Dear John,

What a blast to return to Merivale McDonald’s in Christchurch yesterday to do a shift in the restaurant I worked in as a teenager. Incredibly, the McDonald’s is owned by the same family that employed me when it opened. I loved the job back then - working hard, belonging to a great team, and serving customers – in some ways the perfect political training ground! Check out this little video.

The Importance of Work

I believe that work gives people something welfare never can. It’s a sense of self-worth and mastery. The deep truth is that work is the fundamental source of our dignity. Work is where we build character. Work is where we create value with our lives. Some don’t get this.

I’m concerned for the 32,000 18-24 year olds on the Jobseeker unemployment benefit - an increase of 10,000 (or 44 per cent) under Labour. At a time of full employment and job shortages everywhere, this is disturbing because if these young people cannot be moved from welfare to work now, when will they? There is nothing kind or caring about leaving young people on benefits who could and should be working.

National has a policy to tackle this – giving individual support to those who are genuinely struggling to find or hold a job, but also sanctioning those thumbing their nose at their responsibilities.

Five Years of Failure

This week was the fifth anniversary of Labour coming to power (thank you Winston Peters!) Never before have we seen a government spend so much more money, hire so many more bureaucrats, and yet deliver worse outcomes. Here I am talking about it in Parliament this week. It has been five years of abject failure. National marked the anniversary with this website which I encourage you to use to vote for the failure that concerns you most.

Education

I found it hard to choose Labour’s worst failure because while the cost-of-living crisis is affecting everyone, New Zealand’s education system is failing thousands of pupils every year. It was a state education that set me on the path that led me from the drive-thru at McDonald’s to becoming CEO of Air New Zealand. But right now, far too many kids are not attending school, and too many are leaving school without the basic literacy, numeracy and writing skills they need. Some of them will be among the additional 10,000 young people on a Jobseeker benefit under Labour while employers are crying out for people.

In Parliament this week, Education Minister Jan Tinetti got a good grilling from National’s Erica Stanford on the abysmal numeracy, literacy and writing scores. Sadly, the exchanges you can watch here won’t give you any confidence that the education sector is in good hands. Watch it and weep.

Have a great weekend!
Christopher

PS Today, a report called “Future for Local Government” was released by a group commissioned by the Government. In almost 300 pages of mostly ideological waffle, there are proposals for mana whenua appointments to councils and a shift away from one person, one vote. National rejects these co-governance proposals, and any co-governance of public services. National is also committed to equal voting rights which are a fundamental tenet of democracy.