Tēnā rā koutou, ngā rangatira mā rātou ko wāhine mā, ko tāne mā, ko takatāpui mā, ko tipua mā. Haere mai rā, haere mai rā, whakatau mai rā.

Te Atiawa, Ngāti Mutunga, otirā Taranaki whānui, tēnei te mihi ki a koutou katoa. E raungāiti nei i tēnei rohe ātaahua. E pupuri tonu ana koutou ki te mana o te whenua nei. Nā koutou i rangatira ai tēnei kaupapa.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi, He Whakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga o Nu Tirene, te rangatiratanga o ngā hapū o Aotearoa rāua ko Wai Pounamu; tēnei te mihi ngā paparahi i ā tātou motu.

Huri atu rā ki a koutou katoa ngā hoa mahi me ngā manuhiri tūārangi, tēnā koutou.

Nau mai haere mai e ngā mema taiea o te Whare Paremata o Aotearoa. Tēna koutou, tēnā koutou, kā nui te mihi ki a koutou. Tihei mauri ora!

Honourable Members of the House of Representatives, it is a privilege to announce the formation of Her Majesty’s Sixth Government with the Confidence of this House.

Following a successful general election, Alliance and the Pirate Party have come together to form a new governing arrangement, with confidence and supply coming from the Labour Party.

In the field of Business, my government will strengthen the rights of workers in the entertainment industry by repealing the Hobbit Law, an outdated set of legislation which threatens to leave workers dangerously exposed for the sake of achieving short-term profit for film companies. My Government will continue to support workers and ensure that they can live off the very baseline of wages with a hike to the minimum wage to $22.75 an hour. This will ensure that the living needs costs of every single New Zealander can be covered and that not a single New Zealander is forced to go hungry or cut essential living requirements. My Government will also increase productivity within New Zealand’s business environment with a four day work week being made compulsory under the law, bringing back our Friday’s and boosting weekly productivity for the average worker. This will be undertaken in a targeted fashion and will allow for New Zealand to outcompete the world globally in terms of having a fresh and active workforce. Finally, my Government believes that businesses and companies have had too much opportunity to be able to hold copyright protections over valuable patents which has meant that valuable assets which should be available for public usage are simply being held by patent monopolies and profited off. The Government will reverse this by creating a mandatory ten-year maximum copyright term.

In the field of Education, my government will remove the financial burden of tertiary education by abolishing tuition fees and forgive student debt for students that have worked in New Zealand for five or more years. My government will also make people more aware of the rights within society and encourage involvement in civil society by expanding the civics curriculum and increasing its budget. Finally, my government will ensure that no child goes to school hungry by expanding the Ka Ora, Ka Ako program to all schools in the country and expanding it to include free school lunches.

In the field of Healthcare, my government will make it easier for trans people to get the healthcare treatments that they need by funding HRT, GCS and other healthcare requirements under Hauora Aotearoa. My government shall also reduce the harm caused by drug addiction by establishing free drug testing and injection sites nationwide. My government will also reduce the strain on Hauora Aotearoa and encourage better health outcomes by increasing awareness of lifestyle diseases and increase early intervention so that medical issues are noticed earlier when they are easier to treat.

In the area of Social Development, my government will further the cause of economic and social equality by removing means testing from GMI payments, instead subjecting it to taxation based on total income and asset wealth. My government will also give additional support to families by increasing the Family Support Credit to $190 a week for the 1st child and $120 a week for subsequent children, and will support new families by providing them with baby boxes which will contain supplies for expectant and adopted parents. My government will also support new arts and heritage development, with the establishment of a fund to improve existing venues and create new facilities for the arts, invest in more programs to offer arts education in school and explore forms of art therapy to improve mental health.

In the field of Finance, my government will make our taxation system fairer by implementing a top tax bracket of 50%, lowering the GST and abolishing it for food and basic services. My government will also encourage the use and development of more environmentally-friendly materials by implementing a taxation on the production, import and distribution of single-use plastics.

In the field of Justice, my government will strengthen the NZBORA by including provisions for economic, cultural and social rights. My government will clamp down on discriminatory behaviour and racism in society by improving and clarifying the definition of hate speech within the legal system and establishing a legal definition for hate crimes. My government will restore the Human Rights Commission, and establish a Māori Relations Commissioner. My government will expand the franchise by allowing 16-year olds and those currently serving criminal sentences to vote.

