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Welcome

This is an important occasion. I want to seize the opportunity this morning to talk about what I see as New Zealand’s top priority if we want to make this country a better place in the 2000s and beyond and reach our stated goal of 10^th by 2010.

We look around us and we see the many good things New Zealand offers in the 2000s. Qualities we can all be proud of and share as New Zealanders.

But we also see a lot of the other good things about New Zealand being eaten away in a tide of waste, incompetence, violence and sheer indifference. These are things that we as New Zealanders are increasingly fearful of – our declining health care, education, our high rate of crime, social abuse and retirement standards.

Our sense of community is fraying and decaying all around us. The old, tired ways of dealing with these problems have proved themselves hopelessly, pathetically inadequate.

ACT New Zealand was formed to breathe new life into New Zealand politics. ACT shares the sense of foreboding that prevails among many decent New Zealanders about the dangers to our society if New Zealand continues on its present social path.

We are losing our way as a nation. The economy may be slowly improving and I emphasise slowly but our community values are declining. We see it in our street kids and battered women.

We see a whole group of New Zealanders locked into poverty, many of them third generation beneficiaries. 400,000 New Zealanders of working age relying on the Government for their income.

We see a health system with thousands upon thousands of people waiting for operations. We see an education system where sometimes a tenth of the students are playing truant and at least half of the students leave without achieving a basic level of education. We are creating a permanent underclass of unskilled New Zealanders.

We see a superannuation system which takes $300,000+ from ordinary people over their working lives and gives them a pathetic pension of a few thousand dollars a year in return.

Our traditional party political leaders respond to all this with cynicism and indifference.

They imply this is the price of living in the real world. That is a huge lie, peddled by politicians who only know how to look back and not forward. New Zealand politics today can be summed up in two words: Intergenerational Robbery. Not only are we bequeathing a huge debt to future generations, but far worse, they will inherit a social legacy of frightening dimensions.

The State has failed New Zealanders by stripping their sense of New Zealand-ness. The numbness, the powerlessness that so many New Zealanders feel about their inability to stop this social reverse, to restore our inherited belief in a progressive and caring community, is no more than a symptom of our bankrupt politics and even emptier leadership.

Small wonder that so many New Zealanders have lost faith in their governing institutions. It is time we took back the fundamental right to manage our own lives and provide for our own education, health and security without the threat of State mismanagement. That does not mean there is no role for Government.

Under ACT’s policies, government would continue to set the rules, maintain essential services and provide for those who cannot provide for themselves. That should be all that future Governments do.

ACT New Zealand has pledged to restore the basics of Social Justice - New Zealand values of fairness, dignity, security, opportunity and prosperity. We do not subscribe to any labels or to any particular position in the political spectrum. ACT New Zealand is a party for all New Zealanders.

ACT is very different – different from Labour, The Alliance, NZ First, National and all the rest. And New Zealanders are going, over time, to be increasingly attracted by our difference, our innovation, our logic, our common sense. If we do our job well – the next election will be about ACT versus the rest.

They collectively represent the politics of self-preservation, privilege, incompetence and sheer nonsense that is so utterly despised and rejected by commonsense New Zealanders. Only ACT is really different. ACT is a child of MMP. ACT has been the only party to seriously address the deficiencies of conventional party politics.

ACT is here to rid New Zealand of privilege. This is the philosophical glue that binds ACT New Zealand. To understand ACT you must understand our sense of injustice. We know and share those New Zealand values that demand all New Zealanders have a right to a decent education – not one that breeds failure.

A health system that does not favour the rich – one that treats people as people and not numbers on waiting lists. A tax system that encourages and rewards work and effort. A superannuation plan that ensures everyone has the right to grow old with grace and dignity. An immigration policy that makes new migrants contribute to the infrastructure we all built and paid for.

ACT’s over-riding philosophy is to combat disadvantage – wherever it is found in New Zealand society today. To borrow the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, "people need a hand, not a handout".

That is the essence of what we are saying. When people get a hand they have choice, independence, freedom, security, dignity and fresh hope. When they get a handout they are caught in an eternal web of dependency and poverty.

ACT New Zealand offers a practical path out of that vicious cycle.

ACT New Zealand is about attacking social privilege in New Zealand, a system that denies some sections of our society the right to a decent education, proper health care, the opportunity to work and retire in comfort and dignity.

There is some unfinished business to do in this country and it’s called social justice – fairness, respect, and equality of opportunity for all. ACT wants the chance to show it can deliver.