Winning

The Haps

The sun is getting a little higher while inflation and interest rates fall. Summer is coming, and not before time.

Winning

Like a lot of work, politics is hard slog in the fog. If you put in the work, you often find when the fog clears, you’re out in front. That doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate a few victories along the way.

Even (especially) ACT’s opponents admit the party makes a disproportionate impact on Government policy. Often half the ‘quarterly’ plan policies are from ACT alone.

This week Free Press celebrates good things the Government is doing, and particularly things where it may not have gone as far as ACT would, but has gone farther than it would have without ACT.

The Māori Health Authority is gone, the very idea of a health system divided in two is anathema to a party that believes in each person having the same basic right to healthcare, regardless of ancestry.

We campaigned on building out facilities for youth, Karen Chhour’s Military Style Academies solve the problem of having somewhere to take serious youth offenders.

Nicole McKee revealed in opposition the taxpayer was funding Section 27 “cultural reports” – sob stories for convicted criminals – more than victim support. There is no more funding for cultural reports.

Labour’s prisoner reduction target was an icon of their approach to crime, a target for prisoners instead of victims. That is gone, too.

The Ute Tax was infamous. ACT harangued the hapless Jacinda Ardern who claimed Toyota would soon produce an electric ute (Toyota denied it), now this silly and impractical law is gone. For townies, the Auckland Fuel Tax is gone.

ACT Ministers have saved hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful government spending in their own portfolios alone. For example, David Seymour is saving $104 million on the school lunch program and expanding it to disadvantaged preschoolers. Across government, public servant numbers are down by thousands, and Government spending is down by billions.

Brooke van Velden has taken to cabinet like a duck to water and is a hero of employers and employees who just want to get on with raising productivity. Ninety-day trials are extended to all businesses, so-called Fair Pay Agreements are dumped, the smallest minimum wage increase in a decade began a return to sanity.

Three Waters and the co-governance it brought are gone.

Blanket speed limit reductions are going. There is a lengthy process of consultation to do it, but this time next year they’ll be gone.

There are no new Significant Natural Areas, with old ones subject to the new resource management law.

Licensed Firearms Owners have been villainised for years, abandoned by every party except ACT. That’s why it’s so important ACT makes good on its promises. Part 6 of the Arms Act, regulating clubs and ranges, is being reviewed right now. The entire Arms Act (1983) is being rewritten. The Firearms Registry is being reassessed to see if its benefits actually outweigh its costs for all firearms.

Tougher sentencing is coming back across the board, thanks to ACT policies. Being a gang member is being made an aggravating factor in sentencing so you go away longer if you joined a gang before your crime. Three Strikes is coming back. Attacking a sole charge worker is being made an aggravating factor.

Mortgage interest deductibility is being restored faster than any other party promised, saving money for landlords and tenants alike. Faster, no-fault, evictions are coming to the Residential Tenancies Act with shorter notice periods of 21 days and 42 days if the tenant wishes to move or the landlord wishes to sell a property, as well as Pet Bonds giving landlords, tenants, and pooches a place.

The oil and gas ban will be gone this year.

Charter schools are back, giving the education profession the autonomy and respect in return for accountability and results. With charters, every child can find their educational home, particularly those who don’t thrive in mainstream state education.

The Reserve Bank’s dual mandate is gone, after contributing to the monetary policy chaos of the last four years. The Bank now focuses on the single mandate of inflation.

David Parker’s Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act are goneski, and we’re working on new resource management laws based on property rights.

ACT legalised pseudoephedrine, common sense relief from the common cold.

The insanity of the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act is being straightened out.

Public services will be delivered according to a Government-wide policy of need not race, about to be released. Local referendums on Māori wards will be required, there will be no race-based council wards without a public vote.

Electronic Income Management (rebranded money management) is being put in place for beneficiaries who don’t live up to their obligations.

The Covid-19 Royal Commission is being expanded in line with ACT policy, with new commissioners asking the hard questions about how the Government’s response affected the rest of the society.

Genetic engineering laws are being dragged into the 21st century, 25 years too late.

Kāinga Ora tenants who engage in repeated antisocial behaviour no longer get a blank cheque under ‘sustaining tenancies,’ values like personal responsibility are being restored.

Most of ACT’s school attendance policy is being implemented, with daily attendance data supporting clear steps put in place.

The split-gas approach to methane and carbon dioxide carries through to 2050 and the methane science and targets are being redone for consistency with no additional warming from agricultural methane emissions.

City and regional deals, a long-time ACT Policy to ensure long-term infrastructure investment and disciplined spending, have just been announced. Another ACT idea becomes Government policy.

For the first time there is a Ministry for Regulation to cut red tape, including by Regulation sector reviews, backed up by a forthcoming Regulatory Standards Bill.

The Crown Minerals Act 1991 is being amended to clarify its role as promoting the use of Crown minerals.

The Department of Corrections has increased funding to ensure there is sufficient prison capacity for the worst criminals to be sent away.

Section 7AA, the Treaty clause of the Oranga Tamariki Act, is going, and the ‘Independent’ Children’s Monitor is being made truly independent by taking it out of OT under Karen Chhour.

Those are ACT policies in place or being put in place within the first year. No Government in a generation has hit the ground running with a reform agenda like this, and no Government has ever had ACT in it before. It’s no coincidence, and if you’ve read this far, thank you for your support.