In August Millan Ruka, representative of Te Uroiori, Te Parawhau and Te Mahurehure ki Whatitiri hapū, was facing an uphill battle, single-handedly putting together a submission to try and stop the application for the construction of a water bottling factory just across the road from Porotī Springs near Whangarei. The hapū has worked for decades trying to regain control of their pure water source.

The Springs were acknowledged to be owned by the hapū in 1895 on a Government Survey plan and again in 1960 by NZ Government Gazette notice.

However in the 1960’s management over allocation of the water was taken by Government and given to Whangarei District Council.

The story of the council’s disregard of the hapū has been told in many different places [see Notes]. Twice the council took so much water from the stream that it dried up. Then the council sold the right to take water directly from the aquifer out from beneath the feet of the hapū.

The history of Porotī Springs shows that the Council constantly ignored the voices of a local community with traditional rights to their pure water source — rights acknowledged by the Council, but bypassed in their decision making.

When I first talked to Millan on the phone he sounded disillusioned.

“We were pretty dejected, that’s for sure… because we have never had an outside hand actually. And I wasn’t so sure about ActionStation … People weren’t touching the ground then, a lot of people came in to try and give us a hand. But yeah it evolved eh, with ActionStation. I didn’t think we would, could pull it off really, you guys did. You coached me along. I can remember we had to work out what would be written for it eh. I just knew we had to have enough detail to cover it as an objection that fitted with the RMA.. But it did not need to meet where it was too complicated, for people to absorb. — Millan

Using the OurActionStation platform Millan mobilised over 800 ActionStation members to come together to make their own official submissions against the factory.

Millan had truckloads of material to support the hapū claim, which he could have given people to put in their submissions. To keep things simple though we focused on the facts related to the application for the bottling factory.

The submissions highlighted the negative effects a factory would have on the surrounding community. The proposed factory was against the wishes of locals and hapū. If built, it would not only threaten the purity of the spring and aquifer but also increased traffic and industrial activity in the local community around the Porotī Spring Reserve.

The number of submissions was the highest ever received by the Council on a consent application. It showed the applicant Zodiac Holdings the overwhelming opposition it was facing, and which wasn’t about to go away. As a result, Zodiac withdrew their application.

“It just shows you that from the 28 years of mostly ‘non-notified’ consent, where we didn’t even know what was going on, for the very first time we have this public one and we had this massive momentum around the country, and then from yourselves from ActionStation, it was overwhelming to the applicant, overwhelming to Whangarei District Council and Northland Regional Council.

The disappointing thing was we’re not able to lock horns with them. They pulled the application, and so we can’t go to court, we would’ve just relished going to court over it, because of that support there. Those numbers and being valid, it was really paramount that the objections were valid. That gave us total grounds to get into the environment court. So yeah, but we lost that opportunity.” — Millan

Zodiac Holdings still have legal consents to take the water from the aquifer, at a rate of 1 million litres a day for four months of the year, and up to 2.5 million litres for the remaining eight months of the year. So this is just one step in the campaign for Millan and his hapū.

“So Zodiac now have of course decided to take the water anyway and not process it on site, just take it out to Marsden point. And they have done that on this particular load, as they stated in their letter to us. We have just found out, we are waiting for confirmation, that bottled water was sold in Auckland.” — Millan

One of the most disappointing things about this process is that the bottled water company hasn’t at any point recognised the rights of the hapū to have a say in decisions that affect their spring. It doesn’t even acknowledge the hapū as existing when applying for consents.

Water is not just financially valuable, it’s one of our most precious resources that needs protecting. In the process the respect given to the land and water must include respect for the rights of tangata whenua.

I feel this campaign, while small and local, is emblematic of much bigger issues all over the country. We’re living with and dealing with historic wrongs in this present day, as they intersect with environmental, economic and democratic pressures.

The ActionStation community will be ready to again take action to help protect the rights of Millan’s hapū to the spring.

“From all our supporters and our hapū Te Uriroroi, Te Parawhau, Te Mahurehure of Whatitiri we thank you and the team of ActionStation for providing this platform for democracy.” — Millan Ruka, campaigner

Millan used a traditional proverb during this campaign which fits perfectly with the ActionStation mission:

“He waka eke noa” — a canoe which we are all in with no exception, we are all in this together.

The outcome of this campaign at Porotī Springs will affect all of us in some way.

Eliot

P.S. Pure water is a precious resource and a sensitive issue in many places around the country - consider supporting this current campaign asking for leadership and transparency around water decision-making:
SIGN: ‘Stop the industrial water consents!’

P.P.S. ActionStation is able to support community campaigns such as Millan’s only through the donations of people like you. No amount is too small and all donations are used to help build a fair and flourishing New Zealand. ActionStation receives no government funding:

Make a donation

Notes

For more on the story of Porotī Springs:

Report backs Porotī Springs trustees, RNZ, May 2016

Poroti Springs hapu not happy about bottling plant consent application, NZ Herald, 8 Aug 2017

WATCH: Waka Huia profile on Hona Edwards, 25 Nov 2017

The campaign: Save Poroti Springs

How Millan stopped a water bottling factory was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve had the privilege this year to work alongside the community campaigners using the OurActionStation platform. I’ve seen first hand the passion and dedication each brings to their cause, and be able to support and collaborate on the campaigns they lead to effect change.

