Kia ora, Nga mihi nui, kia koutou, Kia ora.

I’m Gareth Hughes, the Greens’ candidate for Ohariu and number 11 on the Green party list. Speakers more experienced and knowledgeable than me – Keith Locke and Metiria Turei, two of the Green MPs give their apologies they couldn’t be here tonight.

I have been asked to talk about justice which is an issue I haven’t had a great deal of experience in, except subjectively and intuitively and I will try my best to encapsulate the Green’s policy and perspective.

Quickly though, unlike many on this panel you haven’t seen my face on the parliamentary TV channel so I’ll quickly talk a little about myself. I’m a 26 year old environmentalist and former Greenpeace-activist. Yes I’ve been arrested doing that. A father to my one-year-old son Arlo. I work for the Greens parliamentary team on climate issues and I am also a part time student in Wellington.

I’m always surprised that Rodney Hide is the only member of the house with an ecology degree and unlike many MPs I don’t have any law studies under my belt. Instead I’m a graduate in religious studies and history and I guess that helps frame my understanding of justice.

What is justice? The Greens believe it is about fairness and we are applying that across the board – and you can see that in our considerable, (considering we are outside of Government) legislative achievements this term – abolishing discriminatory youth rates that paid young people less than those over 18 even for the same work, the so-called anti-smacking bill, the Mother’s with Babies Bill and also very recently with the amendments to the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation – and the $1 billion we secured for insulating cold, damp kiwi homes – that’s fairness in action!

In terms of criminal justice, it is about more than just how we deal with crime. It is about how we create a fair, peaceful and sustainable world. Greens see issues as interconnected and not reductionalistikly. Broadly – its about constitutional reform, it’s about honoring Te Tiriri o Waitangi, it’s about human rights, it’s about rebuilding local economies, celebrating diversity and creativity, ending violence towards each other and our environment, and ensuring that people's needs are met.

Other speakers on this panel and in the media would like to focus on a very narrow track and clamour for harsher and longer sentences. I’d like to say simply New Zealand prison rate is simply too high. I think this is something that is widely recognised though not always acknowledged. We have the second highest prison rate in at least the Western World — second after that of the United States of America, which is a model I can’t understand why we would want to emulate. The Greens aren’t soft on crime we are realistic on crime.

I do want to set a bottom line though. We all have a right to feel safe. I worry about my Mum and my wife walking through unsafe streets and even though I wear a hoody I still feel nervous approached by a group of young men wearing hoodies. We have to ensure people are safe from violent crime.

When one considers that more than half of the people in prison are in for non-violent offences, one has to start to say that there has to be some better and more effective ways of dealing with that kind of offending, and so we strongly welcome this. This brings to mind comments by Judge Andrew Becroft, who talks about patterns of offending, particularly for young people, and the kinds of initiatives that are most useful in reducing their offending. He pointed out that most young people who offend stop offending in their early 20s, even if one does nothing and just leaves them alone.

He was not suggesting we do nothing, but he was pointing out that taking those people and putting them in prison actually puts them on a path to greater crime and more serious offending, and that using non-custodial sentences is much more effective, as is using other kinds of methods. If elected to Parliament I would be the only member with a student loan and frankly would relish the big salary and the chance to pay off the debt, but many graduates from our prisons – our ‘universities of crime’ never get a chance to pay of their debt and unfortunately its just passed on to the next generation..

Even though I’m not that experienced in the fine details justice policy I do have something my colleagues on the platform don’t share – a closeness to most offenders age. The age at which offenders first enter the criminal justice system is significant, as the majority of male offenders in the adult system first entered the system as young people. The Green Party will maintain the age of criminal responsibility at 14 and support the establishment of small-scale and dispersed Youth Rehabilitation Centres to end the detention of young people in police cells and adult prisons. Family Group Conferences (FGC) are the lynchpin of the youth justice system in New Zealand and we support increasing funding and training and encouragement of Family Group Conferences. Early intervention is the key to crime prevention

I’d like to talk briefly about the victims of crime. There is just a strong need for better understanding of victims of crime in general, throughout the judicial system. This goes hand in hand with a need for better procedures and processes within all the governmental agencies that complainants and victims of crime have to deal with as they progress through the system. Too often people feel played by the system. They see ‘the justice system ’ as a game played between lawyers with judges as ref, with not enough focus on justice or truth.

