Green Party co-leader imnofox assumes his position behind a leafy lectern at Pukekura Park in New Plymouth to speak to a packed crowd of enthusiastic voters.

“Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa. Well, it feels like just yesterday I was here in the Whanganui electorate, proudly campaigning on a platform of strong and united governance, but here we are now, before even the budget is introduced, back on the campaign trail as the Liberal-Reform coalition falls apart, just like it did last term. We’re barely a quarter into this term, and it’s falling apart. Whanganui didn’t vote for this chaos. But it’s what their MP gave them.” “We’re seeing two candidates stand from this disaster of a government. They’re trying to hold that coalition together, yet they can’t even unite for a by-election.” “The National Party’s standing the same candidate they stood last campaign. It was in that campaign we heard the National Party tell us that they were taking a ‘hardline stance’ against that dangerous deal. They told us that the agreement took away our national sovereignty. They told us that the deal would ship jobs away from hard working New Zealanders. 5,000 jobs, they told voters the deal would cost. They told us that they’d make it a coalition requirement that the TPP be left ‘dead and forgotten, as it should be’. The Nats told us that it’s totally ‘unacceptable to think any modern political party would even consider re-entry’. It harms our farmers, they said. It harms our industrial workers. They called it a travesty. Yet they’ve come out, despite their commitment to make staying out of the deal a bottom line, they’ve agreed to support the TPP for the baubles of office. Let me make that clear. The National Party have agreed to throw out our national sovereignty, in their own words, in exchange for a few ministerial salaries. Unlike the Nats, I don’t have to look like a fool, with egg on my face. I can stand here, and I can say that the Green Party, and our amazing candidate /u/hk-laichar, have always stood arm in arm with Kiwi battlers in opposition to that dangerous deal. We pulled us out, and we’ll stay out. Because unlike the National Party, we won’t sell our country’s sovereignty to the highest bidder in exchange for a new office. We stand for Kiwi workers, businesses, farmers, families, and the environment. Protecting those is non-negotiable.”

“And while the National Party stands for throwing New Zealand back into a travesty of a ‘trade’ deal, Reform has fought hard to increase our prison population, any way they can. There’s only one industry that’ll be saved by this government, and that’s the private prison industry. Because one of Reform’s biggest wins in this government- turns out the common ground of this trifecta of torment is the worst part of all three parties- but one of Reform’s biggest wins is to gift the prison industrial complex with tougher minimum sentences and looser maximum sentences. Reform can talk all they like about being tough on crime, but if we actually look at the evidence, and I’m sure we’d all value the cold hard facts over empty populist platitudes, we can see that minimum sentencing is an abject failure for reducing crime and reducing recidivism. We’ve seen no reduction in offending, nor has any other state with minimum sentencing laws. Instead, we’ve just seen our prison population grow and grow and grow, locking up more and more Kiwis, especially our Māori youth. This government has no real plans to reduce our prison population, just populist slogans to lock more and more of our people up. We need real reforms. Real reforms that address the causes of crime. Including domestic violence. And that starts at the family level. Where we can make proactive investments in the wellbeing of New Zealanders.” “This government has zero plans to solve the housing crisis. I’m proud to be standing here today with a real and ambitious plan to tackle the crisis that the Liberal government has utterly failed to address. The plan the National Party presented last term was an utter embarrassment. While we have a 6,000 state house shortage, this government wanted to sell them off to the highest bidder. Their entire plan was to sell them off at just 10% below the market rate, with existing tenants getting the right of first refusal. The reality there, however, is that in no way is just 10% below market rate in anyway affordable for a state house tenant. But as long as that tenant got the first refusal to purchase an expensive and unaffordable house, the government would’ve been able to sell those state houses to whoever they liked. That’s not a plan to fix the housing crisis. That’s a plan for privatisation by stealth. Now, I’m proud we halted that program, and the Green Party, with /u/hk-laichar, still have every intention of tackling this crisis head on. Instead of selling them off, we need to build more houses. Our plan is to build 15,000 homes over the next ten years. 6,500 to replenish the shortage of state houses. 3,000 for community housing providers. 5,500 to be made available through a progressive rent to buy scheme. This scheme will actually make home ownership affordable. Along with the weekly rent, some money will be put towards purchasing that home from the crown. This rent will be no more than 25% of their household income, because the Greens actually recognise the cost of living and the hardship of this new economy. We recognise that buying a home is just unaffordable for too many kiwis. We have a housing crisis, and we need a plan that works to solve it, for the good of New Zealand. Unfortunately, the government still has no plan to solve it, despite a whole term to think of one. A vote for /u/hk-laichar this by-election is a vote for a real plan to tackle the real challenges of this generation.”