In the field of Internal Affairs, my government will increase the refugee quota to 5,000 and improve the experience for those seeking asylum in New Zealand by introducing a standard process for those seeking refuge, creating refugee areas with common housing, education and medical treatment with oversight by the UNHCR and fast track backlogged asylum claims, with the goal of a 28 day response time for new claims. My government will work together with Māori hapū and iwi to conduct an investigation into a broad freedom of movement agreement, with the immediate aim of a Pacific Islands Free Movement Zone. My government will grant additional protection to migrants by giving them the same rights as domestic employees and granting permanent residency for overseas partners and family members.

In the field of Environment, my government will ban new industrial coal boilers within the first 20 days. My government will hold businesses accountable for the pollution and other forms of environmental degradation they are responsible for and will introduce legislation to that effect. My government will help reduce the emissions of social and community homes and lower fuel and heating bills by upgrading all social and community homes with solar panels and batteries and will establish grants and loans to half the price of solar on privately owned homes and businesses. My government will help communities invest in clean forms of energy by creating a $250m clean energy fund which they will be able to draw from and establishing a Clean Energy Industry Plan to get people into clean jobs. My government will support the transition towards a totally renewable energy grid by ending coal use in New Zealand by 2030, close old coal mines, ban new ones and ban hydraulic fracking, simplifying planning rules surrounding wind turbines to make them easier to build and removing the GST on solar power.

In the field of Defence, my government will reassert the fact that New Zealand waters are nuclear-free and tender new contracts for the EMAC program ensuring that New Zealand's waters and fishing zones are protected from threats and hostile encroachments. My government will explore the viability of expanding RNZAF and RNZN for disaster relief purpises, with the end goal of ensuring that the NZDF is capable of peacekeeping and disaster relief efforts in the South Pacific with a focus on humanitarian aid and transport. My government will work to reduce tensions in the Asia-Pacific region by ruling out war games or military exercises in the South China Sea with nations guilty of human rights abuses

In the field of Foreign Affairs, my government will work constructively with our trading partners to improve sustainability and human rights and will work to clean-up the global supply chain by cutting off imports of goods that are the product of slave or child labour and putting an end to the practice of sanction food supplies in sanctioned states and encourage other states to follow course. We will position New Zealand as a neutral power, no longer wedded to imperialist powers and conflicts, and allowing the people of New Zealand to choose their country’s destiny. My government will end anti-China hysteria and saber rattling, instead choosing to work constructively across the Pacific and focus the NZDF towards foreign aid, rather than imperialism. And we will negotiate the Berne Convention to remove oppressive copyright laws, or, if necessary, leave it altogether.

In the field of Covid-19 Recovery, my government will create purpose built quarantine facilities that ensure New Zealanders are protected from infectious diseases escaping hotel quarantine. We will introduce measures to encourage vaccination rates without coercion, and ensure that all Kiwis are safe from this deadly virus.

In the field of Primary Industries, my government will help clean-up our waterways and support the development of an environmentally-friendly agricultural sector by introducing a Health Food and Farming Fund to assist farmers transition to regenerative farming, ban the use of harmful artificial fertilisers and ban the import of PKE. My government will empower farmers and tackle food poverty in New Zealand by giving farmers the freedom to sell their produce to the NZ government, form a state-owned food outlet to serve the people and ensure that food is available to everyone as a right. My government will support farmers by creating farm subsidies to support farms, modernise their business, ensure shops stock NZ-grown products first and establish a state-run company to buy from farms and support them financially during difficult times. Finally, my government will build up the bonds of trust between rural and urban communities by supporting the development of community gardens and growing projects at school's to get people more connected with farms and change how companies label their food so people with allergens and other dietary needs can trust what they are eating.