I don’t think it’s about longer sentences as a cure-all, as some would claim to improve victim’s rights. Victims often feel baffled by the justice system, and feel it is cumbersome and slow moving that puts too much in favour of offenders rights. We have a strike a balance between ensuring the right to a free trial vs. finding the perpetrator

The Greens strongly support restorative justice processes. We would encourage greater uptake of this by increasing funding and support for restorative justice in a variety of cultural and geographical settings. We would provide institutional support and resourcing for restorative justice following sentencing. We also need to adequately fund Victim Support to pay for victims to attend restorative justice processes, and develop a public information campaign about restorative justice processes. It would be helpful to have something that focuses on recompensing victims for their loss.

I was hoping to have time to discuss other understandings of justice of which I’m passionate -

Seeing climate justice internationally and also achieving greater social justice in Aotearoa. I would have liked to have talked about cannabis, tasers and child beating but these are positions the Greens already have strong and known positions on.

I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

Kia ora, nga mihi nui, kia kouotou, kia ora

I’m Gareth Hughes, the Greens’ candidate for Ohariu and number 11 on the Green party list. Green Mps Metiria Turei and Sue Kedgley give their apologies for being unable to speak tonight. This is only my second candidate event so I may not have been as fluent on policy as they would have been, but I will try my best to encapsulate the Green’s policy and perspective and anyway being a current student hopefully I can explain our positions from personal student understanding.

Quickly though, unlike many on this panel you haven’t seen my face on the parliamentary TV channel so I’ll quickly talk a little about myself. I’m a 26 year old environmentalist and former Greenpeace-activist; a father to my one-year-old son Arlo; And I work for the Greens parliamentary team on climate issues and I am also a part time student here doing a dip grad in politics.

I’ve been asked to speck about social progress and this is an issue which the Greens have a lot to say. Many people assume we are just about protecting frogs, snails or whales but in fact we bring a holistic and long-term understanding to parliament. We are about people and planet. Our charter stresses ecological wisdom, social justice, non-violence and appropriate decision making. I am going to talk briefly on gender equality, rainbow issues, drug prohibition, a bit about student issues and our vision for social development in New Zealand.

What is social progress? The Greens believe it is about fairness and we are applying that across the board – and you can see that in our considerable, (considering we are outside of Government) legislative achievements this term – abolishing discriminatory youth rates that paid young people less than those over 18 even for the same work, the abolition of Section 59, the Mother’s with Babies Bill and also very recently with the amendments to the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation – and the $1 billion we secured for insulating cold, damp kiwi homes – that’s fairness in action!

Lets start with rainbow issues. The Green Party stands for a celebration of diversity and an end to legislative barriers to full participation in society. We are the only party where very MP has always voted in favour of equal rights for everyone, no matter what their gender identity or sexual orientation.

We support developing workplace programmes in the public and private sector to eliminate prejudice, discrimination and harassment. We support extending all legal partnership arrangements and rights to same-sex couples. One tangible expression of this is Metiria Turei’s adoption Bill allowing same sex couples to adopt. - I would like to see members support.

We support creating safe and supportive educational environments and I believe it is outrageous in 2008 that schools can still discriminate on same sex partners at school balls.

The Greens envision a world where women's experience, knowledge, wisdom, work and contribution is recognised, valued and treasured. The Greens want a future where women are safe from violence, abuse and ill health. We believe that Women's unpaid work should be valued and recognised and that women should receive equal pay for work of equal value.

Having recently become a father I think its important women and men with family responsibilities should not be discriminated against and that they should, where possible be able to work without conflict between their paid employment and family responsibilities. This term we’ve made dealing with the challenges of work and whanau easier with the successful introduction of the Flexible Working Hours Bill, where parents can now negotiate with their employer greater flexibility in their working hours and in their work location, especially during school holidays and when children are sick Looking to the future we would like to see reform and an increase in Paid a Parental Leave and significantly the introduction of a Universal Child Benefit, like what was scrapped in 1991.

