Category: ACT Party

Source: ACT Party

ACT Tertiary Education spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar has drafted a bill that would ensure universities do not allocate resources, benefits or opportunities based on race.

“This week I wrote to the Minister for Universities to raise concerns about allocation of resources toward students based on ethnicity. This includes special allowances, separate study spaces, scholarships, and course entrance pathways in fields like medicine,” says Dr Parmar.

“Last year, the Government issued a ‘need and value’ directive to public agencies instructing them to allocate support based on need, rather than ethnicity. But the directive didn’t apply to universities.

“Universities are independent but receive most of their funding from taxpayers, and they are protected from competition by legislation.

“I have drafted a bill that would effectively apply the need-not-race directive to the university sectors. ACT will continue to advocate for fair access to opportunities at university and I hope the Minister will consider my proposal.

“I also reiterated to the Minister concerns I have raised publicly about the University of Auckland’s new compulsory paper on the Treaty and indigenous knowledge. In ACT’s view, the compulsory nature of the course disrespects the time and financial investment made by students. Students deserve the chance to focus on areas relevant to their careers and personal interests. This is especially true for international students who are now forced to pay upwards of $5,000 for a course that will hold little value once they leave New Zealand.”

A copy of the draft Education and Training (Equal Treatment) Amendment Bill can be found here.

Source: ACT Party

ACT Health spokesperson Todd Stephenson is welcoming a review of health workforce regulations, including 1) a review of complex cultural requirements, and 2) the progress of an ACT coalition commitment to better recognise people with overseas medical qualifications and experience for accreditation in New Zealand.

On cultural requirements:

“In recent weeks I’ve raised a number of examples of complex, bureaucratic and ideological competency standards centred around the Treaty and indigenous knowledge. Pharmacists, midwives, psychologists, nurses, and even acupuncturists are being asked to demonstrate commitment to Treaty principles and mātauranga Māori.

“Complicated cultural requirements only serve to distract from patients’ clinical needs, while also making it harder to attract and retain skilled health professionals from overseas. My inbox has blown up with messages from health workers frustrated with these rules, and I’m glad the Minister is now swinging into action.”

On overseas qualifications:

“Health and medical professionals are doing their best to provide Kiwis the care they need when they need it, but they’re overworked and understaffed.

“It seems ridiculous to have patients languishing on waitlists to see a health professional when there are fantastically qualified people from overseas who would happily provide their skills here. Currently, even a top Harvard doctor would have to be supervised for 6-18 months before being allowed to independently practise.”

The Health Minister today announced the Government is considering the establishment of an Occupations Tribunal which would consider appeals about decisions relating to overseas qualifications.

“For people to be able to see a health professional in a timely way, we need all hands on deck. ACT has long argued for better recognition of overseas qualifications. We campaigned on it, and now we are seeing the kind of change we campaigned on,” says Stephenson.

Source: ACT Party

“The Teaching Council should throw out a vexatious complaint against a teacher who expressed a political opinion online”, says ACT Education spokesperson Laura McClure.

According to the Free Speech Union, a complaint has been made about a teacher who made a comment about the Treaty Principles Bill on Facebook. The complaint alleges that the teacher has breached the Teaching Council’s Code of Conduct, in particular the requirement for ‘manaakitanga: creating a welcoming, caring, and creative learning environment.’

“The comment disagreed with the Teaching Council submitting against the Treaty Principles Bill on behalf of all teachers.

“The Teaching Council cannot use its Code of Conduct to silence people having a political opinion outside the classroom. That itself would be a potential breach of the law.

“This teacher has a right, like anyone else, to express their opinions freely on social media.

“Teachers have contacted me to complain that they are uncomfortable with the fact that the Teaching Council made a submission against the Treaty Principles Bill. Clearly, they did not speak to their members.

“The complaint is clearly an attempt to punish someone who holds the ‘wrong’ opinion on the Treaty, and it should be treated with contempt and thrown out.”

Source: ACT Party

Welcoming the third-reading passage of sentencing reforms today, ACT Justice spokesperson Todd Stephenson says:

“Cuddling criminals didn’t work, so ACT campaigned on restoring consequences for crime, and rights for victims. Now, that’s written into law,” says Mr Stephenson.

“The reforms passed today deliver on ACT coalition commitments to create new aggravating factors for crimes against people working sole charge, or in a business attached to the family home.

“We also committed to giving greater weight to the needs of victims and communities over offenders. That’s come to pass with the principles of sentencing amended to include requirement to take into account information provided to the court about victims’ interests.

“Protecting the safety and property of New Zealanders is the government’s first and most important job. That’s why ACT is restoring balance to a system that has become too focused on criminals instead of victims.”

On retail crime:

“People working alone feel especially vulnerable, as do those who work in a business attached to the family home, because they can’t flee without putting loved ones at risk,” says ACT Ethnic Communities spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar.

“I’ve met with shop workers and retailers in Auckland, who have taken costly security measures just so they feel safe as they provide for their families. It is heartbreaking because many people come to New Zealand and take these jobs with the understanding that this is a safe country.