In just the last six months we’ve supported campaigns that stopped a water bottling factory being built opposite Porotī Springs; prompted a review of changes to kindergartens that was going ahead without consultation with parents; seen the Healthy Homes Bill passed in Parliament; initiated a review of recycling in Hamilton City Council; and been part of the move by supermarkets to ban plastic bags!

Below are the stories of some of the highlights.

Better recycling systems

Hemi May and Troy, with the support of Anna from the Go Eco centre, started a campaign to get Hamilton City Council to recycle all kinds of plastic from numbers 1 through to 7, as other councils already do. At present it recycles types just 1 and 2.

After gathering enough signatures to be officially accepted, Hemi May delivered the petition, spoke in person to the Council last week and initiated a review of the recycling system! The Council also voted for the inclusion of a full range of kerbside recycling in their draft ten year plan.

The OurActionStation platform has enabled us to engage a wide range of people in calling for waste minimisation. We were readily able to communicate with people who care about reducing our waste to landfill.

— Anna Cox, campaigner

Read more: Council looks into cost of collecting all recyclable plastic

Saving the spring

In August Millan Ruka, representative of Te Uroiori, Te Parawhau and Te Mahurehure ki Whatitiri hapū, was facing an uphill battle, single-handedly putting together a submission to try and stop the application for a water bottling factory at Porotī Springs near Whangarei. The hapū has battled for decades with the council trying to regain control of their pure water source.

The proposed factory was against the wishes of local community, and if built would not only threatened the purity of the spring and aquifer but also add increased traffic and industrial activity in the local community around Porotī Reserve.

Using OurActionStation Millan mobilised over 1300 ActionStation members to come together to make submissions against the factory. These actions showed the applicant Zodiac Holdings the overwhelming opposition it was facing for the consent to build the factory, and as a result, Zodiac withdrew their application.

“From all our supporters and our hapu Te Uriroroi, Te Parawhau, Te Mahurehure of Whatitiri we thank you and the team of ActionStation for providing this platform for democracy.” — Millan Ruka, campaigner

Zodiac Holdings still have access to the hapū-owned water, so this is just one step in the campaign for Millan. The ActionStation community will be ready to again take action to protect the local community’s rights to the spring.

Parents speak up

Jo Jukes has been leading a campaign by parents to ask for proper consultation on the proposed changes to Auckland Kindergarten hours. The Auckland Kindergarten Association (AKA) were proposing changes meaning more hours and higher costs without asking the parents what they thought.

The initial petition gained a supporter base of over 2000 people, enabling Jo to invite them to an active Facebook group and to take further actions. Jo invited parents to stand up to join their local kindergarten committees and at the recent AGM three parent nominees were elected onto the AKA Board.

In response to the campaign the Board have halted the proposed changes and are appointing an independent reviewer to reassess them.

Read more: Kindergarten revolt: Shift to fee-paying daycare scrapped, NZ Herald

Healthy housing

One of ActionStation’s core campaigns in 2017 has been the People’s Review of Renting. The Medical Students for Global Awareness (MSGA) added their voices to the call for better housing standards, emphasising the health costs to New Zealanders caused by poor housing conditions.

MSGA had a simple call to action, to support the passing of proposed legislation, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill. They gained over 1000 signatures for the petition and delivered it in person on Parliament steps to Labour Party spokesman Phil Twyford.

Twyford is now the Minister for Housing and two weeks ago the Bill was the second piece of legislation to be passed by the new government.

[We] could not have done it without ActionStation! [It provided a] platform for collecting signatures, great advice, great network to access support. [We gained] social media exposure, and politicians willing to meet us to accept petition. — Josh, MSGA

Supermarkets go plastic bag-free

When Tim Pate started his petition in July asking Countdown to ‘ban the bag’ and stop using single-use plastic bags they said ‘no’, despite their parent company, Woolworths Australia, having done so — showing it was possible.

Of course Tim’s was one of several voices asking our supermarkets to go plastic bag free, but the timing was perfect and added to the pressure on Countdown to declare an end to the use of single-use plastic bags, which it did in October. New World followed suit one week later!

Tim had originally gathered hundreds of supporters around a call to the Wellington City Council to ‘ban the bag’, then changed targets once finding out the local councils didn’t have the power to do that.

Much more to come

Stay in touch for the chance to take action together in 2018. Besides these visible successes there is a chance for progress on other current OurActionStation campaigns.

For example ActionStation supported Anneleise to deliver her petition ‘Justice for state abuse survivors’ (supporting Nga Morehu, the survivors, and the Human Rights Commission’s campaign #NeverAgain). An inquiry is now one of the first 100-day priorities for the new government.

This will a big step forward in acknowledging the painful experiences of people in state care, examining its role in the high numbers of the prison population, and towards a healing for New Zealand as a society.

Read more about Nga Morehu: Our nation let them down — it’s time for us to stand with them and Our stolen generation: a slow genocide.

***

The campaigners I’ve had the chance to work with and support this year have all shown a combination of passion, dedication, and strategy to win their campaigns.

OurActionStation is not just a petition platform, it’s a means by which every day people can create the change they see is needed. It fosters hope and connects people with supporters. It shows all of us that we have the power to make change.

See you in 2018!

Eliot, for the ActionStation team

P.S. Would you like to see ActionStation put the energy and resources towards supporting more community campaigns such as these in 2018?

DONATE NOW

ActionStation’s support for community campaigning is made possible only through the contributions made by people like you. Your contribution, however big or small, will go to support successful campaigns such as these, on the issues that matter most to our communities.

