The election is just a matter of months away, and although nothing is certain, one thing we can be fairly sure of is that no one party will win a majority the size Labour did last time round, and that the next New Zealand Government will be cobbled together with minor parties.

We'll either see a National/ACT, maybe another minor party coalition government or a Labour/Greens/Te Pati Maori kind of government. So when the minor parties come out with their manifestos and public pledges, it's worth listening to what they have to say, as these policies may well become part of the makeup of the next government.

The ACT party came out all guns blazing when David Seymour launched ACT’s election campaign in Auckland over the weekend. They want all 17 year old defendants to face trial in the District Court, not the youth court and believe corrections should take over management of youth justice residences. At the moment, young people appear in the youth court until 17, and that had been a policy borne out of the theory that if young offenders were treated more kindly, there would be less crime.

Since coming into force, one of two things has happened since the 1st of July 2019, either 17 year olds have halved their offending rate, or they kept on offending and are only prosecuted by police half as often. David Seymour told Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking breakfast this morning ACT’s policy would focus on victims rather than the offenders.

The Greens too were busy. They released their election manifesto over the weekend and it was the usual stuff. An extra week of annual leave for all! Yay! Free lunches in every school. Extend citizenship to all Maori born overseas, and allow councils to introduce new taxes, and funding, music and community venues so organisations didn't have to rely on dirty pub charity grants to function. All good. Couldn't argue with much of it.  

How would they fund it? Taxing the Super rich of course. ‘A tax on the richest few will raise money we can use to build a climate-friendly, wiser and more prepared Aotearoa that we can all be proud of’ said Marama Davidson, co-leader of the Greens.

So looking at ACT, looking at the Greens, are you paying attention to the policies that they are putting out? Or are you still going to vote for who you always voted for because really, it doesn't really matter.

I cannot tell you how much it does matter.

Just listening to people over the past couple of weeks going uh, whatever. It's not “uh, whatever.” We have an obligation to vote in a way that we believe is going to make a great New Zealand for our children and grandchildren. It's not all about us. And whichever side you go for, you've got to go in with the mindset that it's not about you, and it's not about the next three years.