“Now, these workers’ vulnerability is recognised in law. It is a great example of how ACT celebrates the contribution of peaceful and productive communities.”

Source: ACT Party

“Finally, Tauranga ratepayers can watch the $180,000 documentary the Council produced to promote its $306 million redevelopment of the civic centre,” says Tauranga-based ACT MP Cameron Luxton.

“The documentary was privately launched at a party for VIPs four months ago. On the 1st of this month it was finally uploaded to the Council’s YouTube channel as a three-episode series. Eleven days later, the most-viewed episode had drawn less than 300 views. Now, it’s been re-posted and has drawn just 273 views.

“The documentary is already out of date – Anne Tolley is prominently featured as Tauranga’s Commission Chair, despite leaving the post eight months ago.

“The documentary comes soon after the Council’s $75,000 tourism app flop, and the installation of a $300,000 sculpture in Red Square.

“With the Council projecting a 12.5% rate hike for 2025, its entrance into the film industry is an unwelcome indulgence, and a bitter cherry on top of the wasteful legacy of Labour’s commissioners.

“The film doesn’t actually discuss the building project itself, so we get no insight into how the development ended up costing ratepayers so much.”

Source: ACT Party

ACT Police spokesperson Todd Stephenson is calling on Green MP Tamatha Paul to host a public meeting on law and order in her electorate to find out what normal people think about the Police.

At an event promoting – in her own words – ‘radical police abolition’, Paul recently stated:

‘Wellington people do not want to see police officers everywhere, and, for a lot of people, it makes them feel less safe. It’s that constant visual presence that tells you that you might not be safe there, if there’s heaps of cops.’

‘All they do is walk around all day, waiting for homeless people to leave their spot, packing their stuff up and throwing it in the bin.’

“It’s easy to be anti-Police, until you need to call them yourself,” says Mr Stephenson.

“Tamatha Paul has spent so much time hanging out with radical left-wing student groups that she’s got law and order completely backwards. It’s criminals who are the problem, not the Police who catch them.

“Tamatha Paul is the MP for Wellington Central, but she clearly hasn’t spent much time listening to her constituents, who are regularly victimised by crimes and need help from Police. Last year in Wellington City, there were 1,413 assaults, 124 sexual assaults, six abductions, and 1,804 burglaries.*

“If she’s serious about her law and order portfolios, she should host a public meeting in her electorate and hear what normal people – including victims of crime – think about the Police.”

*Police Crime Snapshot, 1 Jan 2024 – 31 Dec 2024

Source: ACT Party

Welcoming Cabinet’s agreement on the shape of laws to replace the Resource Management Act, ACT Leader David Seymour says:

“Ditching the RMA and passing new laws centred on property rights might be the most important thing the Government does.

“Why can’t young New Zealanders afford homes? Why are power bills so high? Why can’t I buy McDonald’s in Wanaka? Each question has a common answer.

“The Resource Management Act is a 913-page monstrosity that has strangled New Zealand’s development potential. The RMA empowers objectors from any part of the country to block us from building homes, wastewater treatment plants, power plants, and roads.

“ACT has been beating this drum for more than a decade. I remember campaigning on it before I first entered Parliament in 2014. There’s been plenty of tinkering round the edges since the Act was passed in 1991, but only now are we seeing wholesale reform, delivered by ACT’s Simon Court alongside Chris Bishop.

“The reforms announced today are based on ACT’s 2022 paper, Building New Zealand and Conserving Nature. By refocusing resource management on the protection of individual property rights, we dramatically reduce the range of people who can interfere with the use of someone else’s land.

“One law will govern urban development and planning, while the other will protect the environment. It’s never made sense that the same laws that protect Fiordland National Park also determine whether a horse paddock in Helensville can have two homes built on it.

“The legacy of these reforms will be more productive activity, more high-paying jobs, and affordable housing. That’s how we give young Kiwis confidence to build families and futures here in New Zealand, and I’m very proud of the role ACT and Simon Court have played.”

Source: ACT Party

The Haps

At least one left wing chat room went ballistic about last week’s Free Press. The idea that men are oppressed seemed to trigger them so badly they missed the central point: The world is not made up of groups oppressing each other, but individuals trying to make the most of their time on earth.

The most important thing the Government will do

New Zealand in a nutshell is the best land in the world that you can’t build a home (or a quarry, or a road, or a water treatment plant, or a power station) on. Nearly every major problem we face begins with the difficulty in getting consent to build things.

Why are young people disillusioned and leaving the country? Why are poor households spending over half their income on housing? Why is the Government spending billions on rental subsidies? Why are a worrying number of people facing retirement still paying rent? Why is the economy infamously imbalanced towards housing? It’s too hard to build houses and the services that connect them together.

In this area ACT’s, and especially Simon Court’s, hard work in opposition is paying off for the whole country. Late last year Cabinet signed off on the engine room work Simon has been doing with RMA reform Minister Chris Bishop.

The work started in 2022 with ACT’s paper Building New Zealand and Conserving Nature. The paper contains the details that Cabinet signed off as shaping the Government’s new Resource Management laws.

