GARETH HUGHES (Green) Link to this
Kia ora. I feel extremely privileged to stand here. My first words in this House will be about hope, for as a Green Party member what motivates me is hope for a fairer and more prosperous future. As a father I am hopeful for a safer world for my son to inherit, and as a young person I am hopeful for a New Zealand that I can continue to be proud of. This evening I will introduce myself and use my personal story to illustrate why I am passionate about Green politics and optimistic about the future.
As the youngest member in this House I represent a generational shift both in this Parliament and in the Green Party caucus. I was born in 1981 in a very different New Zealand. Twenty-eight years ago we had 3 million people and 7 million sheep. New Zealanders needed to get a doctor’s prescription to buy margarine, and we had a very different National Prime Minister—one who was thinking big, if also a little sloppily. Like the rest of New Zealand, in 1981 my home town was split by conflict over the racist Springbok Tour. It was also in 1981 that the honourable Leader of the Opposition entered this House. Like other people of my generation, I do not remember the 1984 general election, which ushered in so much change. That revolutionary transformation of the political and social consensus in New Zealand was on a par with the Liberal, Vogel, and first Labour Government reforms, which were such historic milestones. That year was a long, long time ago. In 2010 I am hopeful we are on the cusp of another change—another revolutionary transformation. I am looking forward to the opportunity to work with the Green Party and this Parliament to shift us from a dirty, unfair, old-fashioned economic model to an innovative, sustainable, and fair economy.
I grew up in Gisborne more boy racer than bohemian. I loved cars, wanted to be an All Black, and remember laughing at my recently turned vegetarian friend, saying he was just a poser and that I would never be vegetarian. Although environmental issues were not top of the agenda at home, at school, or in the media, I was acutely aware at the time of social issues like inequality and unemployment. In the late 1980s, due in part to the Rogernomic reforms, my father, along with many locals, was made redundant at the local freezing works. I worked from an early age—as a pamphlet deliverer, pushing trolleys at the supermarket, and in a fish and chip store—because it was necessary. It was not until I left home to study religion and history at Victoria University and to personally contribute my $30,000 to the more than $9 billion national student debt that I was exposed to the most radical political idea of the last 50 years: the Earth is not growing. Sure, it sounds simple and common-sense, but when one stops to think, one sees that our entire economic system is dependent on infinite growth on a finite planet.
The most serious symptom of our addiction to growth is climate change. We do not need a weatherman to say which way the wind blows, and we do not need a climatologist to say to which way the temperature goes. We need better ways of living because we do not have a planet B. To quote George Monbiot, “Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battle-lines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments,”—to growth—“and those who believe that we must live within limits.” From this understanding I became a passionate environmentalist. In my twenties, like so many ordinary Kiwis, I became active and I campaigned: from helping to stop genetically engineered food sneaking on to our dinner plates, through sailing on the Rainbow Warrior and directly stopping bottom trawlers from wiping out amazing undersea worlds, to most recently coordinating the Sign On campaign for Greenpeace, in which more than 200,000 Kiwis called on the Prime Minister to do the right thing for the climate.
The 1999 election was a turning point for me. It was so exciting and empowering to see people like me talk in this House about the things I cared about. MMP meant decisions were no longer just made by white, middle-aged men in smoky back rooms. MMP helped more people to be represented in the House of Representatives, and I contend that it also helped form better decisions.
I grew up in the region known as Poverty Bay, which 241 years ago had a different, more hopeful name. On 6 October 1769 Nicholas Young, the surgeon’s boy on the ship Endeavour, sighted the coastline of New Zealand and also the thriving settlement of Tūranga-nui-a-Kiwa. We teach the discovery of New Zealand in schools, but like an embarrassing family secret we prefer to forget or to downplay that on first contact on that day Te Maro of Ngāti Oneone was killed by English musket fire and, as petty recompense, three iron nails were left on his corpse.
History is a passion of mine and can sometimes reveal inconvenient truths. Many New Zealanders would not know that Māori had a Declaration of Independence, would not know a Treaty clause, and would not know that tino rangatiratanga—sovereignty—was not ceded in the Treaty but taken at the point of a musket. To take my seat in the House last week I had to pledge allegiance to the Queen. I look forward to the day when we can reform our constitution to ditch the monarchy, decentralise our political structures, and see genuine tino rangatiratanga for tangata whenua.
Two years ago I became a dad, and I want my son to grow up knowing his history, eating safe food, and enjoying a stable climate and a prosperous economy. Though our politics differ, I know all members in the House want these things for all Kiwi kids. But why are Governments of both colours failing? This Government, like Labour before it, ignores the warnings of the end of cheap oil; blithely builds more motorways; chronically under-invests in public transport, walking, and cycling; and perpetuates the housing crisis that sees people of my generation forced out of affordable homeownership. As different from each other as Coke is from Pepsi, both parties ignore the crisis in the oceans, depend on debt to fuel growth, and continue to support growing inequality. In desperation the current Government is hunting for coal in the last protected places. Mining companies can already mine in 87 percent of New Zealand, and by opening up the last 13 percent the National Government is undoing its own wise decision from 1997. Mining the national parks is like burning the furniture to keep warm.
