Wednesday joy
Collective action does the soul good
Last week, writing submission after submission, on some quite nasty and cruel pieces of legislation that this government is seeking to enact, was demoralising. It is hard going, when the very government that is supposed to lead a country seems hellbent on destroying it.
But. This week came news that tens of thousands of people had made submissions:
The Ministry of Regulation received almost 23,000 submissions on its consultation on the Regulatory Standards Bill. Around 80% were sent in the final four days of the consultation period. The bill is yet to be introduced into parliament but is part of National and ACT's coalition agreement, despite similar legislation having a long, and unsuccessful, history in parliament.
There have been over 300,000 online submissions on the Treaty Principles Bill - and this was before the initial deadline. The full total will be known tomorrow.
Hearing that so many people sent in submissions on these two anti-Treaty Bills did my heart good.
It tells me that I am not alone in caring about these things.
It tells me that many of my compatriots also care about and value our collective rights and responsibilities to each other.
It tells me that we value our relationships with each other and are invested in creating a country that reflects our shared values of fairness, equitable access to resources, protection of people and land, and are interested in creating the conditions for human flourishing.
These values might not be reflected in our government of the day, but they are in everyday people.
Thank you, everyone who read information, compiled a submission, wrote an email, shared information, and responded in some way. There were some wonderful, freely shared resources and collective actions occurring across these processes, which is just the tonic when facing down attempts to individualise and capitalise who we are.
You are all amazing.
🫂Yes it did my soul good to both read discussions STARTED by people with knowledge on various aspects (such as yours on the disability implications etc), but more importantly the 'ordinary folks' who became engaged & shared & educated others. Now we know how things work & have people alerting us to deadlines, let's hope there is now a flax roots cohort to build on for the future 💪
Kia ora Rebecca it is fantastic to see the collective good in our country standing up for what they believe. I appreciate reading your posts and the research and tine you put into them. I remember you and your whanau from church. You always spoke with as an intelligent wahine who cared about social issues. I remember your children especially your wee girl. Thank you for continuing to bring a voice for many. Nga mihi Margaret Galvin ( was Rangnui)