Opinion: Time for a change of government

This is my first official column as the Labour Waiariki candidate for 2017. If you don't know, it's the Maori electorate that covers from Tauranga out past Whakatane to the Cape, inward to Rotorua and down past Turangi to Taupo.

To me it's a case of same, same, but different. It still means holding the government to account, including all the political parties that support it such as the Maori Party. These parties have signed off on annual government budgets which have cut $1.7 billion out of our health budget. This has resulted in doctors striking and patient waiting times being prolonged, both unsafe and frustrating for staff and for patients.

This government has also cut police budgets too, so crime is up here in Rotorua and the new Police Association president has admitted frontline police are at crisis point.

The education sector is up in arms too with the government looking at re-introducing bulk funding against the wishes of teaching staff right across New Zealand so a strike is on the cards.

Housing is a complete mess in my view, with the government still choosing to take a $237 million dividend from Housing NZ despite New Zealand having a housing market that is out of control, our state houses being sold off and a shocking homelessness problem.

In my view our current government and their support parties are out of ideas and solely focusing on having surpluses on paper. Disappointingly, the Maori Party supply their 'confidence' to these budgets which they claim Maori are achieving gains from. What gains? Tired doctors? Scared teachers? Expendable front line police? Homelessness?

Labour in government will offer us all hope. We'll embark on a monumental house building project to offset the ones we've lost. We'll stop running Housing NZ like a profit making business and get it back to the business of housing New Zealanders. We'll properly resource our police and our health sector too. The best thing is we'll have a genuine focus on ridding our country of poverty, which is a black mark on our modern society and should never have reached its current levels. We'll only do all of that though, when we change the government to a Labour-led government next year. Follow my Facebook page if you want to stay informed.

- Tamati Coffey is the Labour party candidate for Waiariki and the party's Rotorua spokesman.