“It was in this electorate a few campaigns ago that the Green Party launched our policy to launch New Zealand’s biggest ocean sanctuary. Right on that coast, just south west of where we are today is the South Taranaki Bight ocean sanctuary. That’s the biggest ocean sanctuary in New Zealand, and we are still proud to have created that safe space for blue whales. The South Taranaki Bight is such an important feeding ground for critically endangered Antarctic blue whales, along with being a habitat for 37 other species of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Their existence was under real threat from destructive seabed iron sands mining, and other exploration for fossil fuels and minerals. This sanctuary is 30,000 square kilometres of ocean set aside entirely for the protection of these endangered whales. And I highlight that today, because we’re faced with a government that has absolutely zero plans for conservation. We’re faced with the kauri dieback crisis, we’re seeing 75% of our indigenous freshwater fish under threat, and we’re in the middle of a biodiversity crisis. This government halved the Department of Conservation’s budget last term, after the first real increase to their funding under the Greens after decades of underfunding under National governments, restoring DOC to a kneecapped state. There is no way we can tackle the decline of 3,000 at risk species when the Department of Conservation is denied the resources it needs to save our native flora and fauna. Eighty million years of geographical isolation and the diversity of our land and seascapes mean that Aotearoa is a real melting pot for biodiversity, and that’s too important to let slip away. Predation and habitat destruction means that 85% of our indigenous lizards, 75% of our indigenous freshwater species, 40% of our native bird species, and almost 40% of our native plants are at grave risk of extinction. What are this government’s plans to tackle these giant environmental challenges? A goal to clean up our waterways, which they set last term and did nothing to further, and a meagre increase to investment. Not one extra cent sent towards the Department of Conservation. Not one extra cent spent on predator control. Not any thought given to the crisis of our native freshwater fish species. Not one mention of the kauri dieback disease ravaging such a beautiful species of native tree. Not one mention of the threats to our lizards. The fact is, this government sees a clean environment with thriving biodiversity as a burden on their bottom lines. We need real action on conservation, and we’ve yet to see a single plan from the Liberal government and their National Party Minister for the Environment. It is a disgrace.” “No plans to tackle the biodiversity crisis, and they’ve absolutely no idea how to tackle the biggest crisis to mankind of this century: climate change. We need radical change to this country’s emissions profile if we want to be a world leader in fighting against rising emissions. This government’s entire plan when it comes to reducing emissions is meagre tax breaks for environmentally friendly business practices to promote a petroleum free 2060. That is not a plan! That is but wishy washy slogans! Has the government forgot that New Zealand must legally become a net zero carbon economy by 2050? That is soon approaching, and instead of investing in emissions reductions, or even emission sinks, this government is working hard to ensure New Zealand’s emissions are the highest in the world. We watched last term as they totally abolished our programme to plant 1.2 billion trees. The fact is that without the emissions trading scheme, this is the only programme designed to reduce our net emissions. By every indicator, we can expect net emissions to continue growing year on year under Liberal governance. We drastically need to get back on track, as soon as possible. Every year emissions rise is another year we have to make up for before 2050, even just to meet our Paris Climate Accord targets. The reality is that if we don’t start now, it’ll take radical and unprecedented reforms in those last few years to meet those targets. If we want an equitable transition to a clean economy, we can’t kick the can down the road. We need to start that just transition now, not leave workers and families in the lurch. This is a government of uncertainty and disunity. We need a plan, and we need it in action urgently. Every minute wasted means a greater challenge for this country to cope with.”