People, power, change was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On Monday Kyle MacDonald and I met the new Health Minister, David Clark, on behalf of everyone who contributed their stories to the People’s Mental Health Review.

The Minister confirmed that his government will be implementing all of the recommendations in the People’s Mental Health Report! This work will start with an independent inquiry, to be followed by re-establishing the Mental Health Commission.

Honestly, it’s more than I dared hope for when we asked people to share their stories of using, or working in, our mental health services. At the least, I’d hoped we would push the government to put more money into some of the critically underfunded areas of our mental health system.

At the best I’d hoped we would put mental health onto the election agenda and force all the political parties to commit to increase funding and improve service provision for recovery and prevention of mental illness.

But thanks to the courage of the 500 people who shared their stories, and the work of so many other tireless campaigners and advocates, we did even more than that. We showed politicians they couldn’t get away with neglecting mental health any longer. We got them to take responsibility and commit to changes needed to ensure everyone who needs help can get it.

Everyone who has shared their experiences as part of this campaign should feel very proud of the difference they’ve helped to make to the way mental health services are going to be delivered in our country.

This is that last official act of the People’s Mental Health Review, as Kyle wrote yesterday, “It felt like a passing of the torch, and the end of a long road. Many of us have been struggling to get the government to listen for years on this, and the People’s Mental Health Review kicked off well over a year ago. It just feels like such a relief to be able to meet with a Minister of Health who is listening, and wants to fix this.”

But ActionStation isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be here to make sure the government delivers on all these promises, and to hold them to account if they don’t.

Because if this campaign has shown the power of real people’s stories, it has also shown just how important it is to have a movement like ActionStation. A genuinely people-powered independent force outside of the influence of politicians, government officials, powerful lobby groups and corporate interests.

This moment, three years after we launched ActionStation and more than a year after we launched the People’s Mental Health Review, feels like the proof I needed that I wasn’t foolish to pour so much time and energy into this movement. I hope you all feel that way too.

Our movement is becoming more powerful, and that power comes from you — the community of New Zealanders who supply the ideas, the stories, the energy, the funding and the networks that power our campaigns.

So I hope you feel proud of the difference you have helped to make. It’ll be some time before we see the effects of these changes in our daily lives, but a meeting with a Health Minister who told us that improving mental health services is one of his top priorities was a good start.

Thank you.

Marianne, for the ActionStation team.

P.S. I have personal experience of mental illness, PTSD and depression. I too have struggled to access the help I needed. I wasn’t unwell enough to access funded services, and couldn’t afford private therapy. So this campaign has been very meaningful to me, and I wanted to personally thank everyone who contributed in any way. Thank you.

P.S.S. Tess McClure is a journalist working on a project called ‘Faces of Experience’ and she would love to hear from people with experiences as consumers of NZ’s mental health system, especially if you’ve been in a residential facility. This project would also involve having a portrait taken. If you are interested in being part of Tessa’s project you can email her at tess.mcclure@vice.com

Sometimes you get more than you hoped for. was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Newly released Roy Morgan polling shows that Jacinda Ardern is inspiring the highest level of confidence in government that voters have had in eight (long) years.

It makes sense. In an age of 24/7 news cycles made up mostly of our favourite Hollywood stars turning out to be terrible, a bit of “relentless positivity” goes a long way.

But it turns out it takes more than a bit of positivity to assuage the very real and valid concerns of the voters who put this government in power when it comes to the TPPA. A deal many of us refuse to call it’s new near-unpronounceable name CPTPP, since the amendments are neither comprehensive nor progressive. This rebrand only came about so Canada’s own relentlessly positive Prime Minister could “sell the deal to his voters”.

A fresh survey of 1,000 mostly Labour, Green and New Zealand First voters conducted by ActionStation shows that the Government’s own supporter base aren’t at all convinced about the new-not-new agreement.

86 percent of survey respondents believe more needs to be done to improve the TPPA. 51 percent ranked Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses (ISDS) as their number one concern, followed by concerns about the trade agreement exacerbating climate change and causing harm to our environment.

When asked to identify their preferred next step for the Government in relation to the TPPA, 38 percent of respondents wanted Labour to commission an independent analysis of the pros and cons of the agreement to inform meaningful public scrutiny before signing up the deal. A further 20 percent believed the government should walk away from the deal completely. 18 percent of people think more work needs to be done to stop ISDS in this agreement, not just future deals. The remaining 25 percent think we need greater public consultation, and that New Zealand First have been awfully quiet on the issue.

And here’s the kicker for this new government:

• 40 per cent of survey respondents voted for Labour this year
• 10 percent voted for New Zealand First
• The rest voted for a mixture of the Green Party, National, TOP and the Māori Party.

Recently, we presented an 8,000-strong open letter to Trade Minister David Parker calling for robust consultation with the public before the new TPPA is signed. To his credit, the Trade Minister agreed.

But then he followed up with a disappointing statement: “We’re not pretending that this consultation is going to remarkably disclose information to the government [that we haven’t] already got. We think we have… identified what the most important issues [are to New Zealanders].” He goes on to list Pharmac, Treaty rights, the right to regulate and land access. Zero mention of climate change, our environment or ISDS — the highest ranking issues in our survey.

Here’s the thing. We know that governments everywhere have vested interests and big business lobby groups pushing them hard to ensure their private profits are protected. We’ve seen it already with the government’s backtrack on the Hobbit Law. There was going to be a repeal of the blatant pro-corporate legislation, but then some flash Hollywood execs flew into town and nek minnit Workplace Relations Minister Iain Lees-Galloway announces there won’t be a repeal after all, but hey look here’s a working group!

