MAY 22, 2002

Alliance Party National Council member Mike Treen has been selected as the party’s Auckland Central candidate for the coming election.

Mike Treen has been a well- known activist on Peace and Justice issues over many years. He resigned his position as personal secretary to Cabinet Minister Matt Robson in protest against Robson’s decision to go against Alliance policy and support the US-led war against Afghanistan.

The Alliance will be campaigning on the central themes of the right to a job, scrapping student loans and tertiary fees, and free health care for all. “Free market policies have failed to deliver and it’s time for the government to roll up its sleeves and get the problems fixed. We are a wealthy nation of less than 4 million people and we don’t accept that the task of delivering what New Zealanders need in these areas is such a complex task. All it requires is a government with the determination to do it.”

As the party’s International Secretary Mike Treen says he has a special responsibility “to highlight the party’s opposition to the corporate free-trade agenda backed by all the parties to our right – from Labour to Act.”

This agenda goes hand-in hand with a dangerous unilateralism and militarism in the US government that threatens new wars over the world’s oil and other resources. “The Alliance will be the antiwar party in this election”, he said.

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