Maori Party press release:
Hon Tariana Turia and Dr Pita Sharples, Co-leaders

Preliminary electorate results indicating a 55% voter turnout in the Maori seats should concern every New Zealander says the Maori Party.

“Voter turnout rates indicate the confidence citizens have with the political process and political institutions,” said Dr Sharples, Co-leader of the Maori Party.  “There are clearly challenges ahead for Parliament, to increase the confidence of Maori that participation in the democratic process is worthwhile.”

“While we realise there may be some changes to the overall numbers once the special votes are in on 22 November, the low turnout in the Maori electorates on Saturday should worry us all,” said Dr Sharples.

“In 2005, the turnout across the seven Maori electorates varied from 62.05% (Tamaki Makaurau) to 69.79% (Tai Tokerau)” said Dr Sharples. “This year, there was a significant drop right across the range, with the lowest turnout being in Tamaki Makaurau (50.27%) and even the highest in Waiariki (56.14%) was still well below the national average turnout of 78%.”

“The fact that only half of Maori voters exercise the right to vote is an indication that something is terribly wrong with our democracy,” said Mrs Turia. “As a nation, we must address the huge issues around Maori electoral participation.”

“Our party, worked solidly to spread the word about enrolling and voting, to ‘rock the vote’ through door-knocking, phone-calling, viral texting, flag-flying, pamphlet-drops, bebo, you-tube and website advertising,” said Mrs Turia.

“We tried our best to encourage voting to become a whanau habit, to build interest in politics, and to arrest the downwards trend,” said Mrs Turia.

“And yet, when we came face to face with some of the poverty-stricken communities across our electorate, we saw how seriously alienated and disenfranchised many whanau have become. It is an enormous task to bring hope to communities, that casting a vote will make a difference in their lives.”

“We are also aware that we are only five out of 122 Members of Parliament. We will certainly be encouraging our 117 colleagues to consider what they can do to bring confidence to tangata whenua that politics is of value to them”.

“We are keen to encourage this debate across all parties, and have already raised our concerns with the Prime Minister Elect,” said Mrs Turia.  “We believe the new inclusive approach that Mr Key is speaking of, must address the low turnout of Maori voters, as a matter of national concern”.

Awesome, and thank goodness McCain / Palin didn’t get in!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/05/uselections20084

This Green bloopers vid is pretty classic. (D’oh, can’t figure out how to imbed stuff, so copy and paste the following address into your browser!)

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=NGPjDlkHXt0

“When we give to the poor we are not being generous; we are merely returning to them that which we have withheld from them.” (Source unknown)

I have to admit, I feel pretty chuffed with myself when I ‘give to the poor’ in whatever form. But this quote makes a valid and uncomfortably challenging point, especially given the increasingly skewed structure of the world’s wealth distribution, shown in the graphs below.

Maybe the quote should even be a bit stronger: “We are merely returning to them that which we have stolen from them”, or at least “We are merely returning to them the wealth we have inherited from those that stole from them” (even though the lack of conciseness in that one does not make for a good quote)

Source: ‘The Community Solution’, Powerpoint Presentation “Energy and Inequity”, available from http://www.communitysolution.org/problem.html

I totally see his point, but (in perhaps a naive and idealistic way) I wonder whether, by harnessing self-interest as a means to an end, we are effectively saying that self-interest is an acceptable driver of making decisions? Is that like telling people that making decisions based on self-interest is fine, and that it’s policy-makers’ responsibility to structure our economy etc in a way that makes self interest ‘work’ for the common good? Or should we be saying to people that self-interest is not the best way to make decisions, and that loving our neighbour goes further than bringing them over some vege soup when they’re sick?

This is the “real housing affordability problem” highlighted in the latest instalment of the social justice information series being published by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS ).

Let us all keep the focus on those in greatest need and those who might otherwise be invisible in the debate about ‘housing affordability’, says Trevor McGlinchey, NZCCSS Executive Officer.

The negative impact that poor quality housing has on families and children remains a major issue in Aotearoa New Zealand. Steps being taken to improve the quality of state houses are welcomed, but we also have to face issues such as the unmet demand for a greater quantity of both state (social) housing and housing funded through community based solutions such as housing trusts.

When political candidates in the upcoming Election are questioned about housing, we believe more questions need to be asked of them about housing issues beyond the ‘Kiwi dream’ of home ownership. We need to do more to protect the basic human right to adequate housing.

NZCCSS is providing relevant links and access to more information about housing issues. [Read More]

[ See letter: open-letter-to-political-candidates.pdf]

 ”As made clear in our joint Church leaders’ statement in March we believe that issues related to poverty, families and children, older people, housing and essential social services are issues that individual politicians need to take personal leadership on. There is also a clear expectation that they offer the voting public something significant to say on these issues, that can then be part of a process of a honest and open debate,” said Archbishop David Moxon of the Anglican Church.  

The Reverend Brian Turner, Methodist Church, Rodney Macann, Baptist Churches of New Zealand, and the Right Reverend Pamela Tankersley, Presbyterian Church, all described the period before an election as a unique opportunity to intensify discussion about the type of society we live in.  ”The affect that poverty has on vulnerable New Zealanders is an issue we need to bring to the fore as part of the call we have as Christians to serve those on the margins of society,” said Pamela Tankersley.  ”A question that we need to ask ourselves is whether we are striving hard enough as a nation to put aside self-interest and to find a stronger collective social conscience in 2008,” said Brian Turner.  ”When our politicians talk about the policies they plan to introduce we want them to talk about he extent to which those policies can be considered just and compassionate, and we want them to explicitly address the issue of reducing poverty,” said Rodney Macann.