If Labour truly want to honour the people who put them in power, the people who signed their own 90,000-plus petition opposing the TPPA then they must commission independent analysis of the pros and cons of the revised agreement before any ink hits the dotted line. That’s the only way meaningful public consultation can happen. Anything less is just an exercise in creating the illusion of democracy.

Trade law experts like Professor Jane Kelsey have described the current negotiations as “even more secretive” than their predecessors. The previous government’s lack of transparency and utter failure to engage with Māori as Treaty partners before agreeing to the original TPPA must be remedied and not repeated if Labour are to pave the way to a new form of 21st century trade agreement.

Just hours after we presented our open letter to the Trade Minister, an email from Jacinda Ardern was sent out to the entire Labour Party database, along with an ‘explainer video’ to tell us why the new-not-new TPPA is suddenly great. Despite the bulk of the original text (all 6000 pages of it) remaining completely unchanged.

Garnering support for decisions you’ve already made and robust, participatory consultation are two very different things. It’s vital that the Labour-led government do trade agreement consultation and negotiation differently from the governments that came before them (including their own) if they are to maintain the high levels of public confidence they have right now.

Step one to achieving that is commissioning an independent analysis of the revised agreement and its implications for New Zealand; making that analysis public and accessible in both language and form; and then using that analysis asking New Zealanders to make up their own minds about the deal.

In my view, that would be a much better use of the Labour Party’s email database.

We’d also be more than happy to do what we can to help, for example by sending a few surveys or emails to the 180,000-large ActionStation mailing list as part of that consultation. It doesn’t need to be expensive. It justs need to be honest.

Teamwork Jacinda? Let’s do this.

What a new TPPA survey of mostly Labour, Green and NZ First voters tells us was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

He came to the UN office in Herat, in Western Afghanistan and asked specifically to meet with me. He’d already made quite an effort to get that far. You first had to find your way out of the city along a long, dusty road known to be subject to the occasional roadside bomb — probably because of us, to be honest. Then you had to get through the armed Afghan National Police guard at the gate of our compound, understandably intimidating for people who might be coming to make a complaint about abuse of power by that very police force. Finally you had to get past my Afghan colleagues, who were likely to know your extended family and might be tempted to talk to them about your visit.

This young man had braved those barriers, and now sat in a plastic chair in my office, his shirt stuck to his body with sweat, tears running down his face. I’d locked the door, at his request, to ensure none of my colleagues could walk in on us unannounced while he told me his story.

He told me he’d been converted to Christianity by some American missionaries in Herat city. Now his father had found out and was threatening to kill him. He wanted my help to flee the country and seek asylum in America.

I first tried to talk him out of the whole plan. It’s not one of the proudest moments of my humanitarian career, trying to convince a frightened young Afghan man that Jesus wouldn’t mind if he pretended to be Muslim for the rest of his life. In any case, he wasn’t convinced.

So I tried to explain that even if he somehow made it safely to Pakistan without a passport, found his way to the UNHCR office in Peshawar, was able to provide sufficient evidence of his claims to the UNHCR staff, and was granted refugee status, he would not be going to America.

Pakistan was considered to be a safe country for Christians, and if he was granted refugee status in Pakistan, that’s where he would stay until he found his own way somewhere else. He’d have no family support. If his father had contacts in Peshawar, he might have to go further from the Afghan border to be safe. He might find people in other parts of Pakistan were reluctant to give jobs to Afghans. Life would likely be very difficult.

His style of dress, his university education and English all pointed to a young man from a family of means. I worried he wouldn’t cope with the hardships of life as a former refugee in Pakistan.

But he was adamant. He seemed genuinely frightened. So I left him in my office and went next door to call a colleague at the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. I told her what the man had told me and asked for her advice. She told me not to believe him without more evidence. She was immediately, almost reflexively, skeptical and told me to see if I could verify his identity, his contact with the Christians and the threat on his life, and then get back to her.

I knew there were missionaries in Herat. I had evidence that another young man had recently been killed by his father for converting to Christianity. I also knew if I tried to verify his connection with the missionaries, I could well put his life at risk even if he’d been lying to me.

I decided that if I was going to make an error, I would make it in the direction of keeping someone safe who had lied to me, not putting in danger someone who had told me the truth. I chose, if not exactly to believe him, then at least to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I took US$300 out of my desk and gave it to him. ‘I can’t promise you’ll be able to convince the UNHCR officers in Pakistan,’ I told him, ‘they’ll need better proof than what you’ve given me. But here’s enough money to get you to Pakistan by bus. If you really believe your life is at risk then take it and get on a bus, and may Allah keep you safe.’

He thanked me profusely and left.

When I got home I told my UNHCR colleague, who lived in the same UN guesthouse as me, what I had done. She sighed heavily and chastised me in her heavy Italian accent, ‘You can’t just believe everyone, Marianne. You have to verify their claims first.’ I nodded, but went to bed with a clearer conscience than I might otherwise have done.

When I moved from Herat to Chegcharan, where there was no UNHCR office, I would get calls from UNHCR staff in Herat asking me to go out and verify claims that had been forwarded to them by their colleagues processing refugee applications in Pakistan, Iran and further afield.

