The medical sector is broken, education is broken, mental health is broken, transport is broken, households are broken, and the economy is broken, yet, there is hope - if every minister in Parliament is prepared to work instead of focusing on saving their seat.

This is how your tax money has been wasted from the past government cycles of inactivity. Over the past few decades the beginning of a new government seems to take around a year for them to get any policy off the ground blaming the past governments for the mess they inherited, then the last year of that cycle, those incumbent government ministers are all scrambling to say the right thing to bring in as many voters to keep them safe in their seat for the next cycle. In effect what we have realistically is a government that only spends one year during its term actively doing anything of value for the taxpayer.  Even then that value is questionable.

For this labour government, all that combined with the excuse of covid and climate change to be able to effect any meaningful change on the lives of all of New Zealand is weak reasoning of why we have so many failed ministries. Yet, they want you to trust them just because there is a new face.

When you think about why you vote for a party in October look at what they do every day. For instance, when asked what he will do this year, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said he is aiming to have three more years – shouldn’t he be aiming to help NZ people survive the living crisis conditions we are all facing? Shouldn’t a Prime Minister be looking at each day like they want to make a relevant impact now, not looking at the goal come October?

It is New Conservative’s goal to make New Zealand the best place we all want to live and that means working to the best of our ability each day, impacting the lives of others each day, working on the coalface, listening to those in the coal face, listening to the taxpayer and the parents who’s family is impacted by policies. For now, NZ must watch on as National and Labour scrap it out over the next 6 months, what should they be doing during these crucial months to help the cost of living?

For one I would like to see tough questions being debated like, how can we better prepare NZ for hard times or natural weather events? These are questions that have no easy answer however I would appreciate a government that is not afraid to have serious debates on these issues instead of tiptoeing softly softly in case they lose votes.

Responding to the needs in our communities, identifying gaps where we can do better and admitting where we need to start over if something is broken, asking, and responding to the hard questions, are all important factors to be working on over the next 6 months and every month, not focusing only on saving your seat.

No one expects perfection from a government but we do expect them to identify if something is not working and fix it.

New Conservative will fix New Zealand.

Helen Houghton

New Conservative Co-leader