 ”Next week the Catholic Church holds its annual Social Justice Week and the focus is on the latest publication from Caritas, our social justice agency, titled ‘Look and look again: Poverty in an affluent society’,” said Archbishop John Dew of Wellington. “As made clear in the recent statement by Catholic Bishops we are not about to tell people how to vote, but the way in which individual politicians respond to social justice issues, particularly poverty, is obviously an important signal of their integrity and values”. 

Garth McKenzie, Salvation Army Commissioner, said that any investment in addressing poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand is a “socially responsible investment”.  ”In the set of issues and reflections for this year’s election we have just published in our publication ‘A New Journey’, we argue that we all need to have a concern about the structures which marginalise people and leave them in poverty. The message we have for our would-be leaders is that we need to do more as a nation t look for ways of building just structures - locally, nationally and even globally”. 

Earlier this year the Church leaders also endorsed the Council’s information programme titled ‘Aroha tetahi ki tetahi - Let us look after each other’. The programme aims to raise public awareness of social justice and compassion issues and to ensure that the situation of the poor and vulnerable in Aotearoa New Zealand is given a more prominent place on the agenda of public concerns in 2008. Through the programme thousands of posters and brochures, promoting themes such as treasuring our children and valuing older people, have been distributed to Churches and providers of essential social services throughout New Zealand.  

The five “calls” made by the programme are for a more just and compassionate society through the implementation of policies to:

• Utilise our nation’s prosperity to eliminate poverty
• Support families and communites to nurture and portect our children
• Provide older people with a range of choices for their homes, support and lifestyle
• Enable access to good, affordable housing for everyone
• Support community-based partnership-driven solutions to social issues in the community

More information is available at www.justiceandcompassion.org.nz

“Made Poor in New Zealand?” is the provocative headline being used by the New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services (NZCCSS) in the latest instalment of its information programme about social justice issues in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“On the one hand the systems for monitoring and reporting on levels of poverty in this country have become more and more sophisticated. Yet on the other hand the every day plight of those on the lowest incomes, including beneficiaries, seems to have almost been forgotten,” says Trevor McGlinchey, NZCCSS Executive Officer.

“The point we are making is this: As a prosperous and generous nation we should be putting a higher priority on lifting and protecting the living standards and human rights of those who are the poorest and most vulnerable amongst us.”

“Poverty hurts us all. There is a large body of evidence that points to both the economic and social cost of ignoring issues of poverty. This is borne out time and time again by statistics related to areas such as poor health and poor housing, lower educational achievement and a higher incidence of issues such as indebtedness and other long-term consequences of poverty,” says Trevor McGlinchey.

“NZCCSS believes that the voices of those most affected by poverty in this country need to be listened to more thoroughly. We recognise it is our obligation to seek out those voices, to present what we find and to act as advocates for the poor and vulnerable.”

To reinforce its message NZCCSS has developed a set of factsheets titled “Facts About Poverty”.

These are available on the NZCCSS website at www.justiceandcompassion.org.nz

National has released its first election billboard. It’s a pretty slick little piece of design, imaginative, and visually appealing with a contemporary look to it. The choice of colour and the iconic shapes draw you in and all look rather lovely. Makes you feel like you’re going on holiday with National.

The more you reflect on it, the more disjuction there is between the imagery and the words. The slogan’s not at all based on fact, but punchy at first glance. The more you look at the words, the less they seem to make sense. They’re presuming that people think it would be terrible for their loved ones to go overseas. I think probably most people would think it’s a great thing for family members to have the opportunity to go abroad.

I thought a friend of mine’s reaction to it was pretty amusing: “You have to be quite politically literate and dumb at the same time to connect the planes to mass migration to Australia. They’re also flying the wrong way…and there’s a net inflow of skilled labour into New Zealand currently. When I first looked at it, I thought, ‘Look at all those emissions from all those planes going somewhere.’”

What are others’ thoughts?

The Greens are calling on the Government to take action after a report that overseas buyers are swooping on the New Zealand property market, keeping out first time home buyers.

“We believe land should be owned by New Zealand citizens and residents only and our laws should be changed to say that. We welcome ex-pats coming home and people coming to this country to live. But why should we allow Singaporean, Australian or American speculators to buy investment properties in our country, shutting first time home buyers from the market?” Greens Co-Leader Russel Norman says.

The Herald on Sunday reported today that international buyers were “snatching up New Zealand property as the dollar drops, banks lower interest rates and the market reaches realistic prices”.

Alistair Helm of realestate.co.nz said that last year 22 per cent of realestate.co.nz’s browsers were from outside New Zealand. This figure crept up to 25 per cent around April and May this year and was now up to 27 per cent.

Meanwhile Auckland real estate agent Ross Brader was quoted as saying properties he listed online started to attract record numbers of international browsers on August 10, when the Kiwi dollar dropped to the lowest level in 11 months.

Dr Norman said he was worried recent price drops in some areas and especially Auckland could be countered by overseas speculation.

“For some years property has been out of reach of most young New Zealanders trying to buy their first home, farm or lifestyle block.

“The Government has a responsibility first and foremost to ensure New Zealand citizens and residents can afford to buy a stake in their own country.

“If people from overseas wish to become New Zealand citizens or permanent residents then they are very welcome to buy land here. By restricting ownership to New Zealand residents and citizens, that would greatly help stabilise the property market and make ownership more attainable for those who live here.”