In my experience these assessments were vigorous, and the staff responsible for carrying them out were anything but credulous. They were, if anything, scrupulously skeptical. It was their job to be skeptical.

So when I heard an interview on Tuesday night on RNZ’s Checkpoint with a man called Ian who claimed that many of the refugees currently on Manus Island are criminals who have somehow managed to hoodwink the people responsible for assessing their refugee claims and hide evidence of their criminal past, I was astounded.

I waited to hear a spokesperson from UNHCR respond to these very serious and dangerous allegations. There was none.

Ian’s allegations were left to stand, without response, until yesterday morning. By which time my Facebook feed revealed their effect on people whose fears already significantly prejudiced them not only against the men on Manus Island, but against other former refugees already in New Zealand.

I was relieved to hear responses to Ian’s claims on Morning Report, including from one of the refugees on Manus. But a lot of damage had already been done, and the opportunity to rebalance that fear-mongering with calm, clear explanations of just how refugee claims are assessed seems to have been largely missed.

Back in Afghanistan, I waited for months for a call about the young man who I’d sent off on the bus that day. I had told him to give my name, job title and contact details to the UNHCR officer in Pakistan. I told him I’d be happy to investigate and try to verify his claims, once he was safely out of the country. I never got that call. I have no idea where he is today.

What I know is that my UNHCR colleagues’ skepticism was necessary, to maintain the integrity of the UN refugee system. I also know that when people like Ian are allowed to call the integrity of that system into question without evidence, the lives of many people are put at risk. I expect, and I believe we all deserve, better than that from our national radio.

The Christian, the Believer and the Scrupulous Skeptic was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Over the past week the ActionStation community has simultaneously celebrated the inclusion in the new government’s 100 Day Plan of many of the policies we’ve campaigned for over the past three years AND launched our first campaign criticising the new government for appearing to back away from the cautious approach to the TPPA previously taken by Labour, NZ First and the Green Party.

In response we’ve had emails from some members telling us we need to be tougher on this new government and from others asking us to go easier on them. Some people have asked why we’re still campaigning at all, apparently under the incorrect impression that ActionStation’s mission was achieved when the government was changed.

It is true that most people in the ActionStation community, though not all, welcomed the change in government and most are hopeful this government will follow through on its promises to make positive change in many of the areas we’ve campaigned on together over the past three years.

So what is ActionStation’s job in the face of a new and more progressive government promising a kinder and more compassionate approach, and more action on mental health, homelessness, climate change, poverty and clean rivers?

Our job is to show strong support for the government when they take positive action on the issue we’ve campaigned on together. Big business will be spending thousands on lobbying the government to get the changes they want, so we still need our collective people power to make sure decisions made are in the best interests of us — the people of New Zealand.

Our job is also to show the government there is widespread support for them to aim even higher, and start making some of the bigger, bolder changes urgently needed to get us to a fair and flourishing future for all in Aotearoa by 2040.

Equally importantly, our job is to call on them to keep the promises they’ve made in the past, and to offer our resistance when they they give in to the pressure to legislate in the interests of the few rather than the many.

Earlier this year, in response an accusation from the Minister of Health that the ActionStation community was ‘anti-government’ I wrote:

We’ve only been around for three years, so it’s not surprising that the current government has felt much of the heat from our campaigns. That’s the privilege of the government of the day.

But rest assured that no matter which political parties are represented in government, the ActionStation community will be here to play our part in ensuring New Zealand’s democracy is as healthy and vibrant as it can be.

And that is exactly what we are still here to do. Some people have written to say that they trust Jacinda Ardern, or Winston Peters, or James Shaw, and we should therefore leave them alone to do their job. But whether or not we trust individual politicians, we need a robust democracy to support them to do their job.

We know that pressure will be applied to this government, as it was to the previous one, by corporate lobbyists, big business and the (well-resourced and well-organised) opposition. We also know that both civil society and public interest media have been underfunded for decades, undermining their capacity to counterbalance the advertising budget and paid lobbyists of the big corporations.

All of which means that, new government or not, it’s still our job to balance the power of big business with the voices and power of every people.

Much of ActionStation’s political power and influence lies in the fact that we are a large, politically independent and diverse community of New Zealanders.

We agree on many of the big challenges facing our country, share many core values and are willing to take action together to see those values put into practice. But we do not all vote for the same political party. That’s what makes us different from the parties, what enabled us to achieve some positive changes under the previous government, and what will ensure we can influence the direction of policy under any government now and in the future.

At ActionStation we are building a new kind of political power, grounded in the values we share, and powered by everyday people working together to create a fair and flourishing future for Aotearoa. What we do best to effect change is mobilising the voice of our members so those with decision-making power know what we care about and that we are at the heart of of their decision making.

Let’s keep doing what we do best, and help ensure this government makes the most progress possible towards a fairer and more flourishing future for all of us.

What next for ActionStation? was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

What a roller coaster of emotion this election has been, and more is yet to come.

Pre-election anxiety made way for disappointment, outrage and varying levels of despair. At some point early on I suggested to my peeps we should maybe just up and go and transform into a family of blissful surfers. No previous experience required, right?

What really happened, however, was that I got on the bus the Tuesday morning after the election en-route to ActionStation headquarters to resume my role of office mum to the humble team of super-dedicated individuals for whom giving up the good fight is never an option. What else happened, was that I heard the same old tired tune everywhere I went. On the bus, in the gym, at the supermarket check-out –people keep uttering this sentiment: “Yes but they are good with the financials. Yes but they are good for the economy. Yes but they know about budgeting.”

