ACT Caucus Retreat

ACT`s nine MPs together with the Party President and Manager are holding a three-day retreat (29 October to 31 October 2002) in the Hawkes Bay at Wallingford Station, the home of ACT supporter John Ormond.

"ACT received good support in the Hawkes Bay" said Leader Richard Prebble "and the caucus will take the opportunity to meet with local supporters."

"ACT is looking at a number of strategic issues. Last election ACT held its vote as National's vote crashed.

"ACT is becoming the natural party of business which in New Zealand is small business. The party is looking at ways we can increase our effectiveness as the spokesman for the nation's 300,000 small businesses.

"ACT is also looking at the issues which the party owns - a low tax, less regulations, pro-ANZUS, and zero tolerance for crime.

"In addition ACT has been the party with fresh new ideas about education and health. ACT alone opposes the dumbing down of standards that the NCEA represents. ACT wants higher standards validated by external exams.

"Health spending has gone up over 60% in the last 10 years in real terms yet as the growing strikes in the sector show, there has to be a better way. The ACT caucus will be examining how we can introduce public/private partnerships into health as they have in Britain, to ease hospitals' waiting lists," Mr Prebble said.

© Scoop Media

Gordon Campbell: On The Skewed Media Coverage Of Gaza

Now that he’s back as Foreign Minister, maybe Winston Peters should start reading the MFAT website which is currently celebrating the 25th anniversary of how Kiwis alerted the rest of the world to the genocide in Rwanda. How times have changed ...

In 2023, the government is clutching its pearls because senior Labour MP Damien O’Connor has dared suggest that Gaza’s civilian population - already living under apartheid and subjected to sixteen years of an illegal embargo, and now being herded together and slaughtered indiscriminately amid the destruction of their homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals - are also victims of what amounts to genocide. More