I hope you can all join with me in celebrating the abolishment of section 59, which was one of Green MP Sue Bradford’s achievements this term, along with the Mothers with Babies Bill that is seeing the next generation protected.

Even when I worked for Greenpeace I often got asked about that “Nandor Tanczos” and drug issues have been one of the major issues focused on in the media – not always responsibly or accurately. Personally I think this is one area we should have seen movement on in the last 3 terms of the Labour-led Government. I celebrate the moves to decriminalise prostitution, the introductions of civil unions and the host of progressive social legislation but the clear gap has been drug reform.

To start with the Greens believe a drug-free lifestyle is the healthiest; and that all drugs can cause harm, regardless of their legal status but not all drug use is problematic. We have to ask what’s fair and recognise that some current government policies do not reduce harm but rather create a further set of problems. Its time to be honest and say that prohibition isn’t working, in fact has never worked. We think the focus should be reducing harm and drug abuse and getting rid of the illegal market.

That’s why we would like to see more funding for drug education programmes in schools and communities to prioritise the prosecution of crimes such as violent offences ahead of personal cannabis possession. We also would like to enable doctors to prescribe cannabis products for severely ill patients. We are not soft on drugs, we are realistic on drugs.

I don’t think I am going to have time to talk about student issues except to say the Greens have the best policy and track record for student issues and we are and have been campaigning strongly for debt relief, lowering student fees and the introduction of a Universal Student Allowance for years and will keep up the pressure.

It’s not a cliché to say NZ is at the crossroads. Come November we have a choice for the direction of the country. The Greens vision is for real sustainability and fairness. Change is in the air and I think the change we need is Green!

Kia ora,

I'm Gareth Hughes, the Greens' candidate for Ohariu and number 11 on the Green party list. Speakers more experienced and knowledgeable than me – Green MP Sue Kedgley gives her apologies she couldn't be here today.

I'm a 26 year old environmentalist and former Greenpeace-activist. I work for the Greens parliamentary team on climate issues and I am also a part time student in Wellington. I’m also a dad to my one year old son, Arlo

I’m pretty happy to say that I haven’t been to hospital since I was a baby and the closest I’ve been to personal injury is a few stitches and a broken nose from rugby. I have however become a health consumer over the last year with the birth of my son. We decided to avoid the hospital track and instead my wife gave birth to our son at home which was a fantastic experience made all the better because of the great relationship struck up with our midwife over the preceding 6 months.

I guess this frames my understanding – my partner wasn’t sick or at risk so we didn’t go to hospital, and we took advantage of the availability to choose the best care for our situation.

Today I am going to talk about preventative health, obesity and food, valuing health workers and briefly on complimentary health.

To start with I would like to discuss what frames the Green Parties understanding of health. Our policy, which I will explain shortly, is developed by our members. Rather than being made in smokey back rooms with health industry lobbyists hanging outside the door our policy is made out in the open by the members both at bi-annual conferences and in regular discussions.

All of the Green Party’s policies are based on four values or principles –ecological wisdom, social justice, non violence and democratic decision making

I’d suggest that Greens see all issues, and health as no exception, as interconnected; as holistic. That means we don’t just look a disease or a patient we look at the broader picture – the environment, the socio-economic status, the disease, whanau, the living environment - all together, and see the emphasis needing to be placed on the causes of ill-health.

Health as a political portfolio is often seen as just a ‘political football full of problems’ – trying to treat waiting lists, diseases, budget over runs, strikes, illnesses, and death. However the Greens view health in a different paradigm - we see it as a question of wellness.

Others will talk of cutting health beauracracy –easy to say, but only the Greens say look at the causes, that’s the only way we are actually going to increase the health of the nation.

I’d like to start with this definition - Whare Tapa Wha — A Maori model of health described by Mason Durie, where the four components of health - te taha tinana (physical), te taha wairua (spiritual), te taha hinengaro (mental and emotional) and te taha whanau (social — family and community, represent four walls of a house. If one of these walls fails, the house will fall.

Health is also about personal responsibility. We need to empower people to take greater care of themselves. For example, simple changes, such as children spending less time in front of TV, and adults and children spending less time in cars and more time walking, cycling and eating more fruit and vegetables and less salt, fat and sugar, will increase wellbeing and health.

