by Geoffrey Churchman

Most of the seats in the Otaihanga Boating Club were filled last night to hear two of the candidates on the ACT Party’s list talk about the big issues, some that concern different sections of scoeity, but mostly those that affect everybody.

Originally Nicole McKee MP was scheduled to speak and while she was there to greet attendees, she had to attend to an administration matter so local candidate Sean Rush filled in for her. Nicole is a hero for those ill-treated by this government who own firearms, but Sean Rush is well informed and he and Tukituki candidate Rob Douglas managed to answer all questions to the askers’ satisfaction, and there were no contrarians present.

At number 16 on the ACT list, Rob Douglas, a valuer from Hawkes Bay, has a good chance of getting into Parliament. However, at number 51, Sean Rush doesn’t.

Yesterday ACT had to release a revised alternative budget because of the shocking state of government finances caused by Labour that was revealed by Grant Robertson last week, and it has reduced the tax cuts it originally intended. The new budget can be read here.

The local organisers for End of Life Choice, Dyslexia Awareness and Stop Co-Governance were all there and seemed happy with what they told they can expect with ACT in the new government.

Sean Rush said he has a Maori brother-in-law, niece and nephew, none of whom agree with the Apartheid this government is putting in place. Rob Douglas read a list the things ACT want to achieve in its first 100 days and among them are scrapping the separate Maori Health Authority as well as of course, Mahuta’s “3<5<10 Waters.”

Charter schools, which ACT had previously got instituted, were a great success, but Labour scrapped them for ideological reasons with disasterous consquences. Likewise this government’s scrapping “3 strikes and you’re out” has seen a big increase in criminals at large.

Housing supply has suffered from Labour’s ideological belief that State Capitalism can do things better than private business when the opposite is true. Another problem is the cost of construction materials caused by allowing near monopolies to form in their supply.

Some questions were toughies, such as “how will you handle the next WHO pandemic differently?”; “How are you going to stop bad parents giving their children meth, who never attend school?” “Why don’t you limit number of children that the Domestic Purposes Benefit will be paid; no more than 2 children per set of parents?” (Perhaps the questioners need to realise — unlike this government — that not all problems can’t be solved by the government passing a new law, or by throwing lots of money at bureaucracies or in the form of handouts, and that broad co-operation and participation of society is needed.)

Commitment to freedom of speech was reasserted and Sean Rush says that the Bill of Rights should never be discarded, like this government did.

The parting message was if you liked what you’ve heard and plan to vote ACT, tell friends and acquaintances that. The Leftist legacy media isn’t friendly to non-Leftists and will misrepresent as much as they can.