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Hopeful reading
Highlights of people power and progressive change for June 2018
Can you believe that it’s July already?! Time is flying by and we have so much to proud of, and hopeful for, as a community and country.
Earlier this month, Wellington had a visit from a tohorā (whale) that postponed the Matariki (Māori new year) fireworks. We had the birth of baby Neve and the families package announced by our down to earth and make-up free Prime Minister on Facebook. Over the weekend, we saw hundreds of thousands of people in London rally against Trump and his policies that seperate whānau (families).
As always, at the beginning of each month we send out a highlight reel of all of the incredible people-powered activity that has been happening across the ActionStation community,
So settle in, get comfortable, and enjoy reading about the victories and nudges toward progress for people and planet that you helped create:
Whenever we campaign for better public services — whether in mental health, state housing, public broadcasting or environmental protection — we’re met with concerns about how we pay for these services. But the solution to underfunded public services isn’t very complicated. We simply need to ensure that our tax system is fair and that massive corporations and the mega-wealthy are contributing their fair share to these services, which they all benefit from.
Last year, among lots of other creative tactics to push for fairer tax, we delivered then-Minister Judith Collins a giant postcard (pictured above) urging the government to implement a crackdown on multinational tax fraud.
The National-led government at the time responded with steps to clamp down on tax cheats, and the Labour-led government delivered on those changes last month with the passing of the Taxation (Neutralising Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) Bill.
This law change will bring in an additional $200million per year. That’s money that can be spent on cleaning our rivers or paying our nurses and teachers a fair pay. And it likely wouldn’t have happened were it not for all of you, so well done!
CAMHS is a unique service that connects young Nelson people in crisis with specialist staff at all hours and has a proven track record in saving lives. Yet the Nelson-Marlborough District Health Board is threatening the service with closure. It would blend the service it provides into the adult service where the staff do not have specialist training in working with young people.
At a time when the Inquiry into Mental Health and Addiction is seeking input into how to improve the way mental health is supported and regarded, the plan to dismantle this service is seriously wrong.
The company, Nongfu, wants to extract five million litres of water a day, or over one billion litres a year. This is five times more than they presently take, for which they pay next to nothing.
Lenae wants to protect the mauri (life force) of Otakiri Springs. She says the expansion of the bottling plant is unsustainable by creating more plastic pollution in the world and also risks over-extracting the precious spring water.
Petition starter Lanae will now be waiting on the outcome of the appeals. We’ll help her deliver the petition to the District Council once the result is announced.
Our people powered movement to save New Zealand’s precious wai (water) has only just begun. We’re about to put into motion our plans to protect our water sources, all around New Zealand.
The Otakiri case is just one local example of a national problem. We need to ensure water quality standards are adequately enforced by Councils and hold Councillors politically accountable if not. We need to look at how water is allocated, and acknowledge the role of local hapū and communities to be kaitiaki (guardians) of our rivers and lakes.
The Privacy Act is being updated to reflect our digital age, and we had over 600 members of the community give their thoughts on how it should be done.
The overwhelming majority of our community supported the modernisation of the 25 year old law. Almost all supported corporations and organisations being required to provide notifications to users for privacy breaches, higher fines for companies breaking privacy laws, and the adoption of more rights for people to control their information online (especially in the case of things like sexually explicit images that have been uploaded without permission).
Leroy presented your views at his first ever Select Committee hearing. This is the process where you deliver an oral submission to the politicians in charge of making recommendations of how government should proceed based on research, advice and public submissions. They seemed mostly receptive to our input, and we will be keeping an eye on how it turns out.
We’ve partnered with JustSpeak to mobilise people to take the conversation about transforming our justice system directly to MPs. Last month we hosted an online training about how to best approach local members of Parliament.
After the training, one awesome volunteer, Victor Komarovsky met his MP Grant Robertson (also the Minister of Finance who will be making funding decisions on the proposals to move away from punishment to rehabilitation). He says it went really well, and that:
We’re also working with fourth year medical students from the University of Otago in Wellington to conduct research into Māori attitudes towards our justice system.
The ‘student loan cap’ meant students could apply for loans for up to seven years of study but after that had to find the rest of the funds themselves. This meant that for many who had done previous university study the cost of finishing a medical degree was too much of a barrier, resulting in fewer doctors in our communities.
Over 4500 of us got behind the campaign by teams at Te Oranga, the Māori Medical Students Association Aotearoa, and the NZ Medical Students Association. They organised the petition, wrote letters to ministers, got media interviews, and filmed and shared their own personal stories to engage directly with the public.
As a result of all of this great work, the government announced they will extend the time limit on loans to ten years meaning that over a hundred more people on longer courses such as medicine will be able to finish their studies.
The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) is a free service run by volunteers that offers essential help on anything from resolving a tenancy dispute, understanding an employment contract, working out how to pay off a debt, or finding information about our rights in a relationship breakup.
Over 30,000 Wellingtonians used the service last year, however the Council was proposing to remove funding, putting its existence under threat.
Over 4500 of the ActionStation community based in Wellington got behind the campaign to put pressure on the Council to stop the cuts and we were successful! CAB secured a 3-year funding contract that enables it to continue and whole they work out an ongoing funding model.
Every other day, a new person finds their way to OurActionStation with an important cause and a passion for creating change in the world. But they may be new to the skills and tools needed to help make their vision a reality.
Last month Erica Finnie, an experienced campaigner and volunteer with 350 Aotearoa led a training on how to organise volunteers to gain petition signatures. Previous trainings have been on writing great campaign emails, getting media stories and combining offline activities with online petitions.
Are you someone aiming to be effective in making change in your community? Designed specifically for leaders in social change, the Aotearoa Fellowship will super-charge your skills and energy, help you gain further confidence as a social change leader, and connect you with a community of your peers from across Aotearoa.
The Aotearoa fellowship is bookended by two intensive 4-day retreats, with five interactive expert webinars in between. The first retreat will be within 2 hours drive of the Auckland CBD.
Our Director, Laura O’Connell Rapira, will be co-facilitating the training fellowship.
There’s been a lot of talk about free and hate speech over the past week. We’re doing something about it. Over the next 12 months, we have a long-term campaign plan to:
You can read more about the work we are doing in this space here.
When singers Tiresa Foma’i, Rosetta Lopa and Anastasia Sirila (of the group Le ART) shared their version of the national anthem on social media it went viral.
Tiresa, Rosetta and Anastasia are young people from Porirua who Ross thought on a national stage could represent the strength and diversity of our young people. And they can really sing!
We know there are a tonne of big issues to tackle every single day, and all around the world, but we thought what better highlight to finish on than a community of people supporting our young people to follow their dreams and share their talents. That’s the kind of society we all want to live in.
As for behind the scenes updates for this month, we welcomed four new Board members to our governance team:
And we said farewell to the wonderful Lani Evans, who is the CEO of Vodafone Foundation, and has served our Board for the past three years. Ngā mihi (gratitude) for everything Lani.
The new Board members were voted in by our Incorporated Society members at our AGM — a process which more than 150 people took part in. We were delighted when we received a lovely card in the mail (and a $100 cheque!) from ActionStation member Angus for our robust and democratic process. Thanks Angus! It really made our day :)
Finally, thank you to each and everyone of you, from the bottom of our hearts. We cannot do any of this work without you.
Ngā manaakitanga (Take care),
Madeleine (who joins our team from 30 July) Eliot, Ann, Yvonne, Vim, Laura, Leroy and Polly (not pictured) — your ActionStation team.
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