Dear John,
This week I am focused on our democratic right to free speech and
our need for this government to take action on a number of other
fronts and not just promise a budget for something that won’t happen
like rolling out better mental health care.
The National Party believes that freedom of speech is a fundamental
right. We will fight any attempts Jacinda Ardern’s Government makes to
criminalise speech beyond the threshold of ‘inciting violence’, which
is already provided for in New Zealand law.
While the National Party condemns vile speech that is intended to
insult, it is a big leap from condemning it to criminalising
it. The Prime Minister needs to be clear about the intent of this
law reform. At the moment it seems only approved opinions about some
subjects will be allowed and questioning those opinions will be a
criminal offence.
The government has not said who will decide what opinions are
acceptable. The Minister of Justice is not clear on what “hatred” is
and there is no clear threshold for punishment stated.
I invite every New Zealander to have their say on these
changes on this government website, please click here.
Covid-19 Vaccinations
This is simple – where are our vaccinations? The Minister has said
New Zealand will run out of vaccinations on Tuesday 6 July - that is
this coming week. After ordering a range of vaccinations last year in
November and being told it was all sorted, someone then decided to
order Pfizer vaccinations only.
Expectations were raised earlier this year that we would all be
vaccinated by the end of this July. Now not even the online booking
system will be live until 28 July.
It seems we can expect to be vaccinated by the “end of the third
quarter” ie December 2021. We need 97 per cent of people to be
vaccinated for good protection in our country for when our borders
fully reopen. When this will be is now unknown.
On top of this do we know how much the Government is spending on
Covid-19?
Half of the $10 billion Grant Robertson set aside in the case of a
further COVID-19 resurgence has been spent funding Labour’s
non-COVID-related ideas.
Following the recent budget only $5.1 billion is now left.
It appears that some of these funds have been spent on water
safety, funding for the Olympics, house building acceleration and
other projects.
If New Zealand has to have another major Covid-19 lockdown due to
the infiltration of a more virulent strain of the virus and the fact
that we have insufficient people vaccinated, $5 billion wouldn’t go
very far in supporting businesses and New Zealanders through it.
Lack of funds for a resurgence will force the Government to create
an even larger debt burden for our recovery, debt that our children
and grandchildren will have to pay back.
Mental Health Crisis unchecked
Why has the mental health situation in New Zealand now reached
crisis point?
A budget of $235million was set aside in 2019 for building
facilities and providing expert staff for treating people with mental
health and addiction issues.
We have now learned that just $500,000 has been spent and that has
only resulted in five extra acute mental health beds across the whole
of New Zealand.
Meanwhile too many children are waiting more than eight weeks to
receive mental health treatment and care.
National would focus on building ‘bed’ capacity and supporting a
workforce to deliver compassionate mental healthcare to Kiwis in need,
starting from their first contact and all the way to treating acute
conditions.
Corrections Officers need support
Under the current Minister there has been a 92 per cent increase in
assaults on Corrections Officers in our prisons.
The number of corrections officers requiring medical treatment from
assaults has increased by an alarming 80 assaults since 2017.
Sadly many of the people serving a prison sentence are violent
offenders so this can result in attacks on other prisoners and
Corrections Officers. The amount of violence in our prisons must be
reduced and offenders held to account for their actions.
National wants Corrections Officers to have the tools they need to
provide them with a safer work environment.
National’s plan includes:
- Requiring mandatory reporting of assaults to Police;
- Reforming the disciplinary regime;
- Creating a frontline safety improvement programme;
- Making sure PPE is fit for purpose;
- Trials of the use of tasers.
We owe it to our Corrections Officers to make sure their workplace
is as safe as possible.
There are many issues besides these that my National MP’s and I
have in front of us and we are all doing what we can to reduce the
problems that the people in our Electorates and across New Zealand are
facing as a result of them.
Kind regards,
Judith
Hon Judith
Collins http://judithcollins.national.org.nz/
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