Hui E! election focus

You can –

• Use this document for some ideas to put on the agenda when you meet your local MP or candidates,
• Write to candidates in advance of a meeting and ask them to come prepared to comment on your ideas,
• Use this document as a checklist for what sort of policies you want to look for, before you vote,
• Make your own assessment – where do the parties, and the candidates in your area stand on these issues?

The areas focused on here are linked together as strategies to address the underlying causes of the complex inequalities/disparities that exist in our society. Each strategy will contribute to our making a difference.

If you have produced a statement on your policies for the election, please send a copy to us at Hui E!
Email Eric Elder at ericelder21@gmail.com – Eric is doing an analysis of the messages from our sector.

1. What can community groups do?

Hui E! recommends you invite candidates of every party to come and meet you, tell them what you do, tell them how it makes a difference in the community, and tell them how you can help government work better for your people and your community.

Don’t invite them all at once – they will waste time criticising each other instead of focusing on your issues. And don’t spend the time moaning – they will lose interest. Share ideas on how to move forward with your community’s issues. Great ideas come from people and communities – not from Government!

Then, in your newsletters, website, Facebook, Twitter, wherever, encourage your members or participants to make sure they are registered, then go and vote. Don’t tell them who to vote for (you could lose your charity status) but you are allowed to report on how the different candidates responded to your ideas.
Go for it – Please. Our democracy needs you!

In your newsletters, website, Facebook, Twitter, wherever, encourage your
members or participants to make sure they are registered, then go and vote.

2. What do we stand for, as community organisations?

a) Currently ‘the market’ is the predominant driver of what NZ stands for, but that is only a choice made by our successive governments.

b) The global goals that NZ signed up to provide a much more comprehensive and coherent framework for addressing all our specific issues in a sustainable way. In September 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to 17 Global Goals for Sustainable Development. If these Goals are completed, it would mean an end to extreme poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030. So there is a plan to save our planet…it’s our job to make sure our government sticks to the plan. The full list of goals is at Transforming our World.

c) What areas should we as a country focus on to ensure long-term wellbeing, stability and hope for all citizens? For example;

i. Vulnerable Children – trusting our community-based approaches is the way to strengthen society. Responses driven solely by government have had disastrous results and have sidelined the stability that comes from integrating family and community supports. Co-design of services is essential to meet the need of our diverse population, particularly for Māori; See SDG Goal 3

ii. Secure Jobs and Incomes – these enable stronger families and communities, securing individual wellbeing for all; See SDG Goal 8

iii. Kia Kōrero Tātou – Commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi – genuine engagement and partnership approaches to issues;

• Te Reo and inclusion of Māori views used consistently and deeply in all government papers;
• Active support and championing of dynamic Māori initiatives in all spheres;
• Target date and target volumes set for compulsory Te Reo in schools. See SDG Goal 10

iv. Housing – we need long-term planning for stability, and that requires active government leadership in collaboration with community and private sectors; See SDG Goal 11

v. Water, Air, Forests and Oceans – we need genuine commitments based on shared commitments of all the parties, nationally and regionally, and strategised wider than the few issues that currently dominate political discourse and lobbying – a healthy environment is a key enabler for a healthy community. See SDG Goal 14 and Goal 15

vi. Justice and Incarceration – we need to move away from a punitive approach to these, moving towards greater support of programmes that enable and support change for individuals and marginal cultures, inside and outside prisons; See SDG Goal 16

3. Re-growing Citizenship

a. Citizen participation and community partnership need to be threaded throughout government policy-making;

b. Building citizen participation needs committed planning and support at central and local levels;

c. Diversity – we need to celebrate our diverse ethnicity, age, gender and orientation;

d. We need to challenge citizens and communities to take a broader, more communal approach to responsibility, going beyond ‘not in my back yard’ or ‘we/I have no power so no responsibility’;

e. Volunteer and Community-based organisations and initiatives are the life-blood for a resilient society – they need to be valued and supported by government at all levels, not just as potential providers of contract services but as an essential part of national success. They provide stability as well as innovation – necessary components of economic as well as social development;

f. Enablers include local regional and national infrastructure, supportive legal environment, time to think, imagine and talk, and basic resourcing. Leadership from central government would help overcome inconsistency at regional and local levels. See SDG Goal 16