Marten Rozeboom, Act candidate for the Rotorua electorate, catches up with the Rotorua Daily Post ahead of the election to talk about the issues facing the electorate, from tourism to family values.
Marten Rozeboom believes New Zealand needs better family values.
Rozeboom is the Act candidate for the Rotorua electorate.
The dairy farmer-turned-tutor was born in Te Puke and spent time in Reporoa dairy farming.
“I’m very passionate about what happens in this electorate, from its agriculture to its tourism.
“I’ve got a personal belief that Rotorua should be [the] North Island’s premier tourism destination and I’ll do my best to work to improve that situation in Rotorua, but I’m currently employed in the tertiary sector,” he said.
Rozeboom is an engineering tutor at Te Pukenga and believes New Zealand has “some serious issues with our education sector”.
“We’re not educating our youth for the New Zealand of tomorrow; we need to be more technology savvy,” he says.
The Act Party’s values align closely with his own, he says.
“Personal responsibility, free market, the ability for people to live the life that they themselves choose to live and also to be the person that they wish to be and not have limitations placed on them by an outside source or force.”
He says we need better family values in this country.
“The responsibility of how the country grows and the values we see comes from the home, not from central government. Central government should provide the environment where we flourish as a country to encourage growth, encourage personal development and personal responsibility.”
Rozeboom says the country’s productivity levels are low and need to be improved, and, working in the education sector, he says he sees the “declining aspirations of our youth” on a regular basis.
“Our youth aren’t aware of all the opportunities that are available to them and we need to do better in that area.”
He says more work needs to be done to hang on to health workers, police and other industry professionals leaving the country.
“We’re having too many people retire out of industries and they take all that knowledge with them. We need to hang on to that knowledge and keep it in those boats for us to build on into the future.”
He says the Act Party is running in the Rotorua electorate primarily to get the party vote.
The party’s core platform is co-governance, he says.
“Let’s as a country, New Zealand, have a conversation around co-governance, what it means, what the principles mean. Let’s define the principles and put it to the public to decide. Let’s have a referendum.”
He says there needs to be serious consequences for crime.
“We want to do rehabilitation. Too many young people go into prison and some of the reasons that they’re there is their poor literacy and numeracy. So let’s focus on getting them to read and write so they can actually apply for jobs when they come out.”
He also says the cost of living is an issue: “So, Act will work very carefully in the next government that is formed to reduce the cost of living, in general.”
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