Category: ACT Party

Source: ACT Party

Today Chris Hipkins gave a speech about ‘bringing people together’. All I can say is I admire his chutzpah. Only nine months ago Hipkins led a Government that left New Zealanders more divided than ever.

Jacinda promised kindness, but never hesitated to go after a minority group. By the time Labour were done, a scientific poll found that 77 percent of us felt New Zealand was becoming more divided.

Labour pitted employers against employees, landlords against renters, made licensed firearm owners and farmers feel like criminals, and created an occupation on Parliament’s lawn that had to be broken up with batons and shields.

Labour were successful in bringing protestors and riot police together on the grounds of Parliament, but their COVID response mostly kept people apart, including pregnant citizens overseas and their family at home.

Labour even divided rich from poor, with a COVID response that locked working people down and transferred wealth into the property market.

Labour were also the ones that created division based on race in the areas of health, water infrastructure, local government and resource management. Laughably, Chris Hipkins championed these same divisive policies today, in a speech dressed in the language of unity.

New Zealanders aren’t stupid – they know Labour attempted radical constitutional change by giving different groups different rights.

ACT says every New Zealander deserves the same rights and dignity. We can celebrate Māori culture, and every other, within the framework of a liberal democracy that unites us on the basis of our common humanity. That is what New Zealanders voted for at the election, and that is the promise we are keeping in government.

Source: ACT Party

ACT welcomes the Government restoring the test for Customary Marine Title that Parliament originally intended.

As the Minister of Justice has said, the Edwards decision substantially lowered the test for awarding Customary Marine Title. In practice, it could lead to Title being awarded far more liberally than Parliament intended. In turn, New Zealanders’ use of the foreshore and seabed would be more restricted than Parliament intended.

These proposed changes will enable the legal recognition of Māori customary rights while protecting the legitimate interests of all New Zealanders in the marine and coastal area.

It is a good example of the real change New Zealanders voted for – a Government that takes action to put things right when they go wrong.

Source: ACT Party

Bay of Plenty-based ACT MP Cameron Luxton is welcoming NZTA’s decision to reconsider sections of the planned continuous wire median barriers between Katikati and Tauranga.

“This news will come as an enormous relief for residents I’ve met. While it is difficult to say exactly what pushed NZTA to make this announcement, it’s clear the fierce advocacy and protest of the locals has been effective,” says Mr Luxton, who joined affected residents at the Katikati War Memorial Hall last night.

“As a locally-based MP, I was contacted by residents tearing their hair out over the prospect of being blocked from turning right out of their roads.

“Residents of affected roads would have been forced to drive kilometres down State Highway 2 in the wrong direction to find a roundabout before turning around. This could add thousands of kilometres of annual travel for regular commuters.

“On 6 June, I wrote to the Transport Minister about this issue, and the median barriers were a major topic raised at ACT’s public meeting in Tauranga last week.

“While I understand it is difficult for a Minister to intervene in operational decisions that have already reached the implementation phase, it appears NZTA has one way or another got the memo.

“Today’s news will be disappointing for residents near where barrier installation is set to continue, such as those living on Wright Road. So as a community we’ll need to hold NZTA to its commitment today to continue to ‘consider the concerns raised by the community with the current design’.”

Source: ACT Party

Te Pāti Māori’s obsession with race has sunk to a new low – and it’s about time they were held accountable by the media.

Today in Parliament, Rawiri Waititi asked an MP on the Government benches, ‘What blood quantum are you?’

It beggars belief that TPM’s extremism has now extended to the dangerous and divisive idea that how much ‘Māori blood’ a person has in their body should matter.

Te Pāti Māori are race fanatics – they believe a person’s race is more than all the other attributes that make up a person.

If any other political party behaved in this way, they would lead the 6pm news. The media’s double standard needs to end, and they need to start exposing this behaviour for what it is.

Thankfully, the vast majority of New Zealanders, including Māori, want nothing to do with their obsession with race.

ACT believes there should be a place for everyone in New Zealand, a free society that respects the rights of each person to live in equal dignity.

With the Treaty Principles Bill, ACT is standing up for that timeless and essential idea that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from or what your race is, you will be treated the same under the law of this country by the government.

Source: ACT Party

The Haps

Parliament returns from a three-week recess, to sit for three weeks. ACT’s MPs went on tour to hear from real New Zealanders, travelling from Southland to the Bay of Plenty over two weeks. The Māori wards legislation also returns to Parliament, set to be debated after select committee. However, the week will be dominated by the release of the Royal Commission into Abuse in State Care report.

Industrial Scale Abuse and the God that Failed

New Zealanders face enough problems, between the economy, ongoing crime, broken health and education systems, and a choppy geopolitical environment. This week will add another issue at the worst possible time, but one that’s difficult to ignore.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State Care will release its report to Parliament after six years. There were false starts and sleeping commissioners while traumatised people gave their testimony.

