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ACT to bring our children home
Glen and I have four lovely grandchildren. Two of them live in New Zealand. But most of our friends aren’t so lucky. Their grandkids are all growing up in Australia.
And why? Simply because the New Zealand government has no idea how to truly care for its people. As any doctor will tell you, there’s a big difference between saying you care about people’s problems and actually curing them.
Caring, Labour-style: endangered snails before endangered women
Here’s just one example of Labour’s priorities… They spent $25 million relocating endangered snails on the West Coast – which turned out not to be endangered at all.
Meanwhile, the same government said it could not afford the same $25 million amount to give women with breast cancer a life-saving 12 month course of Herceptin.
Of course, it’s no surprise which countries can afford Herceptin. It’s the countries with saner priorities. Those that have built stronger economies and enjoy better living standards than we do. Countries like Australia, Ireland – even Greece now.
Tassie’s poor cuzzie
We’re not only $300 a week poorer than Australia. We’re $100 a week poorer than their poorest state, Tasmania. We’re not just Aussie’s poor cuzzie, we’re Tassie’s.
I don’t know about you, but I want my grandchildren to cheer for the ABs, not the Wallabies. We’ve got to close the trans-Tasman income gap.
And believe me, voting National won’t do it.
Tweedle-Dumb or Tweedle-Dee?
John Key says he’s ambitious for New Zealand. But then he says he’d rather go into government with the Greens or Winston Peters or the Maori Party than ACT. How would that help New Zealand exactly?
I’ve seen a few National governments. And the first thing they always do is sign up to Labour’s existing policies. (You may have noticed that process is well underway!)
Then, if we’re lucky, they manage them slightly less wastefully than Labour did.
Well, a choice between Tweedle-Dumb and Tweedle-Dee is not what New Zealand needs. It won’t bring our children home. What’s needed is leadership with guts.
Only ACT has the guts to do what’s right for New Zealand
To bring our children home from Australia, we’re going to have to beat Australia. We’ve done it before, we can do it again. We just need a bold goal and a clear set of policies to achieve that goal.
I suggest we set the bold goal of beating Australia in most economic and social indicators by 2020 – and knocking off regular policy goals along the way.
To do that, we’ll have no option but to grow at a much faster rate than we have been.
And the only way to do that is to have a strong ACT Party pushing the government to do what’s right, not just what’s easy.
ACT must hold the balance of power
The polls show Rodney will hold Epsom. So a party vote for ACT is going to count.
Present polling suggests that ACT could hold the balance of power with as little as 3 percent (or around 4 MPs). I’m convinced we’ll do much better than that.
Labour has tried to rig the election with laws to stop its critics from advertising. That means we’ll get a fraction of the taxpayer funding that Labour is giving itself.
Fortunately we’ve got the best political advertising talent in the country standing by to make the best ads. But we’ll need money to run them.
Will you help?
For $1,000 we can put up a billboard, $500 buys us a pamphlet, and for $100 we can write to 80 voters. Will you help Rodney and me to get ACT’s message heard?
Please, for your family’s sake, click here now and pledge what you can.
Thanks and best wishes,
Roger Douglas
P.S. We’re on the road campaigning now, so we need money today.