Source: Green Party
At this year’s State of the Planet address, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics.
Chlöe’s speech:
Mihi atu ki a koutou e pupuri tonu ana ki te mana o te whenua nei, tēnā koutou Ngāti Whātua.
Tēnā koutou, Auckland Central to the world.
Across the past year, I have been in front of dozens of audiences like this, and time and again, I have asked people one simple question.
I’ve asked people to raise their hand if they are excited about the future.
Every single time, fewer than half a dozen people in a sea of hundreds put their hand up.
This, my friends, is our problem.
Trickle-down politicians and their donors have spent at least forty years coming after our public services, our media and our democracy, but it’s clear now more than ever that their real target has been our hope.
The hope that better is possible.
These guys want you exhausted and angry and disillusioned. It means you’re disempowered. Too exhausted to think at the end of the work day.
Too angry to see the problem clearly.
Too disempowered to look around and see all the other exhausted and angry people, and to understand that if we all spent a moment to find our common problems and common solutions, everything could change.
So, conveniently, all across the world, after decades of privatising and underfunding the public services people need to live healthy lives and participate in society, after decades of creating the conditions of poverty and extreme vulnerability and isolation and mental ill health… After creating this exhaustion and anger and despair, the right wing knows those feelings have to go somewhere.
So they’ve painted targets.
Those painted targets are not the people actually responsible for causing poverty and homelessness and unemployment and understandable, deep rage.
No.
The chosen targets are indigenous peoples, fighting for survival after centuries of injustice and violent theft. Those chosen targets are our rainbow communities, who every day prove that all these social norms are just made up. The chosen targets are migrants – regular people, like you and me, who just want to provide for themselves, their families and their community.
Let me be crystal clear: if you’re struggling to get by, your beef isn’t with someone else struggling to get by.
Your beef is with the system that forces almost everyone you know into a life of struggle, and, more precisely, your beef is with those who profit from it.
It’s Pride Month. We’ve seen some of the most aggressive and intentional targeting of our takatapui, rainbow and queer community in a long time. Some of that has been driven by a self-declared apostle who
lives in a mansion and drives nice cars, funded by huge tithing from people without much to spare.
The followers of this self-declared apostle have been rejected from most of regular society time and again. Some of them have been scooped up into the flock after exiting prison, because after decades of successive Governments giving up on real rehabilitation, there simply isn’t anything or anywhere else.
So people who have nothing else, and nowhere else to belong, are given refuge.
And internal pain is warped outwards.
Instead of being channelled towards dismantling the rules that allow a handful of people to take an immense amount of wealth off the back of our collective work, that anger is – so conveniently for those profiteering from the status quo – channelled towards people just trying to live their own quite regular or quite fabulous, lives.
These extreme microcosms of hatred can teach us a lot about where we’re at as a society. More importantly, I think, when we peel back the distractions, it lays bare the solutions.
We cannot give up on our fellow human beings.
You do not get human rights because someone deems you worthy or good. You get human rights because you are human.
When we uphold each other’s basic dignity, no matter what, we create the conditions for connection and true justice.
We all need somewhere to belong, and human history tells us there’s almost always a politician or self-appointed apostle willing to capitalise on and warp rejection and fear and anger for their own personal gain.
The anger comes from a real place of material deprivation: housing insecurity, food insecurity, income insecurity. Straight up insecurity.
That anger can either destroy us as we fight each other, much to the entertainment of those laughing their way to the bank, or it can be turned into the solidarity necessary to change the rules of this game.
Our country is considered one of the wealthiest in the world on a per person basis.
So why can’t regular people afford to go to the dentist?
It’s not because of the gays, or the migrants, or tangata whenua.
It’s because that wealth isn’t fairly shared.
It’s because way back when the public health system was being created, the lobby was already so strong to privatise dentistry.
Why can’t regular people afford decent housing?
Because over decades, politicians and property speculators – sometimes one in the same – have made intentional decisions to sell off your human right to housing to the highest bidder.
And why is the planet that all of this is happening on being allowed to burn while billionaires pile up ill-gotten treasure?
Because almost everybody’s focus, understandably, is on just trying to get by. It’s hard to think about, let alone contend with, how a handful of people are ransacking the climate necessary for our collective survival in order to make a quick buck. You’re just out here trying to survive.
That’s what we mean when we say that the same economic system that’s exploiting people is also exploiting the planet.
What’s a right-wing government’s response to this exploitation and exhaustion? Well, obviously, it’s more exploitation and exhaustion. It’s more punishing beneficiaries and tax cuts for the rich.
It’s fast-tracking offshore profits plundered from our natural environment.
It’s banging the ‘growth’ drum while intentionally being silent on what kind of growth, and for whom.
Seriously. Just last week when we were in Parliament, I asked the Prime Minister why after decades of this “growth” he’s so fixated on, 10% of the people in this country own 60% of our nation’s wealth.
