and this Government does not understand that. Thank you.