Let’s train the next generation to be lifelong investors

One of the biggest issues facing the next generation is that too many young New Zealanders leave school without a basic understanding of how wealth is created, how capital grows, or how businesses generate value.

If protecting property rights is a core role of government, we also need to create real pathways for young people to build wealth and get into property.This could be one of them.This week, David gave a speech at ANZ in Christchurch, where he floated a new idea for financial education. It goes like this. Every fifth former, or year 11 if you’re under 40, is given $500 in a controlled investment account, with a structured pathway into real investing.

This would not be abstract theory, students would have skin in the game.

Over the year they graduate to higher levels of risk and reward, so long as they pass tests of their knowledge. If they don’t pass, they stay at lower levels. Students would be able to track earnings and losses, and will be tested on it.

“Suddenly, they would want to know things like: Why is one company worth more than another? What makes a business grow? What makes it shrink? Why do future earnings matter? What is the net present value of an income stream? What the hell is ‘net present value?

’These are important ideas, but too many people do not encounter them until well after school, sometimes not until after university. Many people go their entire lives without encountering them at all, the Green Party’s electoral prospects rely on this.

We should be teaching young people how wealth is actually created. Business is the beautiful human synergy of investors, entrepreneurs, workers, and customers coming together to meet one another’s needs.

This policy would change how many people see the world.If you are an investor, even in a small way, you stop seeing yourself as a passenger in the global economy and start seeing yourself as someone who can take the wheel.” –David Seymour

Backing volunteers who restore war graves

Over the past eight years, the Remembrance Army has restored more than 300,000 service graves. That’s been achieved by volunteers and private sponsorship, restoring around 30,000 graves a year at a cost of barely more than $2 per grave.

“Despite delivering results, they’ve had to navigate a fragmented, inefficient system. The Remembrance Army has had to deal with 62 different councils, with different processes and interpretations of cemetery rules, which has made it very difficult to manage their work on a national scale.

“The Remembrance Army wrote to David Seymour and asked us to cut through the bureaucracy. ACT has listened.” – Mark Cameron

This week, ACT announced we will:

• Require councils to accept grave restoration work under a national standard developed by Veterans’ Affairs in consultation with the Remembrance Army, instead of under dozens of local rulebooks.
• Designate the Remembrance Army and similar groups as nationally recognised heritage restoration partners.
• Remove additional red tape on organisations doing nationally significant work.

ACT is prepared to set aside up to $1 million for the development of this framework, and for a direct Crown grant to the Remembrance Army enabling them to clear the remaining backlog of neglected graves.

If the state asks you to lay down your life for Crown and country, the least it can do is back the volunteers who keep your memory alive and your gravesite tidy.

New initiative for children to explore Anzac history

This weekend we commemorated the 1915 Gallipoli landing, marking the first major military action for Australian and New Zealand forces (ANZACs) in World War I. While it’s a solemn day of remembrance for those who died, we give thanks to returned servicemen and women, and to the Anzac spirit of courage, mateship, and sacrifice. 

This week Brooke announced a new digital initiative for children to explore Anzac histories and stories from the battlefront to the homefront.

Anzac Stories is an online visual storytelling experience highlighting heroes and heroines from past New Zealand conflicts, including nurses, soldiers, animals, and people at home.

Anzac Stories has been created by Archives New Zealand and the National Library from their national collections.

“Children can navigate the website anywhere, whether at home with their families, or at school with their classmates. It makes learning about our past engaging with photographs from archival collections, maps, timelines, and minigames to test their knowledge.   Because of this great initiative from Brooke and Archives New Zealand, now many of our fascinating ACT encourages children, families and the education sector to make use of this new resource.” –Brooke van Velden

Link to resource: https://natlib.govt.nz/history-explorer/anzac-stories

Standover tactics exposed by $180 million ‘pound of flesh’ for a gold mine

An iwi group’s alleged demand for $180 million in order to approve the Bendigo Santana gold mine reveals how New Zealand’s resource management system has been warped by standover tactics and backroom dealing.

In an interview with Duncan Garner, ACT’s Simon Court exposed the rort.

Kā Rūnaka say extracting $180 million from Santana has not been their ‘focus’, but they haven’t directly denied the report.It’s an outrage, but not one that surprises us.Up and down the country, from minor subdivisions to major infrastructure, people are encountering standover tactics and sending ACT the receipts.

“In some cases, councils have effectively given iwi veto power through how they interpret the law. That creates a system where resource consent depends not on environmental effects, but on the applicant’s willingness to grease someone else’s palms.

“The fact a previous seven-figure payout for a hydro project was cited by Kā Rūnaka as a benchmark tells you everything. This is how rent-seeking becomes embedded.“These costs get passed on in higher power bills, more expensive housing, pricier infrastructure, and in many cases, projects that just don’t go ahead.

“We should have a system where the question is simple: does the project meet environmental standards or not?“ – Simon Court

What we have instead is a culture where people expect a pound of flesh for every sod turned. It’s opportunistic graft enabled by a broken law. ACT is replacing the Resource Management Act because we believe in clear rules, property rights, and a system where decisions are made on evidence – not ancestry.

Anyone Can Dance – Now Pouring

We’ve bottled something special with one of our supporters, Jonathan Ayling – an ACT Pinot Noir that’s smooth, bold, and a little bit cheeky, with a story behind it.

It’s called “Anyone Can Dance”, inspired by the speech David gave, when he became Deputy Prime Minister – proof that with a bit of grit (and maybe a questionable waltz), anyone can step up.It’s also a nod to his 2018 run on Dancing with the Stars, nine weeks of persistence, and just enough rhythm to prove the point. Turns out, if you stick at it, you don’t just find your feet, you finish strong.

Buy three bottles of ACT’s Anyone Can Dance premium Pinot Noir for $90 + shipping today and help us raise $100,000 for this year’s campaign. Every cent of profit goes straight back into ACT.