New Zealand needs this report. Too much went on for too long, and no country can go forward while industrial scale abuse is swept under the rug. ACT supported calls to have the inquiry before the 2017 election, even while other parties wanted to let sleeping dogs lie.

Now the report will be released on Wednesday. Free Press hasn’t seen it, but there are some things we can safely predict from media reports of survivors’ stories over the years.

It will be grotesque. Most New Zealanders have not lived in a closed society. When a small group live out of view of the wider society, things don’t have to go wrong but it can easily happen. If the small group are put there precisely because they have some sort of vulnerability, William Golding’s dystopian Lord of the Flies comes easily to mind.

The numbers will be staggering. Former Government Statistician Len Cook says in today’s Herald that, at one point, seven per cent of Māori boys were in state care. Altogether hundreds of thousands of people were wards of the state, in a country where sixty thousand were born each year at peak birth rates.

It will lead to a major, and necessary, self-reflection as a nation. We believe that Kiwis are inherently good people, incapable of the evils and corruption that are normal in much of the world. We’ve been on the right side of history at various times, and punched well above our weight in everything from rowing to nuclear physics. We believe six years of gathering evidence coming out on one day will shatter illusions.

It was the era of the Holland, Holyoake, and Muldoon Governments that industrial scale state care and abuse was in full swing. In this era of rugby, racing, and beer, politicians were happy to give enormous powers to Government officials, but were hopeless at holding them accountable.

It was a time Michael Bassett described as too many people believing in ‘the essential goodness of state action.’ The state was given enormous powers to intervene in every aspect of life. In reality the state was a God that failed, leaving much destruction in its wake.

The abuse occurred on such a scale that only one institution was capable of being responsible for it, that being the state. It had the power to change the law, the trust of the people, and the resources to operate such a massive operation.

The state actually failed in two ways. It ran incompetent institutions that became havens for predators. It also failed to uphold basic human rights across all institutions including its own and private ones where similar abuse took place. There was very little grasp of the proper role of government and survivors paid the cost.

This week will rightly be a time for the survivors of the abuse. They deserve official recognition of what has occurred, finally. Then there is an equally important task that makes the recognition sincere. The country has to learn from it.

We must never again trust the state with such unbridled power. There is no essential goodness in state action, if anything its concentration of power makes it dangerous. That power should instead be focused on upholding the essential dignity and freedoms of every single New Zealander.

Source: ACT Party

ACT is welcoming news that the use of benefit sanctions has increased by more than 50% since this time last year.

ACT’s coalition agreement secured the commitment to implement sanctions for beneficiaries who can work but refuse to take agreed steps to find a job. Now we’re seeing this policy in action.

In most cases, the sanctions are for beneficiaries failing to show up for scheduled appointments to help them into work. So we are sending a clear message that if you’re not motivated enough to take the basic first steps toward finding work, you shouldn’t expect the taxpayer to fund your lifestyle.

This is about giving respect to working New Zealanders who pay the bills, while still providing a safety net for those in the unfortunate circumstance of being out of work – so long as they take necessary steps to improve their position.

Benefit sanctions encourage beneficiaries to seek out opportunities and become active participants in our economy. This is how we foster a culture of self-reliance and self-esteem, building stronger families and a more prosperous country.

Source: ACT Party

ACT Party Acting President, Catherine Isaac, has today named Callum Purves as the Party’s new General Manager and Party Secretary. 

“The ACT Party has seen rapid growth in the past two elections. ACT Ministers are now delivering in government and are at the leading edge of a significant programme of reform. We need to match this electoral success with a stronger party infrastructure to fight the 2026 election and beyond,” says Ms Isaac.

“I am delighted to welcome Callum to his new role. He brings with him extensive experience from working in political parties in the UK and a track record of success in campaign management and building teams of volunteers. This will prove invaluable as we continue to grow as a party.”

Prior to moving to New Zealand, Mr Purves worked for the UK Conservative Party, primarily in Scotland, where he managed election and by-election campaigns at council, Scottish Parliament, and UK Parliament levels. He has also held research and advisory roles in The Scottish Parliament. He has a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of St Andrews, Scotland.

Mr Purves has also served as a board member and trustee on several Scottish public bodies and charities, including five years as a unitary councillor on Perth & Kinross Council. He is a member of the Institute of Directors in New Zealand and the Public Relations Institute of New Zealand.

Most recently, Mr Purves worked as COO and Head of Campaigns at the Taxpayers’ Union, New Zealand’s largest political advocacy group with 200,000 supporters. In this role, he led the organisation’s day-to-day operations, including campaigns, communications, research, and grassroots engagement. 