“We know that climate change will hurt our most vulnerable more than anyone else, and we need a strong welfare system that can actually boost those struggling back into living meaningful and fulfilling lives, free of poverty, illness, and hunger. The last Green government raised benefit entitlements to a liveable level, but it was the Liberal-National government that slashed them, back to the unworkable levels we saw before. When we need to be giving our most vulnerable the opportunity to springboard themselves out of welfare dependency, not cutting benefit levels. This government is hellbent on kicking more and more New Zealanders off of welfare and onto the street. They can spend millions more on unnecessary planes, but not on giving the people in New Zealand who are struggling a better life. We need to start scrapping sanctions, not inventing new ones. We need to abolish the sanctions placed on single mums when the father is not named- it’s wrong to punish children with their livelihood because of whatever choices their parents had to make. We know that sanctions do absolutely nothing to get people of benefits. The Ministry says that. Overseas studies do that. What beneficiaries need is real support, that doesn’t treat them like a burden. People aren’t burdens. We need to end poverty NZ, and this government has absolutely no idea on how to make that happen. People are more than economic units.”

“For that very reason, we need a government that actually embraces immigrants. Reform denigrates immigrants, wrongfully and offensively blaming them for all of New Zealand’s problems. And yet we’ve seen the Liberals and the National Party sign up to this very agenda. They want to cut immigration levels by around 30%. What message does that send to our immigrant communities? Because they hear everything this government says and does as loud as we do, if not louder. They’re hearing this government tell them that they’re not wanted. They’re not out there fighting against the housing crisis, against the threat of climate change, against the biodiversity crisis, against our shocking domestic violence stats, but against the immigrants who come to Aotearoa to make this country great, and they have every bit as much right to be here as you or me. The Liberals told us that that they “recognise not just our own heritage as immigrants but the economic and societal benefits that immigration provides. It’s the ultimate form of meritocracy, where those who are skilled and determined are able to find a better life than what their birth country can provide”. But now, they’ve decided to raise our English language requirements and slash our immigration levels, with not one iota of justification. That’s not the message we want to send to our immigrant communities, who already suffer so much racism and abuse already. The Green Party stands up for those communities, our own caucus is made up of those communities, including our local candidate for Whanganui, /u/hk-laichar. We reject the denigration of immigration and immigrants, as this government presents. New Zealand needs to be welcoming, open, and global facing- in the best interests of Aotearoa.”

“Whanganui deserves real change. Reform has totally let Whanganui down- first time Whanganui had a representative in government, and then instantly abandoned. That’s what you get with this government. It’s time for real change for Whanganui. It’s time to clean up Whanganui’s rivers, with a real plan. It’s time to get more people off of the streets, into clean dry homes. It’s time to attack the causes of crime, not lock more and more kiwis up at a totally unsustainable rate. It’s time for representation that puts people first- what an electorate MP’s supposed to do. There’s only one viable candidate in this race who’s always put the interests of Whanganui voters first. There’s only one party that’s consistently stood for real grassroots democracy. That candidate is /u/hk-laichar, and that vote is a vote for strong Green representation. This government has steamrolled the views of voters, and that can’t go on any longer. This by-election is an opportunity to tell that coalition of opportunists that enough is enough. It’s time to craft an Aotearoa of love, respect, and real collective wellbeing. I know it’s old hat to reuse an election slogan, but recycling’s certainly our thing, so as I finish this speech, let me just remind everyone: that’s an Aotearoa worth fighting for. Thank you!”

the huge crowd applauded the rousing speech until their palms were red raw, with blisters across their hands. Instead of glitter, a known pollutant, beautiful flowers were launched across the crowd in a dazzling display, highlighting the beauty of our natural environment and the people and animals who live in it