Fitzsimons bows out with plea to Parliament

KEVIN STENT/Sunday Star-Times

GREENS VETERAN: Jeanette Fitzsimons and Greens co-leader Russel Norman during her valedictory speech yesterday.

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As a rookie MP in 1997, Jeanette Fitzsimons' first foray into the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate was less than auspicious: "Supplementary speaker, Mr Question."

But as she farewelled Parliament yesterday, her message could not have been clearer as she pleaded for MPs to take major environmental issues more seriously.

Ms Fitzsimons bowed out of politics without having held a ministerial post, but with the rare feat of having played a major part in environmental policy development in both main parties.

She was instrumental in Labour and National developing home insulation and energy efficiency policies. But although she rated that work as a highlight – along with getting genetic modification and other environmental issues on the agenda – she said not much else had changed.

"When my grandchildren Jasper and Isabella ... are struggling to bring up their children in 30 years' time amid the storms and instability of a changing climate, with little oil left (and that being unaffordable), what will they think of us at the turn of this millennium?

"What will they think of a Parliament more preoccupied with its own privileges than with the good of humanity? A Parliament that spent far more passion and energy on where Bill English parks his car than on where we will get the oil to run it; or on measures to reduce our climate emissions, the pollution of our waterways, the protection of our unique ecosystems and species from extinction? What will they think of governments who had all the information presented to them, who could not claim not to know, but who chose to do nothing?"

She said she had been proud to be a part of the first MMP Parliament, in which she and fellow leader Rod Donald became the first Green MPs. She said his sudden death in 2005 was the lowest point of her time in Parliament.

- © Fairfax NZ News