What if we decided to invest in ourselves?
Our communities, our country, our jobs, our infrastructure, our places, our events and our economy? What if our money circulated locally to grow the things we love and care about, instead of disappearing offshore to build up the bank balances of corporations and shareholders that’ll never care about the closure our local venues or loss of 200 talented New Zealanders every single day?
This is the thinking which first drove me into politics last time the National Party was in government, but it’s been on hyper speed over the past two and a half years as we’ve watched the new National-led Government take a wrecking ball to almost everything and anything we care about. The health system, the public conservation estate, resourcing for firefighters, public transport funding, fisheries – you name it, they’ve put a price tag on it and shown they know the cost of everything and value of nothing.
The beauty of doorknocking is meeting people where they’re at. We’ve been doing it for months in the lead up to this election, reminding the good people of Auckland Central that if you’re not enrolled to vote by 25 October, this Government has changed the law and will now prevent you from voting.
It’s a pretty cheap trick, but it makes strategic sense (for the interests of maintaining hollow power) when I reflect on what our huge, dedicated team of volunteers and I have heard from our community: people are sick and tired of the cuts and complaining and they want a vision all New Zealanders can unify behind and move forward with. That unity can only come from all of us agreeing to some basic non-negotiables that we’re all willing to work for not only for ourselves, not only for the people we know and love, but also the people we don’t know and even those we don’t like. Our great-grandparents agreed to support each other’s right to affordable power, free, high-quality education and healthcare, jobs aplenty and well-maintained public national parks and they invested in making those things a reality. We can do it too.
When the world feels chaotic and you don’t know where to start, the easiest place is with what’s right in front of you, in your own backyard.
That’s why, after two and half years of working on and diving into the big-time solutions we need across the economy writ-large to solve the interconnected climate, inequality, infrastructure, productivity, biodiversity and cost-of-living crises, we’re going hyper-local.
As you walk around Ponsonby, the Bays and our city this month, you may notice posters calling out to Support Your Local. It’s a campaign we’re running to not only remind you of the power of everything from the little purchases to your big election vote, but to practically try and generate feedback on the barriers our small businesses, sole traders, makers, bakers and creatives are facing in trying to do what they do best. More than that, it’s about zeroing in on the solutions and then working to get everyone behind the common-sense little things that will make a big difference. On our streets and in our workplaces and worksites and coffee shops and bars, we’ll find the tangible solutions that’ll permeate across the entire country.
As is par for the course, I’m working with many of our local businesses and business Associations (thanks for all your mahi, Ponsonby Business Association!) to connect, reflect and be held accountable, but if you have any ideas at all, I invite you to please share them at www.greens.org.nz/yourlocal
You’re also invited to our public meeting on the issue, with representation across the trades and construction through textiles and fashion through to venues and hospitality, on Wednesday 5 August at 6.30pm, Ellen Melville Hall (RSVP via the same ‘Your Local’ Green’s link noted above). We’re all well versed in the amorphous problems. I’m looking forward to an election campaign where our community and country can get on the same page about the solutions, and move forward together, for the betterment of all of us.(CHLÖE SWARBRICK)
chloe.swarbrick@parliament.govt.nz