It will shock you to learn Christopher Luxon didn’t answer the question.
Instead, he went on and on about celebrating successful people.
That would maybe make sense if we were talking about people in isolation, which the right wing so desperately wants us to do.
But we’re not, and we can’t, because, my friends, we live in a society.
Poverty, and all the social ills that stem from it, don’t come from nowhere.
It comes from a tolerance of extreme inequality.
If you’re totally sweet with 311 households holding more wealth than the bottom two and a half million New Zealanders, you’re totally sweet with the child deprivation, homelessness and poor health that comes with it.
Inequality and poverty aren’t just connected: deep inequality creates poverty.
Where would all this pent-up anger go if it wasn’t directed to other people just struggling to get by? If hustle culture didn’t teach us to lap it all up in self loathing?
What if we realised our shared power in working together, instead of fighting each other?
If we ensured the wealthy paid their fair share, instead of swallowing trickle-down fairytales?
We don’t live in a game of Monopoly. We can and should change the rules when they don’t work for the majority of people.
In the last year alone, we have seen tens of thousands of people turn up in the streets to prove our country’s values of care for each other and the planet we live on. For Te Tiriti.
2024 was the year of activism. 2025 must be the year of organising. Of channelling that energy into a shared goal: to change this Government, to uproot the trickle-down nightmare and to build an economy that supports life, instead of exhausting it.
In December, the Greens released He Ara Anamata, our Emissions Reduction Plan. We showed how to reduce emissions five times faster than the Government’s proposal. We proved you can not only reduce emissions and the cost of living, but also improve quality of life.
Today, I am proud to announce that in May, the Greens will be releasing the Budget we would be rolling out in Government.
Our budget will not be a defence of the status quo.
Our budget will show you how we already have everything we need to ensure everyone enjoys our basic rights to a clean environment and stable climate. Everyone is housed, everyone gets healthcare, everyone gets education. Everyone gets the genuine opportunity for a good life.
That’s because we believe in the public good. And we’re sick of this Government’s pathetic pandering to privatisation.
Forty years ago, a few politicians made the decision to shred our social safety net. They began selling off the things we all used to own and look after together. They privatised profit and socialised cost.
The problems we are confronted with today are not natural. Humans made the system that created them, and we can recreate it.
The gap between an economy that exploits people and the planet and one that supports us both is collective action. As long as regular people are suspicious of and fighting each other, a handful of powerful people will get incredibly rich at all of our expense.
Nobody is coming to save us. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
It’s time to claim your hope – to claim your power. Look to your fellow New Zealanders with curiosity and kindness. The pathway to our freedom is intertwined.
So, raise your hand: who here is excited about the future?
And are you willing to work for it?
Are you willing to believe in and work to uphold the dignity of your fellow New Zealanders, even and especially those who you have not met? Those not even born yet?
Solidarity doesn’t require us to be the same. It simply requires you to see in someone else our shared humanity, and to behave accordingly.
Together, we are unstoppable.
I am so honoured to introduce you all now to my wonderful co-leader – the Honourable Marama Davidson. Nau mai, hoki mai Marama!
—
Marama’s speech:
Mā te oranga o te taiao, ka ora ai te iwi. Mō te takitini, kāore mō te torutoru anake.
E te whānau, I am so grateful to be here today. I am well, and feeling better each day.
My mokopuna are rongoā. My mokopuna, just by being the embodiment of my ancestors – are a reminder of all that we love. Of all that we must protect.
Over the many months of cancer treatment, one of the most profound experiences of healing was daytime nana naps with my moko babies. Where I had any assortment of my three babies, asleep and at peace with the shared vibrations of our heartbeats and gentle breathing. Getting to enjoy this has been a precious blessing.
I am grateful to the wonderful health care professionals who have been there for me each step of the way.
I am grateful to my whānau, who are my rock. And to every single person who reached out with aroha and support. To the breast cancer community, thank you for being there for all of us. To those who are going through treatment or have just heard the worst news of their lives – nunui te aroha kia koutou.
I haven’t spoken publicly about this before, but today I’m going to let you in on a secret. I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few days before the State of the Planet speech last year. I remember standing at this exact podium – knowing I would need to step away from public life for a bit. Taking leave when my voice was needed the most was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.
This job is and continues to be an enormous privilege. To be able to come back to it, blows my mind.
But the space to recover and put my health and whānau first was both necessary, and something I am beyond grateful for. Not everyone has the support I had. I will never take that for granted and I will always work to embed the political change we need so that everyone can put health first. Like better pay and conditions for our health workers, decent income support, and secure housing for all.
Ehara taku tū i te tū takitahi, ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, ehara taku taumaha i te taumaha takitahi. We all depend on each other when times are rough. People want to care for each other – manaakitanga is what makes us human. Within whānau and communities, to care and be cared for is the basis of connection.
These are the values the Green Party wants to bring to politics as well.