Basically, these people are agreeing with all of the concerns caring people have with the current government but at the end of the day the economy always matters more.

The pale, male/Thatcher and stale crew really did an excellent job of getting the lyrics of the economy song stuck in our heads. What’s worse, here in New Zealand former ringleader Key has us dancing to the beat of a rock star economy.

But what is this economy so many of us are utterly held in sway by?

It is people. People working, producing, buying and selling. It is money changing hands. It is a human construct, we invented it, so we set the rules. It is not a force of nature like a storm that we have to wait out. Or an overlord that we have to bow down to or be careful not to upset. To me the state of the economy, and more specifically the budget surplus is also too narrow a measure of success. If our economy isn’t resulting in improved well-being for everyday people and the planet that we love, then it’s not doing its job.

Consider this thought experiment: A family of six, both parents are working. Two sons and two daughters. One of the daughters is Deaf, the middle son wants to study art. Dad runs a tight ship and he likes to have a good chunk of money left in the budget at the end of each month. To achieve this he chooses to spend on his strongest, brightest kids. He feeds them really well, gives them sunniest rooms in the house and has them attend good schools, etc. He feeds his Deaf daughter just enough to survive but is not worried about investing in her development. He kicks out the young aspiring artist for failure to comply. When mum has a nervous breakdown, he sends her to her elderly parents so as not to waste any time or money on treatment. And lo and behold the clever chap achieves his goal, dollars are saved at the end of each month.

If this was your neighbour would you be going around calling this man a fine householder? Would you rate him as a successful human being? Would you ever praise this person for being good with the financials? I think not, you would feel bad for his family. Yet when this pernicious way of achieving budget surplus is being practised on a national level, many of us believe this is the way to go.

The economy should serve the people, not the other way around. Let’s collectively change the words to the economy song. Let’s un-brainwash ourselves. So next time we head for the voting booths, we can vote wisely, compassionately and fearlessly.

Praise be…all hail ‘The Economy’ was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

NZ introduced MMP to ensure our government is representative of the views of the majority. In 2017, that majority voted for change.

If our nation’s post-election conversation is anything to go by, you’d think we’d never switched to MMP in 1996. National may have won the most votes between itself and Labour, but that doesn’t mean they have first dibs for a coalition with New Zealand First.

In fact, now that the special votes are in and both Labour and the Greens have picked up an extra seat each — we know for sure that more people voted for change than those who voted for the status quo.

Labour, Greens and New Zealand First all campaigned on a message of change. Here’s how the voters responded:

• National + ACT + Māori Party + United Future = 1,197,512
• Labour + Greens + New Zealand First = 1,305,333

That’s the kind of direction setting from voters that MMP was meant to cater for, surely.

ActionStation is a movement of New Zealanders who share a vision for a fair and flourishing Aotearoa. We’re nonpartisan but not apolitical; we rally around policies not parties.

During this election we did a fairly comprehensive analysis of the main political parties’ policies against a crowdsourced vision for a better New Zealand that we created in collaboration with more than 30,000 New Zealanders. We then encouraged our community to vote in line with that analysis.

Our community is diverse. We don’t agree on everything, including who to vote for, and that’s a big part of our strength. But what we do share are our values and a willingness to act.

Over the past three and a half years, we’ve helped almost half a million New Zealanders come together to take action for clean rivers, better public mental health services, stopping trade deals that put profit before people, and much more.

We’ve stood on the steps of Parliament and handed in petitions, made submissions to Select Committee, rallied in the streets to say no to the TPPA or yes to a healthy planet. We’ve crowdfunded billboards and floated giant inflatable poop emoji down rivers to draw attention to issues we care about. We’ve shared our personal stories of the public mental health system, or renting in the hopes to drive positive change.

We know from the data generated by having almost half a million New Zealanders take action through our platforms, there is healthy appetite for change.

We also know from our policy analysis that with a Labour-New Zealand First-Greens coalition we have more chance of change than with a National-New Zealand First combination.

We also know it has a greater likelihood of happening than a National-Greens coalition which has already been written off by the Green side of that equation.

Here’s where Labour, New Zealand First and the Greens overlap most, in line with the areas our community and many others outside of parliamentary politics have been taking action:

Mental health:

New Zealand First, Greens and Labour have all committed to a national inquiry into mental health with Labour committing to this review to be undertaken within the first 100 days. All three parties also want to re-establish the Mental Health Commission. The National Party say there is no need.

Trade:

All three parties have been very wary of the kinds of trade agreements that put private corporate interests above people. Deals like the TPPA, which New Zealand First led the charge in Parliament to oppose, and that National have been trying to push through despite massive public opposition for years. Labour have been pretty back and forth, but if we want to stop the most dangerous parts of the TPPA than a Labour-led government is our best chance of doing that.

Public broadcasting:

Labour and New Zealand First are the best when it comes to broadcasting policy. They both want to ensure adequate public investment in public interest media and broadcasting in the form of sufficient and sustainable funding that is not vulnerable to political or commercial demands. They also both want to ensure inclusiveness through diverse content, perspectives, and ideas connected to communities in a range of accessible formats and platforms.

The National-led government only increased funding to RNZ for the first time in nine years after we handed in a petition signed by more than 30,000 people. The increase was only a fraction of what is actually needed.

Freshwater:

All three parties want to see charges for bottling water.

