Today we had 16 attending a meeting in Otaki. Although we only had only an afternoon to get through a lot, we agreed on at least the following core points:
Our vision is for a New Zealand..
1. Where we have full employment in quality fulfilling work for those wanting it.
2. Where sufficiency is a natural right.
3. Where New Zealanders are happy.
4. Where there is a ‘reverence’ for nature
5. Where the national and local economies are resilient in the face of shocks or threats.
6. Where there are vibrant and functioning local communities.
7. Where full human rights and responsibilities are affirmed and supported.
8. Where our economy is operating as a healthy living organism, like a social ecosystem.
Our core policy ideals
1. New Zealand has the right to control the issue of its sovereign currrency.
2. We will reform the banking system including reregulation.
3. We will remove the imperative for growth.
4. We will seek radical monetary reform, including enabling multiple currencies.
5. We will stop land speculation.
6. We will discourage damaging speculative activity in currencies.
7. We support apprenticeships.
8. We will introduce a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI).
9. We will repatriate strategic assets.
10. We will enable local banks, local currencies and local redevelopment.
11. We will build stronger local economies and strengthen local community.
Three of us had been to the Values Party 40th reunion the previous day and we reported on the exciting day we had. We looked back, evaluated progress over 40 years and identified where we hadn’t succeeded. It had been agreed that inequality had widened and the environment had deteriorated over that time, despite all our rhetoric and our work. The reunion proposed a thinktank to challenge and improve Green policy. In fact the reunion was part of the Green Party conference and a book Beyond Today, a Values Story had been launched to link Greens with their origin.
So just as the Values Party did forty years ago, we had a delightful conversation about our long term and short term strategies and tactics. We had two columns, one for blue sky scenario and one for a realistic scenario. We are aiming to stand candiates for the local body election next year and for the next general election.
Awesome! As a relative youngster/newcomer, want to say “Thanks!” to the battlers who have been supporting these kind of ideas for 40 years. I see the Values Party was formed in 1972, same year as the “Limits to Growth” book. Good news for battlers: it doesn’t take long these days – with a few youtube vids – to “wake up”.
In 1982 the first Report for the Club of Rome The Limits to Growth showed how an economic system that demands infinite growth in a finite world is fundamentally unsustainable.
As you say it is 40 years, time for another round. And coincidentally last week the book Money and Sustainability – the Missing Link was published as a Club of Rome Report. Authors are an impressive bunch Bernard Lietaer, Christian Arnsperger, Sally Goerner and Stefan Brunnhuber.
Here is some of the blurb on the back: “We tend to assume that we must have a single, monopolistic currency, funded through bank debt, enforced by a central bank. But we don’t need any such thing! in fact, the present system is outdate, brittle and unfit for purpose (witness the Eurozone crisis). Like any other monoculture, it’s profitable at first but ultimately a recipe for economic and environmental disaster. The alternative is a monetary ‘ecosystem’ , with complementary currencies alongside the conventional one. This is more flexible, resilient, fair and sustainable. Societies worked like this in the past. So can we.”