Mr Purves will take up the position of General Manager on 29 July. Arrangements will be made with the Electoral Commission for him to take over the position of Party Secretary shortly thereafter.

Source: ACT Party

This week ACT MP Mark Cameron is lodging a new member’s bill to restore longstanding provisions to the Resource Management Act that prohibit regional councils from considering climate change as a factor in their plans.

“Currently, councils can use the Resource Management Act to impose a patchwork of restrictions on the way Kiwis use their land, all in the name of reducing emissions,” says Mr Cameron.

“This was the result of amendments to the RMA progressed under the previous Government. Property rights were sacrificed to the climate gods, in a way that wouldn’t even reduce net emissions.

“It’s not feasible to have regional councils trying to save the world’s climate. In fact, it’s hopeless, because emissions are already managed nationally under the Emissions Trading Scheme. If one council cracks down on emissions, it just pushes carbon-intensive activity someplace else. And councils aren’t equipped to consider carbon offsets that businesses might have in other parts of the country.

“The Resource Management (National and Regional Emissions) Amendment Bill will reintroduce prohibitions on regional councils considering local greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s about getting local government back to basics and stopping councils feeling like they need to supress local productive activity like farming for the sake of the planet.

“ACT has long said the most cost-effective way to manage emissions is through nationally co-ordinated carbon pricing, technological innovation, and international action – not complex land use restrictions via the Resource Management Act.

“This bill is just another way to allow farmers and people working on the land to get on with what they do best, without needless layers of bureaucracy and council diktats.”

Source: ACT Party

ACT is welcoming Otago University’s new official position on free speech.

The University says its official statement will be used to inform updates to policies. ACT’s coalition agreement commits to requiring universities and polytechnics to commit to free speech policies, so it’s positive to see a university firming up its position on free speech ahead of the delivery of legislation from Wellington. ACT encourages other universities to do the same.

While we have to wait and see how Otago’s policies function in practice, the official statement looks to ACT like a strong foundation for free expression on campus and open academic inquiry.

The statement includes: “The University affirms that it will not restrict debate or deliberation simply because the ideas put forth are thought by some to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed. It is for the members of the University community – its students and staff – to make those judgments for themselves. The University is not a place for safety from ideas – it is a place to engage in critical thought and debate in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. Our students will not be prepared for a complex and challenging world unless they have experience negotiating conflict and disagreement.”

Other universities should take notice. This is a powerful and clear position. It contrasts starkly with the weak academic freedom policy of Massey University, which cites ‘mental harm’ as legitimate grounds for limiting speech.

Taxpayers don’t fund universities to protect students from difficult ideas. To the contrary, university is a place for difficult discussion, for testing popular assumptions, and for building resilient young adults.

A common function of universities is to discuss ideas or host speakers that may be controversial. Without robust free speech policies, there is precedent for groups of offended students threatening disruption or claiming to feel unsafe pressuring administrators to cancel valuable discussions.

Right now, there are essentially no consequences if a University actively inhibits freedom of expression without legitimate cause. With ACT in Government, that is set to change. Ahead of legislation being introduced to Parliament, universities seeking insight into ACT’s approach may look to the member’s bill we have previously proposed.

Source: ACT Party

ACT is renewing calls to scrap the Human Rights Commission as it joins a reported “march of shame” to Geneva criticising New Zealand’s commitment to indigenous rights and calling the Coalition Government racist.

This has become absurd. Hard-up Kiwi taxpayers are forking out for an activist group to fly to Switzerland and trash New Zealand on the world stage.

When the Commission says the Government is backsliding on indigenous rights, it gives examples like the return of local referenda for Māori wards, the disestablishment of race-based health services, and ACT’s legislation to ensure the Treaty delivers its promise of the same rights and duties for all.

The Human Rights Commission is obsessed with race and identity. It is dismissive of basic individual rights like free speech and the right to be safe from criminals, and it actively campaigns for policies that divide Māori from non-Māori. It is disgraceful that we give it $15 million a year to do this in the name of human rights and with the false credibility of quasi-government status.

New Zealand can be immensely proud of our record on human rights, including the ways we have redressed past wrongs committed against Māori through the Waitangi Tribunal. The prominence of Māori culture in New Zealand is a drawcard for tourists and trading partners. In trying to smear our hard-won reputation, the Commission threatens our industries and our diplomatic influence.

If the Commission leadership want to campaign against the government, they should join a voluntary activist group or run for Parliament. New Zealanders shouldn’t be forced to fund their political activism.

ACT’s heart goes out to members of the audience in Geneva – especially those indigenous people who’ve travelled from non-democratic countries facing very real human rights abuses, who will have to compete for speaking time against the Human Rights Commission’s hysterical tripe.