Twenty years from now, you could swim in our rivers and out into our ocean’s clean water teeming with native wildlife.
You could move through and between our towns and cities freely, conveniently and comfortably without the baggage of a car. You could know your neighbours – everyone could, because homes could be affordable, stable and long-term, grounded in community and surrounded by well-cared for public parks and schools and libraries and thriving local businesses.
You could know where your food was grown and even the name of the farmer who grew it, locally. You could hear and see and understand te reo Māori everywhere and feel deep pride in our nation’s reconciling with our past to create the equitable, inclusive and uniquely wonderful today.
You could work a job that gives you purpose, or raise your kids or look after elderly or disabled whānau knowing the country values and supports your contribution. You could retire knowing that your representatives have made the right decisions to invest a long time ago in the housing and healthcare and welfare system that will ensure you are looked after, just as you looked after others.
Life could be slower and feel more meaningful than it is now, as so many of us tread seemingly unending exhaustion in servitude of a system that we’re told is just the way things are.
Things are the way they are today – a polluted natural world, endless congestion, crumbling infrastructure, extortionate ‘cost of living’ – because of political decisions that have been made throughout the past 40 years. There have been some bright spots, and some tweaking with the settings of this system, but it largely remains in place, generating more of what we’ve always got.
Many New Zealanders, rather rationally, have decided to withdraw from engaging all too much in the politics because throughout many of our lifetimes, it’s seemed like there’s a whole lot of arguing but not a whole lot of change.
But what if, instead, today you decided that you wanted the world we could have? What if you took back your power and didn’t leave politics to the politicians?
What if you started talking in your household, workplace and community about the kind of country we deserve? What if we all started working together to raise the standard of debate and quality of political decisions made? What if, instead of disengaging from your House of Representatives, you found someone in your community who you genuinely liked and trusted and supported them into the halls of power?
Next year we have local body elections and the year after that, we’re back into another general election. Every single day between then and now, political decisions will be made that could be felt for generations to come.
Our current Government is cutting funding and policies for climate action, protection of nature, slashing benefit increases for the poorest of us, public transport, cycling and walking, kids’ school lunches, transparency of tax system reporting, public housing and more. They are currently drawing up a list of projects potentially including new mines on conservation land, further trawling of our oceans and oil permits to bake in environmental devastation for decades to come.
These things are not inevitable. They are political decisions. They aren’t just happening because of the election night result, but because this Government is every single day ploughing ahead despite their own advice telling them, and us, that these choices will make the country a worse place. The Government has told us loud and clear that they do not care.
Different choices can be made. Indeed, different choices will be made if you – we, enough of us – demand it.
Our future is not set in stone.
We know where this rehash of 1980s and 90s trickle-down economics will get us. We have 40 years of experience and research to show us it delivers devastation of both people and planet.
A warmer and more volatile climate, greater inequality and deeper poverty, insecure housing, the rampant spread of loneliness and mental ill health and ultimately, less secure and safe communities.
Governments are temporary. The power of an informed and organised group of citizens, inspiring each other to participate and re-create the systems we choose to govern us, is history making.
We could have the future we all deserve. That starts today with your awareness of your power and potential to get involved in a movement bigger than yourself, bigger than all of us. (Chlöe Swarbrick)
This piece was originally published in the NZ Herald on 13 March
Chlöe Swarbrick, T: 09 378 4810, E: chloe.swarbrick@parliament.govt.nz
www.greens.org.nz/chloe_swarbrick
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Published: April 2024