Old Age Pensioner
I complained about ACT’s approach to several issues and the below e-mail is their response to me.
Dear Old Age Pensioner
Thank you for your feedback.
You may be interested in David’s recent FB post in response to the topic of COVID.
There’s an old saying, you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts. If you are interested in a factual account of ACT’s positions with regard to vaccination, mandates, and the protests. Here are a few with links.
In October 2021 ACT released a comprehensive policy showing how each organisation/business should be allowed to make its own policy. This would have meant a gym, for example, or a midwife practice, could choose whether they would be a vaccinated environment or not. This was quite different from the Government’s traffic light system, that required every gathering with more than x people and many types of workplace to have vaccine passes.
The policy is here: https://www.act.org.nz/press-releases/act-provides-certainty-around-vaccine-certificates-in-the-workplace
In November 2021 we advocated that any mandates that did exist should be vax or test, giving an alternative. https://www.act.org.nz/press-releases/mandate-monday-should-have-testing-alternative We were criticised by many, including National, at the time.
ACT campaigned for December 1, 2021 to be freedom day with no more COVID restrictions once everyone had a decent chance to be vaccinated if they wanted to: https://www.act.org.nz/press-releases/when-is-freedom-day
When the protest occurred in early 2022, David Seymour met with the organisers at the request of local business owners. He told them if they cleared the streets so business could function, stopped the threats of violence towards journalists and politicians, and stopped the harassment of girls walking to school, he would come out and meet the crowd.
Then Ardern and Luxon both slammed Seymour for having this meeting.
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/02/16/ardern-luxon-condemn-david-seymours-meeting-with-protesters/
The next day every other party took the same position, that they would meet the protestors if these conditions were met.
Sadly the people I met were never able to deliver on these very reasonable conditions even though every other protest does.
You can check all of these facts for yourself, besides clicking on the links above. Googling ‘ACT Party vaccine policy’ is a good start.
Just these basic facts alone should show you that ACT played a far more thoughtful and intelligent role in opposing the Government’s handling of COVID-19 in general and vaccine mandates in particular.
We recognised first that there was a conflict between citizens. Most pro-vaxx, others anti. The priority was to let people live together as harmoniously and protect the rights of the minority possible, despite this unavoidable disagreement. Had ACT’s policies been followed, there never would have been the level of conflict and division we faced.
