I also bring with me to this House another set of experiences and hopes. Since I was 15 I have played an active role in many struggles, ranging from the anti Vietnam war movements of the late 60s, through to the struggles for womens and gay liberation, against apartheid, and for a nuclear free Aotearoa. More recently, the last sixteen years of my life have been dedicated to working for the rights of unemployed people, beneficiaries and low income workers.

I stand on my record, and do not seek to run or hide from my past. I see no shame in having been on the front line of movements which have lead to many positive changes. There are times in the last 16 years when I have sat in a cell or courtroom and hoped that one day, my dream of a job and a living wage for all in this country would come true, just as, for example, the dreams of ending apartheid in South Africa, and New Zealand becoming nuclear free also came about after long and honourable histories of struggle by many ordinary people.

No one ever wanted to listen to us seriously, even after some of us - people like John Tamihere and myself and others - have been part of setting up organisations which have proved in practice the capacity of unemployed and low income people to take back some economic and political control, creating jobs and providing services for tens of thousands of people. We have learned from the bottom up that ordinary people do have the skills and strength to develop our own organisations, and to create real, alternative solutions.

So in the end, out of sheer frustration, I figured that I had to take the plunge, and come here to try and get some real changes happening at Government level too.

I am here to do everything I can to turn this around. We need immediate relief of poverty in this country, including a radical overhaul of Winz and the whole benefit system, and a commitment to progressive increases in the minimum wage. The compulsory work for dole scheme known as "Community Wage" or "Community Work" can and should end tomorrow. We should look at restoring the universal family benefit, acknowledging the needs and rights of those who have the courage to bring children into the world in an overwhelmingly child-hating society.

We should also start seriously researching the implications and possibilities of some form of Universal Basic Income which has the potential to replace the whole shattered and inadequate apparatus of the old welfare state.

It's time that we put the blame for overdependency on the State directly where it lies - on those who use unemployment and inadequate income support systems as tools of deliberate economic strategies. And we should also examine why dependency is OK for some, and not for others.

There are many solutions to unemployment, but above all we need a Government commitment to moving away from managing poverty and forward to ending it. We need to provide an environment which releases the skills and energies of people in our communities so that we can find solutions, not just continue to pour money into researching and managing the problems.

We need direct and indirect investment in employment creation, leading to real jobs at real wages, not make work or work for the dole schemes. We need to look at how we can get more capital back into local areas, which is one reason I am dedicated to the development of an effective community owned banking system within the coming year.

There is no need at all to continue with this strange concept that the taxpayer should have to pay $240,000 plus salaries to people from the corporate world to run Government departments when there are competent people from all sectors who are dedicated to a genuine public service, whose skills and energies we could be using for half the price and twice the competence, in many cases.

To the eternal disgrace of this country Maori unemployment continues, as ever, to run at at least three times the rate of Pakeha joblessness. We are seeing raupatu number two taking place under the guise of capitalist development, while simultaneously the country as a whole continues to allow the sell off into overseas ownership and control of vast tracts of our economy. I will be doing everything I can to try and turn back this second wave of colonisation, while acknowledging that we have yet to do deal fully with the consequences of the first. I do not intend to run away from these issues, but hope to be part of continuing to work with colleagues and friends inside and outside this House towards a truly decolonised Aotearoa, with all that that implies.

We must do something fast about housing, for all those without adequate homes. We must do something even faster for people who suffer from the many forms of mental illness. The recommendations of report after report have been ignored by successive Governments —we must turn this around now, and acknowledge that as a society we will never be safe or whole, until the people who have the least are also safe and whole, with adequate health treatment, housing, jobs and education.

I call on people who share these goals, including other MPs in this House, to have the courage to make some fundamental changes to the processes and the policies of Government. I know there are those of you who share our ideas and visions - I am keen to work with you across party lines to help this country for the better and to prove that a positive version of MMP can work.