From Auckland Central as your local MP, to across Aotearoa as Green Party Co-Leader, I hear consistently from New Zealanders that they’re working longer and harder than ever, yet are still finding themselves financially stretched and unfairly compensated. Last month, we saw tens of thousands around the country strike in one of the largest strike actions in our history.
Firefighters, doctors, teachers, nurses and public servants of all stripes came together to protest the relentless slashing of public services by Luxon's Government, which has resulted in a system that is no longer capable of delivering for workers or the public.
These protests are a reminder that if we value public services, we must also value the people who deliver them. We're not five million people randomly running around this country in competition with each other. We are New Zealanders. We can work together to build the country we deserve with our shared resources.
That’s kind of the point of democracy.
Unfortunately, every other day, Christopher Luxon’s Government announces and acts with greater disdain not only towards the workers who make our country function, but that very democracy. Whether it’s ignoring overwhelming public opposition on Bills at Select Committee or literally stripping away people’s right to enrol and vote on the same day (after first lying about how it would save time, until the Electoral Commission had to fact check), it’s important to be vigilant about how interconnected all of our rights are.
This is what I meant when I talked at our Green Party AGM this year about how all we don’t get human rights because somebody else decides that we are worthy – we get them because we are human. You don’t have to know somebody to want them to live a decent life. Perhaps more fundamentally, you don’t even actually have to like them.
We all need each other, in some way or another. We rely on other people to pick and grow and process and deliver our food; to look after and educate our children; to keep us safe; to build and maintain our infrastructure and housing; to look after us when we’re sick; to make our clothes and our technology and so, so much more. Nobody in that web of inter-reliance, let alone the people who work to provide society’s necessities and emergency services, should have to fight to survive. Their jobs are big enough.
That’s why I think New Zealanders overwhelmingly supported the more than 100,000 striking workers in October. Teachers, nurses, firefighters and public servants don’t do what they do for the money or the glory, and lord knows they’d prefer not to be striking.
Unfortunately, instead of choosing to empower Government negotiators to turn up to the bargaining table equipped with the mandate and resource to resolve these problems, Luxon and his ministers instead chose to punch down on and ridicule the workers who make our country function. Judith Collins even went so far as to allege the strikes were ‘political’.
Such an observation is so self-evident that it’s kind of absurd. Of course it’s political. New Zealanders, rightfully, are becoming very aware that if you don’t do politics, politics is gonna do you.
Thankfully, there’s an election just around the corner, and I’m proud to be co-leading a party that’s spent 18 months churning out clear and costed policy to address the challenges of our time. Please, do check out He Ara Anamata (our Emissions Reduction Plan), our Industrial Strategy (how we’d create 40,000 well-paid, sustainable jobs), Budget and Fiscal Strategy. They’re all available online and I always invite feedback!
As always, drop me and the Auckland Central team a line if we can ever be of service. You’ll find us at 3/1 Cross Street (behind Karangahape Road’s Lim Chhour) or via chloe.swarbrick@parliament.govt.nz
#ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #loveponsonby #auckland #aucklandshippestrip #onlyponsonby #ponsonbyroad #Greylynn #freemansbay #westmere #ponsonby #hernebay #stmarysbay #archhill #coxsbay @followers #followers @everyone #everyone #waitematalocalboard @highlight
