Phillipa Branthwaite,
Eastern Bay of Plenty Labour branch chair

This has been a year of responding to the chaos of the coalition Government.

As a Labour branch and as individuals we have called the Government out on:

* The attacks on Māori anyway they could. This included attacking any use of te reo, and the removal of focused support for Māori health care.

* The attacks on public sector jobs.

* Underfunding the public health sector, not filling vacancies in a timely manner, cutting so-called backroom jobs, stopping well-needed digital upgrades and cutting back on planned hospital builds.  

* Undermining public schools by bringing back the experiment of charter schools, stopping school building and cutting back on school lunches.

* Re-establishing boot camps, even though the evidence says they are a failure

* Selling state housing stock and stopping funding Kainga Ora homes despite the 20,000 waitlist for public housing.

* Introducing fast-track legislation which opens the door to corruption as large political donors are allowed to apply for fast-track approvals with no consideration of environmental, local government infrastructure, or wider issues.

Actually, it feels a bit like the new Trump government – there are too many attacks to mention.

Like Trump, the coalition Goverment has them coming thick and fast and we only briefly noticed something before a new attack was on us.  

But the area that has caused the most heartache this year has been the attacks on the Treaty.

Most Māori and Pākehā see Te Tiriti as theirs and do not understand the continual undermining of it by Act – a minor coalition party.

This undermining is in line with Trump’s Project 2025 plan, but instead of attacks on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) and against immigrants, they are creating division with attacks on Te Tiriti through the Treaty Principles Bill, the Regulatory Standards Bill, and the removal of Te Tiriti from many pieces of legislation.

All are about opening up land, resources and the environment to being only controlled by individuals and undermining communal rights and environmental protection.

Te Tiriti stops this in New Zealand, which makes it a target for proponents of overseas interests buying up and owning Aotearoa.

Christopher Luxon has shown himself to be a spineless leader and is run by his two junior political party leaders, who are much more politically adept than him.

In the Eastern Bay, the Labour party branch responded with our own protests against the tax cuts, against the Treaty Principles Bill and against attacks on our local hospital.

We joined up with demonstrations against the tax cuts at key roundabouts around our town.

We were rewarded by seeing how many local people tooted in support of the issue and clearly understood that tax cuts, which many of them might have received, were bad for the country.

We were proven right. Borrowing for these tax cuts, along with funding tax cuts to landlords and tobacco companies and cutting infrastructure funding ,led us into a policy-induced recession.  When the Treaty Principles Bill was introduced, the branch had many discussions about this at our numerous and regular Labour party stalls, attended local hikoi, travelled to Rotorua to walk with the formal hikoi, and some supporters went to Wellington to meet the hikoi there.

It was a major moment in Aotearoa’s history as we all showed the depth of feeling people in our country have for Te Tiriti and all that it represents for them. When the very short timeframe for submissions on the bill was announced, not only did many branch members write detailed submissions, but again our Labour party stalls became a key place for us to connect and support people over this issue.

We developed a submission form and over 80 people signed, and these were forwarded to the elect committee.

Many more were taken home for people and their whānau to complete.

This year, we will continue this work as Act wants to create more chaos and divisiveness and intends to take this around the country.

We will be organising against them if they come to the Bay of Plenty.

The removal of the obstetric and gynaecologist services to Tauranga, except for a very limited number of so-called normal births, made the health funding cuts very real to us in the Bay and it galvanised the community.

This so-called temporary cut is a result of poor management, poor recruitment processes and pressure from the Government to cut spending.

There is an informal agreement not to fill vacancies quickly as they make savings on salaries with vacant positions.

Approval for any appointments is made very far up the management chain. This is a deliberate way to cut spending by slowing everything down, while being able to say we have not cut the service.  

Labour was part of a small group of activists led by Nandor Tanczos who were using the traditional and social media to put pressure on our MP and Health NZ to provide a locum service before any mums or babies are harmed.

We organised a Hikoi for Health with over 1000 people walking with us.

The executive cirector of the senior doctors union, Sara Dalton, spoke to the hikoi about the general issues that our health systems faces through underfunding, and Ingrid Leary, Labour MP from Taieri, Dunedin spoke about how the attacks on the funding of Dunedin Hospital have impacted there and how this removal of obstetric and gynaecological services are part of a greater pattern of poor management and underfunding.  

Many Labour party members were in orange demonstrating their support at the hikoi. The Government attacks on health will continue to be an issue this year.

Labour now has a local list MP, Jo Luxton based in Gisborne. Her portfolios include agriculture, biosecurity and real communities, which are a good fit for our electorate.

We will be seeing and hearing a lot from Jo over the next two years.