Women, Elections and What PI communities aren't in NZ!

When politicians come to the table, it’s a glorious affair.
The atmosphere is electrifying, abundant with flaring egos, never ending charisma, and where wits and knowledge come under fire! Oh how that fire can burn! There is so much heat, that some may wither and shy away, but only the strongest weathers the pressure and rise above the firing line of questions. Remove the usual political associated image of immaculate men in silky suits and polished pointers, and replace that with beautiful golden brown fierce women and that table has just reached hideous degrees.
Yes, it’s an Election year in Aotearoa, and I am no stranger to that table. Well, not as a participant, but as an observant and a member of the firing squad. (Thanks to eight fulfilling years of journalism).

I must say that I have been completely numb to this year’s election, until Saturday 30th of August 2014, when I decided to check out an invite to attend the Pacific Women in Politics Breakfast Meet at the AUT Manukau Campus. Why numb? Well for a number of reasons. I have been in this country for five years now, and still the problems of the brown people just seem to keep mounting. As a matter of fact, I am categorised as belonging to an ethnicity/ethnic group, that is renowned for making up the lesser socio-economic ethnic groups of NZ and are in fact earning, receiving or achieving less in everything, from education, health, housing, welfare, rehabilitation, crime, gambling the list goes on. For sensitive types like me, this can become disheartening and you look to the leaders that are suppose to pave the way in the community, you look to systems that the earlier generations have put in place and the political parties they have chosen to stand behind, and somehow things just do not seem reassuring and the future looks fragile. You look to the present government of the day, and there is very little security that the best interests of the Pacific peoples, Maori and the more vulnerable members of society are being prioritised. There is no solid evidence to suggest that if we keep going the way that the early Pacific settlers have paved, that we will improve our margins in the economic ladder of NZ. So you get to a point where you just say, stuff it, we’ll let others decide we’ll see where this will lead us.

This complacency, I knew was just a phase, and I needed a bit of inspiration to get me out of it. Inspiration came in the form of Pacific Women leaders in Politics. This table was a magnificent table. Pacific women never fail to bring the X in Exotic. Add to it charisma, education, culture, humility, a bit of fashion and red lipstick, and the room came alive. I came alive. Issues ranging from housing, rentals, health and education are always the popular policies. Promises Policies around introducing a ‘rent freeze’ law proposed by the Greens as a solution for sky rocketing rent prices sounded doable. More funding into education and health, and completely erasing the ‘decile’ system in education to equalise the quality of education and opportunities across the country is one policy that all parties seem to agree on (minus National, as their candidate Misa Fia Turner left before questioning time, which was a pity). Cutting out taxes completely, proposed by the conservatives, was called ‘a nice dream in the clouds’ by the practical NZ First Lea’ufa’amuli Asenati Lole-Taylor.

Crime and the over representation of Maori and Pacific Islanders in community based sentences and prisons is a topic that I was particularly interested in (given my line of work), and only one candidate lightly touched on it, New Zealand First’s Lea’ufa’amuli Asenati Lole-Taylor, current Member of Parliament for the Manukau East Constituency and NZ First’s ranked 16 candidate for the current election. Lea’ufa’amuli was after all the Regional Pacific Advisor for the Department of Corrections in Rehabilitation and Reintegration prior to her election in Parliament in 2011. So naturally I was shocked when she suggested that the answer to reduction of crime was to put more Police Officers on the ground. A move that has already been claimed by the National Party to have been their idea. I put my hand up for a question, but someone beat me to the last one. (The Chairperson was meticulous with her time management).

Fortunately, I managed to have a quick chat with the MP afterwards, and still she was very adamant that Corrections and Probation Services were just ‘kidding themselves’ referring to the Department’s National Vision/Goal to reduce crime by 25% by 2017. Now Mrs Lole-Taylor has been under fire recently for a press release she released on the same topic where she was accused on social media of completely ignoring statistical facts on the subject of crime, rehabilitation and reduction of reoffending. Perhaps this is because facts show that there are 8,520 prisoners currently, down from 8,755 three years ago. Furthermore, I am no spokesperson for the Department of Corrections, but facts and public information actually show that the Department has achieved over 50% of its overall goal in the reduction of re-offending, having reduced reoffending by 17% and have 8% to go before 2017. Despite this, she was the most outstanding in terms of her persona and aura. She was oozing of charisma and confidence, treading on the edges of arrogance at times, but hey maybe she could afford it? I particularly liked her idea of a provision of $1,000.00 for every new born child, and then said that this would somewhat be incorporated into the Kiwi Saver Scheme. Isn’t that what the scheme’s already about?