As a career, I have been privileged and proud to be a climate campaigner. I am passionate about working towards finding the solutions to climate change. It is one of the most fascinating issues facing humanity at the moment. In a way, it is a tragedy that it is seen just as an environmental issue. Last year former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported that right now 300,000 people die every year as a result of climate change. Man’s massive and growing release of greenhouse gases is a people issue. It is an economic issue, a social justice issue, and a spiritual issue. It is not just about the polar bears and penguins; at issue is the future of humanity as we know it.
With the growth in emissions—especially from more cars, cows, and coal—will the New Zealanders of my son’s generation rightfully ask of us who are tonight in this House what we did when we had the chance? Could future leaders accuse us in this House of wilful neglect? Could Ministers be put in the dock for crimes against the planet? From Kupe to Cook to Sir Ed, we have been a can-do, forward-looking nation. As Kiwi as pavlova, Kiwis are prepared to play our part and to do the right thing. Yet when it comes to the climate crisis, a crisis bigger than Mount Everest, Governments, both Labour and National, instead of putting one foot after the other to scale the challenge, get knocked off by the bastard. They put corporate and short-term interests ahead of saving the climate. As Sir Nicholas Stern pointed out, it is expensive to tackle climate change, but it is considerably cheaper than paying the costs.
One person in particular who epitomised the hope and realism of the Green vision was Jeanette Fitzsimons. People keep telling me that they are big shoes to fill, but I prefer to consider that I have strong shoulders to stand on. Jeanette was a pioneer, and over the last 10 years the Green Party has grown from being the fresh-faced new kid on the block to being a respected, effective, and principled party. I am now the first Green MP who has not sat in the House with either Rod or Jeanette. The Greens are growing. There are new faces, new energies, and new issues, but the same values. Surrounded by my colleagues, I know that the vision of a peaceful, democratic, greener, and fairer Aotearoa New Zealand will continue.
It is an exciting time to enter this House. The time for bandages, step changes, and tinkering is ending; a new generation of young people is entering politics, and they are optimistic about the future and turned off by the petty parliamentary point-scoring and vacuous, visionless politics espoused by our leaders. I will work constructively on issues with any party in this House, and with any person, where we can. I am not here for the petty points or the tribal battles. I believe that my generation wants less partisan politics, and is more open to new ideas and more flexible thinking. We are too young to remember the polarising politics of Sir Rob Muldoon, Ruth Richardson, and Sir Roger Douglas. I would like to float a proposal to the other young members in this House to form an inter-party youth caucus, which would work collaboratively on the issues of youth crime, youth suicide, housing affordability, intergenerational debt, tertiary education issues, and a host of other challenges facing our young Kiwis.
We face both economic and ecological crises. More people from a variety of backgrounds—from progressive business leaders like Stephen Tindall and Geoff Ross to unions—understand that the answers to one crisis can and must be the answer to both. We need a Green New Deal. The Greens have costed out a suite of proposals that, in a nutshell, would put the economy from the red into the green.
Next year will be my dreaded 30th. It is election year, and it is also the year in which New Zealand has the privilege of hosting the Rugby World Cup. I am a rugby fan, and I am keen to make sure the cup is a success. Although I know that I cannot—as in my 6-year-old boyhood fantasy—score the winning try in the final as the replacement for Sean Fitzpatrick, I can help us make the cup a success, and make sure that the tens of thousands of visitors come away with a positive view of New Zealand. The World Cup in 2011 will be the biggest event to come to New Zealand in a generation, and our best chance to brand ourselves on the world stage as clean and green. With the prestige of the World Cup will come huge economic benefits, but also massive risks to our important and valuable brand if we are seen to drop the ball on sustainability.
Last year the Guardian and the New York Times ran very damaging yet accurate articles on our environmental performance. Just last week New Zealand dropped from 1st to 15th on Yale and Columbia Universities’ Environmental Performance Index. I am not suggesting we cancel the cup to avoid embarrassment and brand risk; I am suggesting we make “100% Pure New Zealand” a reality. The World Cup could add the urgency to a raft of cost-effective, job-producing green initiatives from transport to housing and from energy to waste. At present we are sleepwalking towards the worst outcome: waking up the day after the final with a mess to clean up and nothing to show for the party.
In summary, I am not motivated to action by an apocalyptic nightmare of environmental crisis; rather, I am inspired by a vision of pristine rivers; of clean, fast transport; and of an economy that measures more of the things that really matter. I thank all the members in this House for their warm welcome, as well as the cleaners, the security guards, and the staff, who do such great work. I thank my wife, Meghan: my soulmate, best mate, and source of strength. I thank my parents, Ambrose and Gill; my parents-in-law, Mark and Kerry; my stepmother, Jill; and all my other family, friends, and colleagues here tonight and watching online. It is as much to their credit as it is to mine that I am standing here tonight. To my son, Arlo, who is my inspiration and source of hope, I say: “You remind me that each and every day it is not enough just to live; you have to have something to live for.” To everyone whom I have had the privilege of addressing tonight, and to all future generations, I say that I wish I could change the science of climate change and the facts of inequality. I cannot, so I am going to change the politics. Kia ora.