A new and unique web service has been launched today, giving New Zealand voters the tools to compare the political policy of all the main Parties, over a comprehensive range of policies.

This free service, www.policy.net.nz, gives voters an easy way to compare what the parties stand for, in the words of each party’s own policy.

The crisp, clean layout of each page makes comparison easy.

Each policy comparison features the party logo (hot-linked to the party’s website), the spokesperson (hot-linked to their bio), and five bulleted key points, in the exact words used by the party, on their website. These bulleted points are themselves hot-linked back to the policy document on the party’s website, allowing direct reference to the original source.

This service is a project of JDL, an Auckland web publisher. JDL also publish the site www.interest.co.nz a comprehensive comparison of New Zealand retail interest rates.

Too many voters make last minute choices based on personalities. Such decision-making is not healthy for our democracy. One reason for this is that there is no easy way to compare the policy on offer. It is almost impossible for an individual voter to do meaningful comparison of specific policy that they are interested in. Policy interests are very diverse, and unless those interests are covered by the ‘issue-of-the-day’ in the news media, voters are left with the Herculean task of doing original research, or relying on the opinions of others to form a judgement.

policy.net.nz gives individual voters an easy way to find what all the parties say on over 100 specific issues, and to easily compare these positions.

The site has no editorial or commentary, and takes no position on any issue. It is apolitical – it promotes the view that it is up to voters to make their own decisions, based on the evidence. It deals with what the parties say (what they do is something else).

Ends

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