In the field of Housing and Urban Development, my Government will work on the principle that housing is a human right that it has an obligation to provide for. My Government will resource Kainga Ora to work with the Ministry of Transport to build new, medium density transport oriented social housing on a massive scale both with totally new developments and redevelopment of existing unused and aging housing -- while ensuring social housing remains in public hands when not sold through fair schemes such as rent-to-own and shared equity. Outside of the public housing sector, my Government will overhaul planning across the board to encourage community maintained housing and papakāinga developments, encourage cities to expand upwards before they expand outwards with Urban Green Belts and upzoning of major urban centres to a minimum of medium density, create incentives for new property development in cities to be Transit-Oriented, and establish new standards for medium and high density development for comfort, size, and liveability. My Government will expand the Warmer Kiwi Homes scheme, create a Warrant of Fitness for sales and renting to ensure leaky buildings aren’t being put on the market, remove the single-family-dwelling zone from the Auckland and Wellington metro areas in their entirety, place restrictions on the Auckland Isthmus to prevent new development below mid density where it is not a minor dwelling, encourage developments on less than a standard section to be multi-storey townhouses to retain space efficiency, spotlight Ponsonby, Grey Lynn, Kingsland, and Parnell for future high density urban development, remove on mass many volcanic viewpaths and height restrictions from the Auckland Isthmus particularly where they originate on a stretch of highway, and establish congestion charging in all cities with rail and bus systems which allow it beginning with Auckland and Wellington. My government will take on the profit-making aspects of the housing market by buying up housing owned by ‘mega-landlords’ in city centres to prevent monopoly, establish financial underwrites for community housing to stimulate a non-for-profit property sector, give renters security through amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act to end no-cause terminations and restrict rent-hikes to once a year, and ban parking minimums which restrict the options communities have in pedestrianised growth. Finally, my Government will at last undertake the Ports of Auckland Removal Project to move operations to Northport and Port of Tauranga, investigate a new port in the Firth of Thames near or at Ōrere Point, and thusly create a new residential and commercial development at the heart of Aotearoa’s largest city.

In the field of Takatāpui Affairs, my Government will work to expand the definition of and punishments for conversion therapy in law -- reintroducing the Minister of Justice’s amendment to the Conversion Therapy Ban from the previous term to target transgender and intersex conversion. My Government will work to introduce Rainbow Education to the curriculum to include all kinds of bodies, and peoples, to the way that high schoolers are taught about their health and history. On LGBTQIA Health, my Government will establish a Hauora Takatāpui unit of the national health system, overseen by the Associate Minister of Health, to deliver queer-specific healthcare needs currently not accounted for by the health system.

In the field of Māori Affairs, my Government is looking to work towards an Aotearoa which puts Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga at the center of our constitutional framework. To begin, my Government will change the name of the country to Aotearoa New Zealand to acknowledge the place of Māori in the fabric of this country. To back up this symbol with action, my Government will implement the recommendations of various hapū and iwi working groups such as Matike Mai for a Three Spheres model of Government -- with a Māori Congressembodying rangatiratanga, and a sphere of Partnership in Local Government where the mana whenua of hapū is acknowledged universally. My Government will combat the diminishing of the Waitangi Tribunal during the 1990’s by ending the fiscal envelope and ‘full and final settlements’, while allowing the Waitangi Tribunal to bind Parliament -- operating on the principle that it was land that was taken, and so it is land that must be returned. Finally, my Government will work to address past grievances both in settlement and in culture; establishing universalised education in tikanga, mātauranga, and histories of Māori society pre-and-post colonisation. At every step of the way, the wishes and needs of Māori society, embodied in hapū, shall be used as a guiding light for the actions of my Government, as it acts in kāwanatanga.

In the field of transport, my Government will build on its achievements in the past term with new investments to continue the move towards a transport system of the 21st century. My Government will expand investments in our largest city with an Additional Waitematā Harbour crossing which will carry light rail to the North Shore, along with cycling and walking connections between Wynyard Quarter and Onewa Point and a tunnel beneath the City Centre to connect this new rail line to the existing Northwestern Line as a continuous system with a metro station under the City Universities. My Government will also turn the Onehunga Line into a Crosstown Light Rail from Penrose to Avondale. My Government will expand its efforts outside of Tāmaki Makaurau, however, and build state of the art Light Rail systems in Pōneke and Ōtautahi, a Marsden Point Freight Spur to supplement the newly expanded Northport, a revived Dunedin Suburban Railway, an expansion of the last term’s Masterton Line Electrification all the way to Palmerston North via Woodville, and a new Christchurch Central Railway Station underneath the existing busway to create a true multi-modal transport hub for our third largest city. Outside of pure rail infrastructure, my Government will retain the Tiwai Point Smeltery under Government management, build a Lake Onslow Pumped Hydro Storage Scheme, and formalise the Rerewhenua Aotearoa project as its own state controlled public service under the abolition of the State Owned Enterprises Act. All the while, my Government will focus on using kiwi manufacturers, kiwi factories, and kiwi workers to deliver its infrastructure just as it did over the last term.

Distinguished members, this Speech from the Throne is by no means comprehensive as to the policies that my government will seek to introduce. My government will strive to create a fair and equitable Aotearoa, working to address fundamental issues of poverty, privacy and civil rights.