in the quiet but famous town of Paeroa, imnofox stood up in front of the crowd, with KilroyNZ and Jeanette Fitzsimons flanking him on either side

“Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa. Today- today we launch the Green Party’s campaign to elect KilroyNZ in the third by-election in the first third of this term. This’ll be an immense fight, in a seat that hasn’t had a Green representing it since Jeanette won Coromandel in 1999. Some tell us that it’s foolish to bother contesting the seat, but in this region there are such significant environmental challenges and fights to be won that in my view, it’d be stupid for the Greens not to stand up for environmental justice, as we have done for the decades both before and after Jeanette won Coromandel for real Green representation.”

“Today we stand in Paeroa, just a short drive from both Jeanette and Harry’s farm just up along the Kauaeranga River to the north, and just east from here is the Karangahake forest park, where as we speak strong local protestors are standing up to protect that beautiful piece of Coromandel conservation land from disastrous and harmful gold mining. I have immense respect for these activists, and thank them so much for their mahi. Because not one acre of conservation land should be mined. The keyword’s in the name- conservation. Conservation, not exploitation. The National Party Minister for the Environment who held this seat before abruptly resigning, as seems common in this government, did absolutely nothing to save the Karangahake area from destructive and irreversible mining. This government, the Nats and Reform, have no care for the value of the land- untouched and undisturbed. Much of the Coromandel area’s land is already included in schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, the part that outlines which conservation lands are to be free from harmful mining, but the beautiful Karangahake area is not included. And let’s not forget, it was public pressure like we’re seeing at the moment that stopped the National government from opening up more of the Coromandel conservation land to mining back in 2009. The Green Party, and especially KilroyNZ, stand firmly in opposition to mining on not just the Karangahake conservation land, but all conservation land across the Waikato electorate and across the entire country. Conservation land is for conservation!”

“Not only have the National Party done absolutely nothing to stop mining in Karangahake, but they’ve done absolutely nothing to clean up the Waikato region’s rivers. We just need to look at the Waikato River, flowing from Port Waikato through Hamilton. How can we bring back the mauri, the lifeforce, of this river? It doesn’t even make the top 30 cleanest rivers in New Zealand, despite the claims of the farming industry that it’s one of the cleanest in the world. Tens of thousands of people every year are getting sick from playing in the Waikato’s waterways alone. And that’s only the reported instances that the Waikato DHB knows about, with ESR estimating that for every case of gastrointestinal illness, another 222(!) cases go unreported. These are the real health risks of our dirty waterways. Our rivers aren’t safe to swim in! Let that sink in for a moment. The New Zealand birthright of a river to swim and play in- that’s threatened. Threatened because of too much intensive dairying polluting what is supposed to be ‘100% pure New Zealand’. Landcorp has been in the process of converting 25,700 hectares of pine forest in the upper Waikato to dairy farms, with plans to introduce another 30,000 cows to the environment, pushing the Waikato River to its pollution limits. That’s the equivalent of 720,000 humans emptying their waste in the Upper Waikato without sanitation, and without washing their hands. Even the former National Party Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, admitted New Zealand was reaching peak cow. We need a moratorium on new dairy farm conversions now- not later. Even the Waikato Federated Farmers support such a moratorium. We want rivers we can swim in, not just rivers we can wade through because a cow’s been there and used it as the world’s biggest loo. The goal set by the last National government for ‘wadeable’ rivers was pathetic, and New Zealanders need real action to clean up our waterways. The First Green Government introduced the largest sustainable farming package ever seen, yet the National Party slashed it by $621 million, including the $137 million clean water package. This government only has empty targets with zero plans to get us there. New Zealanders can see for themselves the state our rivers are in, and they can see that National Party’s inaction and cuts have left them in a disgusting state.”

“We’ve also seen the need to quickly halt the further loss of our precious wetlands. The Waikato region has already lost 75% of our wetlands. Our wetlands are the land’s kidneys, capturing sediments and nutrients and slowly releasing water in drought prone areas. They’re home to precious wildlife and plants, and are such beautiful natural locations. Nationwide, we’ve lost 90% of our natural wetlands. Not just in Waikato, but in Canterbury, Manawatu, and the Bay of Plenty. More than 1,000 ha of wetlands has been lost in Southland alone since 2007. We must protect the last 10% nationwide, and we certainly must stop the further loss of the last 25% remaining in the Waikato. These wetlands support a diverse range of ecosystems and species, such as the Kahikatea swamp forest, mangroves, migratory shorebirds, tuna and whitebait, coastal lagoons, and alpine tarns. Our most threatened mudfish species, the Canterbury mudfish, along with the matuku, and the Swamp helmet orchid are some of the rare and threatened species that rely on Aotearoa’s wetlands. There is just one population of the Swamp helmet orchid remaining, and that’s at the Whangamarino wetlands in northern Waikato. That is what we need to protect. Some of this can be down through RMA reform, but that won’t be everything. Now, the Department of Conservation does great things for protecting our wetlands, but with their stretched resources, they can only go so far. In the last government, the National Party halved DOC’s budget, leaving them begging for every dollar that they needed for basic wetlands restoration projects, for pest trapping and control, for replenishing our native bird populations, for protecting our threatened indigenous fish species, and for maintaining the trails and great walks we all rely on. A vote for the KilroyNZ is a vote for a Department of Conservation that has the funding and investment and resources that it needs to do what the Department of Conservation is meant to do: defend and protect our biodiversity. Because we have a biodiversity crisis on our hands, and we need urgent action to turn that disastrous ship around.”

“We are faced with a biodiversity crisis, and we need real action now to slow it down. 85% of our native lizards, 75% of our native freshwater fish species, 40% of our native bird species, and 40% our our native plants are truly threatened, and risk being pushed into the extinction crevasse. I’m proud that the Green Party is proposing the first legal protection in New Zealand’s history for our threatened indigenous freshwater fish. It’s a scary fact that the only legal protection ever introduced for a native freshwater fish species was for the grayling in 1951, 2-3 decades after it went extinct. To think that in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, the only indigenous freshwater fish with legal protection went extinct nearly 100 years ago, is absolutely nuts. We need real protections now, and that is only possible with strong Green representation in parliament, and with a stronger Green government.”

“This by-election, voters have a clear choice. A vote for the National Party or Reform is a vote for continued environmental degradation, continued mining in our conservation land, continued destruction of our wetlands, and the continued extinctions of our indigenous species, whether plant, bird, fish, or lizard. But, like night and day, a vote for KilroyNZ is a vote to stand with those ardent and persistent activists standing up against mining in the Karangahake conservation land, to halt and reverse the destruction of our wetlands, to clean up the Waikato River and every river and stream that runs anywhere near it, to put a moratorium on further dairy farm conversions, to save our indigenous freshwater fish species from outright extinction, and to fight climate change in Waikato! Waikato, the choice is clear this election. Why vote for polluters and extractivists, when you could vote for a clean, green, Aotearoa New Zealand!”

the large crowd cheered and applauded the beautiful conservationist message promoted by the idolised Green co-leader. one man wearing a TOP t-shirt tore it off, reportedly exclaiming ‘I thought TOP were the best for conservation, but the Greens just make so much more sense!’. the crowd continued clapping and cheering, before they all hopped on their bicycles and rode eastwards to meet the activists protecting Karangahake from harmful mining and exploitation