Climate change:

Labour, Greens and New Zealand First all agree on setting legally binding climate targets and on work towards mitigation, including support to New Zealand’s infrastructure. The Greens and New Zealand First are also aligned in wanting a Carbon Tax.

The National Party, on the other hand, are not yet serious about mitigating runaway climate change. Their targets are unambitious with no realistic plan to achieve them.

And something we haven’t campaigned on, but seems worthwhile mentioning:

Tertiary Education:

All three parties want to increase allowances and introduce various measures to reduce the impact of student debt.

This is Winston Peters’ chance for a genuine legacy. A chance to build upon the good that started with the GoldCard and free health care for children under six.

Will his and New Zealand First’s next move be change? Or will it be status quo?

Let’s hope it’s the change they campaigned so vigorously on.

Here’s an ad we crowdfunded into today’s paper to encourage that choice:

Christmas could come early with a red, green and black coalition was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This is a guest post from Jackie Clark from The Aunties.

Dear ActionStation members,

My name’s Jackie Clark and I run a charity called The Aunties.

We get stuff for women in a few South Auckland refuges, as well as for other people in the community. Most are at the intersection of poverty, homelessness, and family violence, and I know those were the issues that were concerning a great number of New Zealanders at this election.

I found this election particularly hard, personally. I was in the room when Metiria Turei made her speech, acknowledging her past as a beneficiary, and the things she had to do to survive. That speech gave me hope. Real hope. Hope for myself, but most of all, hope for the women that I work with.

All of us had conversations over the next few weeks — as did all New Zealanders. A lot of New Zealanders judged her very harshly — but not the women I work with, and not me.

Because we knew what that speech meant. We knew that finally somebody was talking about the things that mattered, and more than that, the things that affected US. Many of the women said to me: she knows. She understands. She’s listened to us. She hears us.

That was worth more to them than anything any politician had said before about the issues that not just affected them, but are their lives.

Because these women are the statistics.

They sit at the epicentre of the worst family violence stats in New Zealand. Many of them live, or have lived, in poverty. And many have been homeless. So, for me, and for them, this election was about them.

And you may think we failed them. That once again, we have an election where they get forgotten about. That the majority vote for themselves, and don’t think about other people.

I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think we failed them at all.

What I believe is that politicians make the policy — and the policies that most affect the women I work with are not only around family violence and the severe underfunding of women’s refuges, but also around housing and social development.

The system we were all talking about at election time? That’s the system that determines how much they get to live on a week. And it’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

Policies have failed them. As policy often does.

We all saw the way that Metiria brought poverty to the table, and how a party that had once denied poverty even existed in New Zealand, suddenly was talking about bringing children OUT of poverty.

What I run is a charity legally, but for five years, I’ve been leading a community. A community of people like yourselves (I suspect some of you are Aunties). People who care very deeply about who we are as citizens of this lovely country of ours. You’re concerned about people who are being left behind.

And those are the people whose hands I hold, and who the Aunties walk with. Through their light and dark.

We all can do that.

We can all walk with someone else. Be there for them. The government has no part in that. It’s just people helping other people, supporting each other. Because that’s what a society is, isn’t it? Just a group of people who support each other so that we’re all okay.

I know that you’ve all seen the changes, the impact, that you, as ActionStation members have had these last couple of years. From the People’s Mental Health Review to Kai & Kōrero. conversations.

We can all do that. No matter who the next government is, we can all do that. We all DO do it. And that’s what I wanted to tell you all.

Sometimes we look at a problem and we think: it’s too big. I can’t do anything about that.

And then there’s your neighbour thinking exactly the same thing.

And their neighbour.

And so it goes.

That’s a lot of people looking at the same problem, having their input, and before you know it, action is taken and the problem doesn’t look quite so large.

That’s what we do with The Aunties. It’s what you do as ActionStation members.

Ostensibly, The Aunties just get stuff for people. But it’s more than that. It’s about letting people know that we care about them. I’ve seen that make powerful change in people’s lives. Just that one thought — someone cares — is enough to make magic.

I think we all care, don’t we? The people who are getting left behind, they need to know someone cares. They need for the politicians to be held to account, and they need to feel like they’re heard. I believe organisations like The Aunties and ActionStation are powerful agents of change, because we’re large groups of people who care enormously.

And that’s reparative, for all of us.

All my admiration for your many voices,
Jackie

P.S If you would like to give to the The Aunties, you can find their GiveALittle page here.

PSS: Regular donations on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis enable ActionStation to spend more time working on the campaigns you care about and less time fundraising. Whatever you can afford — even if it’s only a few dollars a week — will make a difference. Thank you.

Our power comes from caring was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

ActionStation’s Kate O’Malley shares her personal experience of people’s power, the NZ election and hope

So, it’s all over bar the shouting. The voting at least. And, actually, there’s been quite a lot of shouting already.

People are hurt and disappointed about the election results. It’s not that there’s been a loss. But it hasn’t been a clear cut victory … not yet.

In this post-election stress world, it’s easy to play the blame game. Too painful to acknowledge our vulnerability to political systems. Much easier to act big and wag our fingers at others.

To be honest, I’ve found it ugly. We’re worth more than that. We don’t win if we revert to divide and cruel tactics.

Former US president Clinton said: “I still believe in a place called Hope.” I can honestly say, I believe even more strongly in a movement for hope.

Hope beats fear

That’s because if my optimism wavers, I am then buoyed up by belonging to the positive people’s movement led by ActionStation. Here, there is no shouting or accusation.