All of these issues are interwoven — if we want people to exercise more and ensure children have a healthy nutritious diet we need to ensure that our society works in such a way that these important things are promoted. We must create a situation where healthy living is supported and encouraged in workplaces and communities.

Preventative Health

If I would have you go away from today’s talk with one concept that best sums up what the Green perspective on health is, I hope it would be that the Greens stand for preventative health.

Last week I did a similar debate at the Law Society on justice issues; like health, I’d ask where is it best to use our scare resources – all in treating the outcomes or some earlier on in prevention? Just in short term band aids or actual long term remedies?

I’d ask you all to keep tuned to the news and to check out the Greens website – www.greens.org.nz because shortly Green health spokesperson Sue Kedgley will be launching a major preventative health policy package.

The Green Party preventative health strategy focusses on policies that would keep Kiwis well and prevent them from becoming ill in the first place–such as ensuring our homes are warm and dry, not damp and cold. I’m stoked that we have secured a billion dollars of funding through the Emissions Trading Scheme to insulate homes around New Zealand.

At present almost all of our $12 billion health budget is spent on treating people once they have become ill. We want to see a radically different and much more holistic approach to health—one the 4 walls of the whare that Mason Durie spoke about,

We support progressively increasing funding to prevent illness and injury and promote health, to 10% of the total healthcare budget, commencing with the introduction of a free annual wellness check by a health professional for all New Zealanders.

We also want the free wellness check for every New Zealander, available every year, to help identify illnesses early and focus on nutrition and lifestyle factors, and we want community health and wellness centres set up around New Zealand.

One example where it just makes common sense, is trying to reduce adverse events. We spend roughly $800 million a year treating adverse events – it’s not all avoidable but many are preventable – for example drug compatibility. We support setting up a national reporting register with standardised reporting template – not a name and blame exercise but as a way to foster shared learning across the country.

Health and socioeconomic factors

Our 7^th ranked list candidate – West Coast District Health Board CEO Kevin Hague sent me this, and he asked, “try this: think of more or less any illness, disease or injury and draw some conclusions about its distribution in this country and around the world. With very few exceptions ill health and disability disproportionately affect population groups who are in some way disempowered or marginalised in societies.

Yet a traditional biomedical view, that sees disease caused by genetics, chemical imbalances or microscopic organisms cannot explain this. Individualistic approaches to disease that attribute poor health to poor choices and lifestyles (wrong food, wrong substance use, wrong sexual behaviour etc) also fail to explain why individuals from one community are systematically more likely to make bad choices about everything than those from another.

Of course biological risk factors and individual behaviours are important in determining who ends up sick or healthy, but usually neither of these is adequate to explain health outcomes. The fact is that the patterns we actually observe are, instead, strongly related to the control that communities feel over their life circumstances and the physical and social environments in which they live.

The implication of this understanding is that the solutions to health problems associated with these inadequate theories will also fail. If we wish to improve health outcomes we need to empower communities and create environments that support health in a sustainable way.”

Obesity and food

One example of this is the question of obesity. It is the biggest emerging health issue and has the potential to overwhelm public hospitals. We know that poor diet is the leading cause of premature death in New Zealand, and that conversely a good diet is one of our most powerful weapons against disease and sickness, so another goal of our health strategy is to improve the diets of New Zealanders.

We are seeing an epidemic of obesity, with the well known resulting symptoms - type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and more. Almost everyone agrees it’s a problem but I’m not sure if many people have ideas on the solutions. We have put a great deal of work into this area because preventing the problem is much wiser, and cheaper than dealing with it after the fact. We are trying to move the ambulance from the bottom of the cliff to the supporter at the top.

We have created a situation in New Zealand where unhealthy food is cheaper, far more heavily promoted and far more accessible than healthy food, and one of our priorities is to reverse this situation.

As a first step we want to get rid of junk food ads on television, which provide the only nutrition education many children receive; and get vending machines selling fizzy drinks out of schools, extend the fruit in schools programme to all primary schools, and develop gardens in every primary school in New Zealand so children can learn, once again, how to grow and cook food. We were very proud last year to have secured $12 million for a nationwide nutrition fund. And we want to change the way we grow and produce food, to reduce the pesticides and other contaminants we are exposed to, and encourage local organic food production.

