New government presents opportunities for action – ActionStation

The community campaigning group ActionStation us welcoming the new government and hopeful about the opportunities it presents for action on several pressing issues.

“Since ActionStation started three years ago, hundreds of thousands of everyday New Zealanders have taken action on a wide range of environmental and social issues including fixing our mental health system, launching an inquiry for the survivors of abuse in state care, cleaning up our rivers, ending homelessness, better protection for people renting their homes, public broadcasting, reforming our drug laws, and ensuring international trade deals like the TPPA don’t come at the cost of the well-being of people and the planet.” says ActionStation co-founder Marianne Elliott.

“The parties forming the new government have all promised to make significant policy progress on those issues and, as a community, we look forward to ensuring they follow through.”

Over 92% members of the ActionStation community who responded to a survey said they wanted New Zealand First to side with Labour and the Greens.

“We’re pleased that New Zealand First have chosen change over the status quo.”

“In our years of campaigning for a more fair and flourishing New Zealand we’ve managed to achieve several victories under the previous government. Our hope is that this change will accelerate under the new government.”

“Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens have all committed to holding an inquiry into our mental health system and significant increases to funding.”

“All three parties recognise that we must urgently clean up our rivers with Labour and the Greens committing to the Fresh Water Rescue Plan.”

“They’ve also all committed to several recommendations from our People’s Review of Renting to improve the lives of people who rent”

“MPs from Labour, New Zealand First, and the Greens accepted our 32,000 strong petition calling on them to unfreeze RNZ’s funding and all have committed to improving the state of our public broadcasting and media”

“Survivors of abuse in state care can finally expect an inquiry and state apology.”

“There are plenty of areas of agreement, where we expect to see progress under this government, but there also plenty of issues where all the parties can improve. We look forward to holding them to account for the promises they have made and pushing all the parties in government towards a fairer and more flourishing future for all, through the crowd-sourced vision in our People’s Agenda, created in the lead up to the election”

“It’s time to get to work” concludes Marianne.