Greens urge young people to get out and vote
6 September 2005
Greens urge young people to get out and vote
The Green Party is launching its youth campaign in Auckland this afternoon, urging young people: 'Don't Throw Your Vote Away: Keep New Zealand Green'.
The youth campaign involves advertising in student magazines; the distribution of beer mats, stickers and posters; animated email ads; and the launch of 'Twenty-One Reasons Why Young People Should Go Green'. The campaign is themed on the old recycling ads, which urged New Zealand to 'Keep NZ Clean'.
Green Campaign Manager Russel Norman says the youth campaign is an integral part of the Greens' election strategy.
"We believe it's vitally important that young people see the relevance of the election to their future," Dr Norman says. "That's why we're investing in campaign material that young people will identify with to make sure they Keep NZ Green and don't throw their votes away."
The youth campaign is being launched by Green Co-Leader Rod Donald and Green Youth Affairs Spokesperson Nandor Tanczos at Vulcan Lane in central Auckland. Mr Donald and Mr Tanczos will then be going on a pub crawl around central Auckland's favourite drinking holes, handing out the beer mats to Kiwis having a lunchtime drink.
"Young people are the leaders of the future," Mr Donald said. "The Green Party's keen to encourage potential first-time voters to get on the electoral roll and make the most of the power of their vote.
"We're not interested in appealing to people's greed, we want to appeal to their intelligence. That's why we're taking the needs of young people seriously, not just because their vote counts as much as everyone else, but because we have a responsibility to pass this world on to them in a state that's worth inheriting."
Electoral Commission figures show that young people vote in much smaller numbers than older New Zealanders.
"In Auckland Central, only two-thirds of people under 25 were enrolled to vote in the last election," Nandor said. "Young people's voices are not well represented in Parliament. It's important that young people do have a say because the decisions we make now are going to impact over the next couple of decades at least.
"Particularly with environmental issues, we can see the time lag between cause and effect can be very long. So, it's important for young people to be thinking about the world that they're inheriting, and thinking about what kind of world they want that to be. The Greens are the only people who are talking about the real issues that face us: fossil fuel depletion, climate change, ecological degradation, and student loan debt. We're the only people who take those things seriously, and they are the big issues that face us today.
"We know that young people are more likely to vote Green. I think that's because the Greens are the only political party with a vision of the future that goes beyond more economic growth."
Twenty-one reasons why young people should go Green
Green Party of Aotearoa/New Zealand
2. We'll ensure you have a planet worth
inheriting. 3. We'll be straight with you. 4. We have a vision for your country's future. We have a vision for New
Zealand as an Econation
A future where
technology is harnessed to extract more from each unit of
resources, rather than extracting more resources from an
already depleted earth. A future where human potential can
flourish, no longer stunted by chemical residues in food and
water, or by unhealthy buildings and work practices. 5.
We'll make sure you're paid a fair wage. The Greens would
raise the minimum wage to $12 an hour for all our workers,
no matter what their age. That's over $100 more a week in
the hand for young workers currently on the minimum wage,
and without having to cut taxes by a single cent. 6.
We'll make sure students don't have to borrow to
live. But not
students - who, if they can't make ends meet, have to take
out a loan or line up at foodbanks. We believe this is a
form of discrimination against students, who are primarily
young people. We would combat this discrimination by
introducing a universal living allowance for students, set
at the level of the unemployment benefit. 7. We'll treat
all young people with respect. 8.
We stand for gender liberation. While some
politicians express resentment that women have made great
social strides in the past few decades, and call it
"political correctness gone mad", the Greens are proud that
New Zealand has strong female role models. 9. We believe
young people deserve the same benefits as adults. 10. We'll make sure no students are
suspended or expelled from school without good
reason. That's why we're calling for an Independent Review Panel,
which would look at decisions made by Boards of Trustees to
suspend or expel students, and decide whether they are
justified. 11. We'll make sure young people learn the
things that matter
* Learning about sustainability and how human life
interacts with our natural environment; 12. We'll take
youth suicide seriously. 13. We'll
stop you from being burdened by debt. Too many of our
brightest young people are heading off overseas because they
feel let down by politicians who got free tertiary education
themselves but are now happy to burden the next generation
with huge levels of student debt so they can afford tax cuts
for themselves. The Greens think this intergenerational
theft is wrong, and that's why we're proposing to introduce
a debt write-off
14.
We'll tackle drug abuse head-on. We believe the amount of
drug abuse
By the same token,
the Greens believe that drug abuse is a health issue, not a
criminal justice one. Those locked into harmful drug habits
need to be given medical help, not rejected by society and
thrown in prison. 15. We'll make sure the law doesn't
discriminate against young people. At the moment, there are great inconsistencies
across different parts of the law. For example, once
tertiary students hit 18, they're not considered
'dependents' in assessing whether their parents are eligible
for Working For Families tax relief. However, the very
same students, when the Government works out whether they're
eligible for a student allowance, are considered dependent
on their parents until they turn 25. We think this is wrong,
and would push for consistency in age restrictions across
all legislation. 16. We'll make sure you have a buses or
trains to get around. 17. We believe education is a right, not a
privilege 18. We accept there's not endless space to dump our
rubbish. The Greens are committed to more recycling and
getting manufacturers to take responsibility for the
environmental impact of their products. We need to be buying
and making more durable, higher-quality goods that don't
fall apart within a few hours of purchase. 19. We'll
crack down on parents who beat their kids. The Greens think it's just plain wrong
that children are the one group of New Zealanders who can be
legally assaulted. Young people know that this
discrimination is unfair and dangerous. The Greens are
committed to a future free from violence. 20. We've got
plans to prepare for the end of cheap oil. The sooner
we face up to the fact that the end of cheap oil is upon us,
the less of a mess young people are going to be left to
clean up. The Greens will begin a major programme to
increase efficiency of electricity use and production from
renewables. 21. We've made sure silly mistakes you make
when you're young won't haunt you for the rest of your
lives. The Greens championed a Clean Slate
ENDS
1. We won't send you overseas to die in
illegal, immoral wars.
The Greens are passionate about
New Zealand's right to have an independent foreign
The future of our planet is looking less than
perfect: from climate
Too many
politicians, including Don Brash, are evasive on issues that
really matter, such as whether we should have supported the
war on Iraq and whether we should remain proudly
nuclear-free. The Greens promise to always say what we
think, whether our views are likely to be popular or not.
While
most politicians think about the next seven days, we think
about the next generation, and the generation after that. We
think long-term. We're not like other parties who have an
incoherent collection of policies thrown together for
short-term political gain.
For too long,
the hard work
Tertiary students are the only group in New Zealand
society who have to take out a loan
Young people know that
human beings come in all shapes and
Young people know that
women
At
present, all Kiwis 18 or over are treated by the benefit
system
It's a disgrace that almost 5,000 Kiwi kids
There are some things are so important that
all young people should know about them. The Greens believe
these all-important things should be incorporated into all
levels of the school curriculum, including:
* Learning about
Maori language and culture and the Treaty of Waitangi;
* Learning about how our democracy and our
constitutional framework function.
We believe youth suicide
We believe legislation
should be consistent in specifying when somebody ceases
being a child under the law and starts being treated as an
adult.
More than the rest of the
population, young people rely on public transport
Tertiary education is a right
The way we're going, we're soon going to run out
of space to dump our rubbish
At present,
parents who badly beat their kids (even with implements!)
can get off being convicted by using the "reasonable force"
defence provided in Section 59
Everyone knows
petrol prices