NZ Herald Live: MP David Parker's valedictory speech. Video / Parliament TV
David Parker delivered his valedictory speech this evening.
The Labour MP has been in Parliament since 2002.
Parker is known for his work creating the Emissions Trading Scheme and campaigning for a wealth tax.
Long-serving Labour MP David Parker bowed out of Parliament after 23 years on Wednesday night, saying he had “ given it [his] all”.
Delivering his valedictory speech to the chamber, Parker said he had three strains to his political career: striving to create a “prosperous egalitarian economy”, protecting civil liberties,and ensuring “good environmental outcomes”.
A policy wonk to the end (“some call me a wonk, it could be worse,” he said), Parker’s speech ran through his 23 years of policy: from creating the Emissions Trading Scheme during the Helen Clark years, to interest deductibility under Jacinda Ardern, to the response to Covid-19 and the March 15 terror attacks.
He recounted an early radical streak, noting that his first “act of civil disobedience” began as a school student when he refused to wear long pants in summer, instead wearing shorts.
Parker said he hoped freshwater standards would endure in some form, and called on future Ministers for the Environment not to become Ministers for Pollution.
“To Shane Jones, I love you, but we don’t need more coal,” Parker said.
Labour MP David Parker gives his close friend NZ First MP Shane Jones a tearful hug after Parker delivered his valedictory speech in Parliament on May 7. Photo / Audrey Young
He paid tribute to former colleagues, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, who watched from the gallery sitting beside Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
Parker praised Clark, her Finance Minister Sir Michael Cullen and her chief of staff Heather Simpson, who he said “stand as tall as giants”.
He touched on the long battle to change the tax system to be more equitable.
Parker said removing interest deductibility for residential landlords was the right thing to do, although he conceded perhaps he and his colleague Grant Robertson “went a bit far”.
He discussed trying to get Labour to agree to put a wealth tax in the 2023 Budget.
“It’s always been difficult to convince the other side on tax. At times, I’ve found it surprisingly hard to convince my own side, too,” Parker joked.
Labour MP David Parker delivers his valedictory speech in Parliament 7 May 2025. Photo / Marty Melville
He sketched out his ideal tax system, which involved a tax on capital income (a wealth tax), a capital gains tax, and some form of interest deductibility ban, with rules for deductions to avoid double taxation. This would pay for a tax-free threshold for income earners up to $10,000, with the next $10,000 becoming tax free as revenue from a capital gains tax grew.
The policy ideas didn’t stop. Parker thought about getting the Reserve Bank to use a quantitative easing scheme to purchase a long-dated bond in the event the Alpine Fault ruptures, spreading the cost of that destruction over generations.
If that weren’t enough, he finished the speech with a section taking on the tech giants with a proposal to make the social platforms liable for harmful content shared on their platforms.
He finished with a criticism of culture war politics, arguing it wasted political energy.
Parker said he believed MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) voting system might be getting “worse over time” and said the Single Transferable Vote system would be better.