Who inspired the most and why? The Labour and Greens Party candidates won my vote on the day. The three Labour candidates were a great team of young, beautiful ladies, who tackled all issues, with assertive humility and well researched topics. Louisa Wall MP for Manurewa and candidate ranked 12 for Labour, passionately tackled issues on housing, and health related issues for Maori and Pacific Islanders and all elderly citizens stating that Nationals’ policies were far from being ‘rock star’ policies. She also announced that Labour will inject $60 dollars a week into the pockets of parents for the first three years of a child’s life. Achievable but will it be enough? Who’s taxes will that be coming out from?. Jenny Salesa (Tongan married to a Samoan husband) smoothly mitigated issues on education and equal opportunities for students in South Auckland as with the rest of New Zealand outlining Labour education policies, clearly reflecting the benefits of having a Law Degree. I like the idea of having an equal decile system, but will this cause more harm than help for the assessed low decile areas? Will this affect the vulnerable again more than those at the top of the ladder?

Marama Davidson of the Greens Party and candidate for Tamaki Makaurau was vigilant on issues of free public transport, student allowances, rent, housing, poverty amongst Maori and Pacific peoples, taxation, and of course the environment.

What do most of these women have in common? All eight of them are running for Parliament to state the obvious. Seven migrated to New Zealand from their respective Pacific Island countries with their families, and look how far they’ve come? Most are members and Chairs of various Boards and councils. All young and attractive and all have a kick ass attitude, ready to take up their place in Parliament, ready to make changes in their communities. All are passionate to improve the statistics of Pacific Island and Maori peoples on the welfare system, the Justice and Prisons population, education achievement, health, and housing. Their passion inspired everyone who attended including myself and renewed our hopes in the political system of this country. For me, my faith in democracy was resurrected. We must not give up. Because our vote, has the same value as every other citizen in this country, whether they’re first class citizens, or those at the grass roots of society. Our vote value is the same.

There was a real sense that no matter what Party they belonged to, these women all have the common goal of realising the dreams of every Pacific Island migrant and Maori citizen of New Zealand and all other ethnic members of our multi cultural communities. That is, to improve their standards of living. They know that they belong to a proud group of people, who refuse to be limited to the stigmatisation and researched statistics labelling our people as the ‘less achievers’ and lower socio economic members of a first world country. Out of Four+ million New Zealanders, we only make up about Ten or Eleven percent of the country's overall population. So ofcourse our percentage of achievers, employed etc, will never match that of the more dominant ethnic groups. So how is it, that such a small population, can make up more of the unemployed rates of NZ? Something's not right. And we have been saying this for how many years now, those statistics do not reflect the correct tremendous contribution that PIs represent in NZ's workforce. Instead, we continue to be collated under everything that isn't working for NZ. Never mind the phenomenal contribution of our athletes to rugby, netball, boxing, athletics and other international sports that have enlargened NZ's dot on the map? Don't get me wrong, we ALL love New Zealand,and we are all proud to be part of this beautiful strong and accomplished country, but we do not want to be labelled as NZ's problems. Our forefathers have come too far and our communities have survived for too long, to be just a troubled part of NZ society. We are working too hard for too little to be discriminated by the snobbery and ignorance of some members of society and what some research says to be true. All researches are man made and highly susceptible to manipulation after all.

So if you were like me and had been planning on skipping your vote this year, I hope you’re reading this post. Do think twice, and do have a think again about those dreams. Who says we can’t achieve those dreams, with hard work, persistence and a bit of improved opportunities and education, we should be able to achieve the Conservative Party’s vision of a ‘ONE NEW ZEALAND’ moving forward. We should be able to breach that ever growing gap between the rich and poor. We should be able to improve and create better policies to protect our children, eradicate child poverty in NZ, and reduce our crime rates.

I believe that increased employment opportunities, increased minimum wage, equal quality education and opportunities, more housing for those in need, and affordable and better health services, will relieve those at the lower socio economic ladder from dependency on the welfare system and the stifling addictive hold of gangs, drugs and alcohol, prostitution and crime. This is why it is so important to vote. Every vote counts. If you no longer have faith in Political parties, check out who your constituent candidates are, and find out for yourself whether they would serve your interests and voice in Parliament. Sometimes, its easier to know one person first and form there you can decide, well if they can stand for this Party and its policies, then maybe I could stand for it too.

The choice is yours.

IF you must vote, vote woman! Remember behind every great man is a great woman. Well, if we can get these women in Parliament, then we know all the males there would be well advised. Vote woman or man it doesn't matter and I don't want to be labelled as a sexist. Whatever you do, vote for a better NZ for ALL ethnic groups.