It begins, “ACT proposes a shift in principle on Resource Management. At present the underlying principle is the 1980s paradigm of ‘sustainable development.’ This has never been defined in a way that is practical to implement… Instead, the principle of resource management should be to preserve the enjoyment of property… On a property rights basis, they can do anything that does not harm others’ enjoyment of property. It dramatically reduces the range of people who have an interest in someone else’s use of their own property.”

Therein lies the heart of the Government’s reforms, based on ACT’s Coalition commitment to “replace the Resource Management Act 1991 with new resource management laws premised on the enjoyment of property rights as a guiding principle.”

It says laws plural and there will be two laws under the Government’s reforms. One to guide urban development and planning, and another to guide environmental protection. As ACT has long said, it’s never made sense that the same law protecting Fiordland governs whether a horse paddock in Henderson can have two homes built on it.

Building and Conserving Nature carries on to set out other principles; how water should be taken, how discharges to land and water should be managed within environmental limits, and how nationwide codes would replace every council reinventing every wheel for basic activities. These ideas also shine through in the Government’s plans, and they will make an enormous difference to the future of this country.

Reforms like this make us proud to support ACT. The basic ideas of less regulation and more respect for private property rights are core party philosophy. They’re also becoming real with the Government’s reforms. Most importantly they are the solution to our country’s deepest problems.

When the next generation can see their pathway to living in a property-owning democracy, the whole society changes. People who are physically invested in the community, with the security to build a life and start a family if they choose, are different types of citizens.

Making it easier to build a water treatment plant, a road, a subdivision, and a home at the end of it may be the most important change this country can make, and it’s ACT what did that.

Source: ACT Party

“It’s totally unacceptable that a Kāinga Ora tenant with 25 complaints of anti-social behaviour, six formal warnings, and police callouts has retained their taxpayer-funded tenancy”, says ACT’s Housing spokesperson Cameron Luxton.

“It’s clear that violent behaviour from people receiving a state home is still occurring and that the crackdown on them needs to go further.

“The Tenancy Tribunal has refused to terminate a KO tenancy in Whangarei even after Police confirmed that a ‘non-accidental shooting’ had occurred and that there was ‘a high risk of retaliation and ongoing violence of a similar nature from the parties involved’, and that threats had been made against a neighbour.

“KO urgently sought termination of the tenancy, but the Tribunal found that because the complaints came from anonymous sources and no complainant was willing to give evidence, the application to terminate lacked corroboration.

“ACT policy would ensure the requirement for KO to prove anti-social behaviour can include testimony from other residents in the neighbourhood. Both parties would have access to a private hearing by the Tenancy Tribunal to give testimony. This would protect witnesses and tenants in vulnerable situations who may be victims of abuse or intimidation.

“ACT’s coalition agreement committed to removing National and Labour’s damaging ‘Sustaining Tenancies Framework’ which has helped. But we clearly need to go further. In particular, ACT campaigned on:

Reducing bureaucracy around termination. Sign-off would only be required from the service unit manager, not the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Executive.

* Specifying that a tenancy can be terminated and not simply transferred to a different Kāinga Ora property if the tenant engages in dangerous or severe disruptive behaviour. Such behaviour would include drug production or supply, acts of violence, presentation of weapons, persistent intimidation or malicious harassment, and threatening or intimidating behaviour.

* Clarifying that tenants who are terminated for anti-social behaviour will be moved to the bottom of the public housing and emergency housing waitlists.

* Clarifying that the requirement for Kāinga Ora to ‘prove’ anti-social behaviour can include testimony from other residents in the neighbourhood. Both parties would have access to a private hearing by the Tenancy Tribunal to give testimony. This will protect witnesses and tenants in vulnerable situations who may be victims of abuse or intimidation.

“These tenants would not simply be moved on to another Kāinga Ora tenancy. ACT would move them to the bottom of both the public housing and emergency housing waitlists.

“This will introduce consequences for bad behaviour and provide an incentive for tenants to change their behaviour. And it will give more deserving people on the housing register who have not treated the community with disrespect a chance to be housed.”

Source: ACT Party

Welcoming news that the Commerce Commission is launching an investigation into the influence of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance on New Zealand’s banking sector, ACT Rural Communities spokesperson Mark Cameron says:

“The banking alliance is a woke cabal. It co-ordinates banks into aligning lending practices with net-zero emissions goals, and this affects local lending practices, especially in the rural sector.

“I’ve been banging on about this for a while now through the rural banking inquiry, and it’s a concern regularly raised with me by farmers. Kiwi farmers are some of the most emissions-efficient in the world, and it makes no environmental sense for banks to kneecap them and send food production offshore.

“Of course it’s tempting to just whack the international cabal, but we need to keep our own house in order too. Red tape here at home is also pushing banks to impose higher costs on rural borrowers. That includes the Financial Markets Authority’s climate reporting rules, and the Reserve Bank’s banking capital requirements.

“ACT will keep kicking the tyres until cockies have affordable access to the financial services they need.”