The ACT Party has today announced its plan for the first 100 days of Government.
“Any new Government needs to say what it means, and mean what it says. There’s not point beating Labour just to babysit their policies, their bad ideas need to go, and voters deserve to know they’re going,” says ACT Leader David Seymour.
“For all that is good, we still have one of the largest diasporas of any developed country, and poor productivity makes it harder to claim first world status each year. We cannot simply change the faces, while keeping the ideas that got us here.
“Five times National has followed Labour into Government, and five times Labour’s policies have comfortably survived the change. It’s the corrosive slump of easy options that’s given us New Zealand today.
“Odds on, next year will be the sixth cycle. The question people often ask us is, can you actually reverse these laws? Can we break the cycle? The simple answer is you can do anything if you have 61 votes in Parliament, but that will require two parties with political courage.
“ACT often talks about the kind of ideas we need to make New Zealand hum. We can choose to be a low-tax, high-growth liberal democracy, but the default is what we have already: A high-tax, low-growth ethno-state. That won’t help productivity or the diaspora.
“Our Real Change Budget is the latest example of policy we need, but what about reversing bad ideas? Let’s imagine the first 100 days of a new Government that believes Labour, the Greens, and New Zealand First’s policies are wrong, and wants to reverse them. ACT has a laundry list of reversals we will fight for in Government.
“We’ve left off areas that are more complicated than simply reversing what Labour/the Greens/New Zealand First have done. For example, in firearms regulation, ACT has never supported going back to the laws we had on the morning of March 15, 2019. We need a whole new arms Act.
“The list will grow as Labour continues to inflict damage upon New Zealand. But the examples show why we need a strong ACT to ensure we get real change.
“ACT is on track to play a powerful role in the next Government. We won’t allow National to lazily roll over Labour’s policies like it has in government’s gone by. National will need to learn how to share with a larger and more powerful coalition partner than it’s had before.”
In our first 100 days in Government, ACT would:
- Repeal Three Waters, returning ownership to councils
- Repeal the Māori Health Authority
- Reserve Bank Act changes: Giving the Reserve Bank two targets (price stability and employment) with one tool (the Official Cash Rate), was illogical. These changes have let inflation back and should be reversed
- Scrap the 39c tax rate and we should simplify to a two-rate tax system as in ACT’s Real Change Budget
- Stop the Public Interest Journalism Fund. At $55 million over two years it’s not large enough to help or hinder the media as much as many suspects. However, it is pernicious enough to destroy faith and trust in our institutions
- Repeal the Zero Carbon Act along with it goes the associated ute tax and the Tesla subsidies
- Mortgage interest deductibility, the bright-line test, and Residential Tenancies Act changes would go
- Bring back 90-day trials
- Bring back three strikes
- Bring back charter schools
- Overturn the ban on oil and gas exploration
- Get rid of so-called Fair Pay Agreements
- Get rid of hate speech laws (if introduced before the election)
- Nullify changes to live animal export bans
- Nullify the anti-property right Crown Pastoral Lease reforms
- Oranga Tamariki - Section 7AA, says it’s more important a child is placed with its iwi than anything else, it would go.