新西蘭英語 46 National Party Conference

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The National Party held their annual conference this weekend in Wellington. This was an important conference because it was their last one before the elections in November. The National Party had not said very much about their policies before this weekend. However, at the conference, we were told more about what they will do if they win the election.

They will give tax cuts but they also promise to increase spending on infrastructure to make the economy grow. Infrastructure usually means things like electricity, water and sewage systems as well as transport. John Key also included fast internet connections. If there are tax cuts, where will the money for these things come from? John Key said that the National Party will try to get private businesses to invest money, along with the government, in things like new roads. This would mean that we would pay tolls to use the roads. He also said that they would borrow more money.

Another change would be to make the Resource Management Act simpler so that permission for new roads and other major projects can happen faster.

John Key also said he wanted to improve standards in education, especially in literacy and numeracy. He plans to introduce training for high school students in trades such as plumbing and building and to allow 16 and 17 year olds to get high school qualifications from a polytech or a wananga.

He also promised a referendum on MMP which means we will have a vote about it. MMP was introduced in 1996 because small political parties did not have a chance of winning seats in Parliament although sometimes they received a lot of votes. With MMP, any party which receives 5% of the vote will have a seat in Parliament. We now have several small parties such as New Zealand First, United Future, the Greens, ACT and the Maori Party. Parliament has now become more representative of all New Zealand people. After the last election, there were 39 women, 21 Maori, 4 Pacific and 2 Asian MPs in Parliament.