Setbacks happen. Change is not linear. We dust ourselves off, see the bigger picture of a whole journey (not just a short race), acknowledge gains and set off towards the destination of H O P E.

The morning after the election, when most of us were sleeping it off or hoping a fry-up brekkie would ease the feeling of the night before, ActionStation’s co-founder Marianne Elliott emailed me with the message: “Hope beats fear.”

It really resonated. The reason we’re part of a people’s movement is because we believe in other humans — that we essentially want the same things; that there’s a lot of common good in us all.

It’s frightening when the ugly side of power and politics asserts itself. And we know that in fear we resort to the lizard side of our brain — the amygdala. We close in and become less trusting. We lash out. And we don’t do our best thinking.

But we’re worth more than that. And ActionStation and Marianne and the team reminded me of that on Sunday morning.

Hope springs eternal

I felt buoyed and connected, and optimistic again. Hope springs eternal. I moved my clocks and mind forward, and set off towards a good future.

I’ve been working for ActionStation since August this year. So about six weeks. The movement was able to find some funding to employ four of us part-time — a designer, a social media expert and two writers — to boost its pre-election output.

I feel hugely lucky and privileged to be part of this time. ActionStation staff really walk the talk. I can’t tell you how hard they work — it’s ridiculous. And that’s just the paid employees. The hundreds of people who volunteer their skilled time are even more impressive. Despite the crazy hours, the ActionStation team still manage to be creative, forward thinking and kind. My kind of people.

Campaign trail

In the middle of the election campaign, I worked with ActionStation’s Rick Zwaan and Kate Day from Renters United, on comms around the People’s Review of Renting — a unique survey that put the experiences of NZ’s neglected part of the housing sector, renters, in the spotlight. I was hugely moved by renters’ shocking stories of health-defying rip-off conditions they were living in and by the risks they were prepared to take in speaking up.

Getting renters’ voices on the agenda was a significant achievement. And politicians across the spectrum engaged with the issues and promised various improvements. No campaign is won in a day, and the measure of success is that the publicity moved the issue forward. Renters I talked to felt empowered and even more motivated to speak out. For me that’s important. ActionStation is working with people, not for them. If we’d gained political traction, but left the actual renters more exposed or not consulted them, that wouldn’t be progress.

I will be watching eagerly in the next few months for action on renters’ rights — such as a implementing curbs on rent rises, and establishing a rental Warrant of Fitness which assesses a property’s suitability for living and renting out.

I was also lucky enough to work on environmental campaigns such as the petition against bottled water companies building a pipeline through a kiwi sanctuary and another at Porotī Springs near Whāngārei, land with huge significance for Māori. The reaction of the Porotì hapū, thanking ActionStation for its solidarity and for helping elevate their local campaign, was hugely inspiring.

ActionStation’s election work, finding out the views of over 180,000 New Zealanders, and analysing them and turning them into Te Ira Tāngata: People’s Agenda for Aotearoa setting out measures to make New Zealand a fairer, more flourishing and environmentally sustainable place by 2040, was a massive enterprise.

He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata

It was extraordinary to watch people come together — researchers, analysts, designers, communicators — to produce this excellent document, all in a very pressurised space of time. That document will serve the ActionStation movement well as a basis for campaigning, and holding whatever government to account, in the forthcoming years.

Te Ira Tāngata is also enormously useful in this interregnum — we’re able to look at the analysis of the major parties. Who committed to what, and what do potential coalition partners have in common? What might the sticking points be?

Employed as a writer, I typed my fingers off trying to get the Agenda into the media. However, in the crowded space pre-election, we weren’t so successful. While ActionStation is a go to organisation for media comment on single issues — like housing, like mental health services — we appeared to be just one more voice competing for space in the broader political sphere. That was disappointing. We thought we had a unique story to tell — of the strength of people’s power, of innovative, collaborative approaches to policy. But ‘them’s politics’.

Hope unfurled

I started to feel despondent. Here’s where you need to be in good company. ActionStation were on the case. Fleet of foot, Marianne decided a change of approach was needed.

Let’s tell our own story. So we concentrated on the media we did have control of — blogging through Medium. And here I am.

Meanwhile, Laura O’Connell Rapira’s impressive work on behalf of ActionStation and RockEnrol in getting young potential voters to enrol was inspiring. The media couldn’t get enough of her. “Make that ‘girl’ COE of the Electoral Commission”, one Radio New Zealand listener wrote in, after hearing Laura’s insights into why young people may not respond to conventional approaches.

In the post-election knee-jerk, I often found myself quoting Laura’s research and ideas when responding to acquaintances who simplistically derided youth “apathy”, before even the special votes containing a lot of new youth enrolments were counted.

Change a heart

It doesn’t stop here. Much of that communications work ActionStation invested in will serve us well in the coming months.

It’s been brilliant being part of ActionStation. I’ll continue to be as ActionStationer even when I’m not freelancing for them. For me, it’s like coming home. I feel like I’ve met my tribe. Multi-coloured warriors of all ages and hues. We’re talking the politics of possibility and positivity. Of inclusion and collaboration. Of innovation and independence.

Change with a heart.

I’ve also heard so much heart-warming feedback from ActionStation members about the difference the movement makes in their lives and kaupapa.

This election, is not the end … it’s only a beginning. Here’s to hope, heart, caring and building a new way of being — now.

Hoping and saying was originally published in ActionStation on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.