Being on the sidelines of politics last year was surreal. When the hikoi for te Tiriti happened, it was during medical treatments and I needed to stay home. But seeing people come together with such vibrant unity, made me so proud that I grabbed my ‘tino’ flag and took a photo in my garden so I could feel part of the movement.
While the hīkoi was in response to a Government that continues to disregard the promises this country was founded on, it was so much more than a protest. It was the ultimate example of how to show up: with our tūpuna, for our mokopuna and for each other. The wairua shown at the hīkoi is the best of us.
As Moana Jackson said, te Tiriti o Waitangi is about the rightness that comes from people accepting their obligations to each other. This is a profound vision on which to build a country. Aotearoa can be a place where everyone is supported to thrive, and no one is left behind – including Papatūānuku.
And I take inspiration from this vision not only here in Aotearoa, but globally.
The world feels like a bit of a scary place right now. I worry for the future of my three mokopuna, and all the mokopuna to come. My heart breaks for children in Gaza, for all children growing up in war zones, for children in detention centers, and for children and their whānau throughout the world who are hungry, cold and homeless.
At a time when the world needs to be coming together to solve climate change – the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced – instead we can barely come together to solve easy challenges like making sure every child has healthy kai.
We can do better. Our mokopuna deserve better.
Last year was the hottest year on record. That means that my mokopuna, and all the babies of the world today, will never see a normal climate. They have been born into climate change. And no matter where they are born, here in Aotearoa or far across the sea, they need us – their adults – to step up to this challenge right now. They deserve to inherit a thriving planet, not a destroyed one.
Now I want to draw this back to Te Tiriti, because these things are connected. Te Tiriti is a promise that carries through the generations. Te Tiriti is an enduring guarantee of iwi and hapū sovereignty over taonga like our lakes, rivers, seas, soils and native forests. And that means protecting those living systems for our mokopuna – so they too can exercise tino rangatiratanga.
Te Tiriti is the best defence Aotearoa has against the plundering of our environment for the profit of the few. This is why the far right is so intent on ripping it up and pretending it doesn’t matter. But that short term exploitation only enriches the pockets of a tiny group of people, while destroying nature for the rest of us.
When our gorgeous conservation land is trampled for mining, when our rivers become too polluted to swim in, when we can’t go down to the moana to harvest kai because there aren’t enough fish left – everyone misses out. And when a tiny group of oil executives are more interested in a growing balance sheet than a stable climate, every single child in the world misses out.
Our mokopuna deserve better!
At the heart of the political change we seek is manaakitanga, collective caring for people and planet. And crucially, the humility to understand that common human experiences are much more important than any flash job title or made-up markers of status. A serious illness throws that into sharp relief. Because what matters most when things are tough is our care for one another. I know that people are doing the best they can with what they have.
But the dominating economic system, means that wealth and power are not shared equally. These inequities further divide communities when instead we need to come together. By making sure everyone gets the care they need, we can ensure nobody is left behind to fall through the cracks. Care and justice for ALL people is what binds us together and helps us build a future where all of us thrive. This vision will be at the centre of our Green Budget.
This is what our politics should reflect. A politics of care. A hunger for doing what is just. This is the legacy of our late and great friend, Green MP Fa’anānā Efeso Collins whose one year anniversary of passing we have been reflecting on over the past week. Gone too soon our friend, we miss you deeply.
Efeso spent his life building bridges between the Pacific communities he loved and the rest of Aotearoa.
During Efeso’s maiden speech in Parliament, he shared with us his translation of a saying in Sāmoan: E le tu fa’amauga se tagata. No one stands alone, no one succeeds alone — and, for him, and the Green Party, no one suffers alone.
This is manaakitanga.
And this is what inspires me e te whānau. This is the hope for our mokopuna.
But collective care is not part of this government’s plan. They are showing us each day they stand for the few and not for the many. They are completely out of touch with the community.
We have seen this in the choices to gut school lunches. To gut housing for those who need it the most. To gut our health system and put more and more pressure on our health workers. To gut benefits so that more and more children fall through the cracks and below the poverty line. For absolute shame!
Our mokopuna deserve better.
We can deliver better by channeling community power and finally putting people and planet ahead of profit.
This country can afford to feed our tamariki nutritious kai. We could choose to provide lunches in every school – using fresh local kai and made by people who are connected to that school. We could choose to make sure every person in this country has a safe, warm home. Poverty is a political choice and we can choose to end it.
We can do all of this by putting our values of manaakitanga at the heart of political decisions. By honouring te Tiriti o Waitangi and the promises of kotahitanga and care as the foundation this country was built on.
And when we do that, we will show the world what it looks like to put care for people and planet first. Together, we can build the future all our mokopuna deserve.
And that mahi is why I am so so grateful to be back with you all. Kia kaha tatau – ka whawhai tonu, mō te whenua, mō te taiao, mō ngā mokopuna – ake, ake, ake
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