The Green Party is also committed to a traffic light labelling scheme which would enable consumers to readily distinguish health and unhealthy food. The Green Party is very concerned that healthy food is becoming unaffordable for many New Zealanders - we support an inquiry into the conduct of supermarkets, and the development of a code of conduct to ensure farmers, suppliers and consumers are treated fairly.

We have also challenged Fonterra to decouple the price of their dairy products sold in New Zealand from the escalating price they can get on the global market.

We believe it is critical that the minimum wage is increased to at least $15 an hour, that core benefits are lifted, that the first $5000 of income is tax free, and a universal child benefit is introduced so that all families can afford healthy food.

Traditional health sector

I know the other speakers today will address the traditional health sector in some detail but I want to quickly touch on one of two of the major issues in the sector – the possible move to towards a greater private model and why we are facing such a crisis in staff in this area.

Aotearoa/New Zealand was the first country in the world to publicly administer and fund health care services, a model which was copied around the world. This commitment has been severely eroded over the past 20 years, resulting in a two tier health care system where the rich can afford quality private services, and the poor face long waits for specialist services.

The Green Party wants a strong public health system that functions effectively, delivers a high standard of patient care, and has sufficient funding for service delivery, administration, and ongoing research and development.

There are critical shortages of health professionals in our health system, owing to the loss of up to a third of our health professions' graduates to overseas posts. Also, there is a shortage of posts in Aotearoa/New Zealand because of the under-funding of health services. The shortage of qualified health care professionals is a factor in long waiting lists for specialist services and causes scarce resources to be diverted to costly overseas and locum recruitment. It is important that the pay and working conditions of New Zealand health professionals be improved.

The Green Party will support improvements in the pay and working conditions of health professionals, including mandatory staff to patient ratios in order to ease nationwide recruitment and retention problems.

We will Increase the number of positions for nurses in the health sector and work with nurses to identify other models to enhance the role of nurses, for example, giving prescribing rights to nurse practitioners. In the aged sector we‘d like to see nurses achieve pay parity with hospital nurses.

Lastly we will introduce lower tertiary fees and a student allowance for all students including those training for health professions. For every year after study of work in NZ will we will write off a years worth of course debt. These would greatly help health professional graduates deal with the mountain of debt they receive studying for a career in the health industry.

Complimentary health

I (fortunately) don’t have many personal health stories to relate to you, but one which I do, concerns complimentary medicines. I was travelling in Sri Lanka a few years ago and for a fortnight I had terrible headaches. I tried all the drugs the pharmacy recommended and none seemed to work. Eventually I was persuaded to go to the village doctor of which I was pretty sceptical of. It was pretty funny, he had his little clinic tucked away down an alley with benches full of glass jars full of different things and he looked all very professional in his white lab coat, but when I looked at the label, it turned out to be a Dulux paint coat.

He gave me an inhalation, a head rub and some herbs for further inhalations from the bush and it cleared me up pretty promptly.

Personally I’m still sceptical of some alternative medicinal practioneers but I’m also aware that at least one in four New Zealanders uses complementary therapies. We want to see traditional or so called complementary healthcare like homeopathy, acupuncture and naturopathy, recognised and accepted throughout health system, and complementary health practitioners working throughout the health system, using whatever treatment is most effective for the patient.

We would establish a Complementary Health Care Unit within the Ministry of Health to facilitate the integration of selected complementary health practices and therapies into the public health system.

Conclusion

I would like to thank you very much for listening to me today and wish you all the best of luck in your studies and careers. Health is always going to be a major election issue and rightly so – it is so very important. Today I’ve discussed the Greens holistic approach top health, our focus on preventative approaches – for example in terms of housing and diet; the need for a strong public health system that values staff and removes debt off graduates and why complimentary health needs to be incorporated into the wide health sector.

The Greens bring new and fresh ideas to the table and realistic, positive solutions to health. I think our 6 MPs have a fantastic track record of achievements in parliament and I would like to see another 6 more. The only way for that to happen is for you to party vote Green.

Thank you.