ACT's Simon Court

Early last week, ACT MP, Todd Stephenson, re-lodged his End of Life Choice Amendment Bill, which seeks to expand the eligibility of the End of Life Choice Act.

This follows recommendations from the Ministry of Health’s office review into the law, which was an official requirement of the original 2019 Act. Stephenson’s bill has accepted all 25 recommendations.

National’s coalition agreement with ACT requires any proposed changes to the Act having to be progressed through as a member’s bill.

As well as this, Public Service Commissioner Sir Brian Roche, has not ruled out absorbing ministries such as the Ministry of Women and Ministry of Pacific People into larger ministries.

In 2023, the ACT Party had campaigned on removing these ministries.

And last week, The Justice Select Committee report into four-year parliamentary terms recommended a referendum on the potential move, but had recommended some provisions of ACT Party Leader, David Seymour, be scrapped.

These provisions include an incoming government only being allowed a four-year term if the government agreed to give the opposition the majority in the select committee. This would mean that some governments would be three-terms, and some would be four terms.

For our weekly catchup with ACT MP Simon Court, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to him about all these topics, starting with Todd Stephenson’s members bill.

A couple of weeks ago in our weekly catch-up with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, we discussed multiple countries moving to formally recognise Palestinian Statehood, and what New Zealand’s plans were in this regard.

Last week, Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said the country would carefully weigh its position over the next month in recognising the state of Palestine.

During a debate in Parliament, the government’s delay in recognising a Palestinian state, as opposed to other countries such as France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, led Green Party co-leader, Chlöe Swarbrick, to refer to the country as “outlier,” and called for the government MPs “with a spine” to “stand on the right side of history”. This led to her being ordered to leave Parliament by Speaker Gerry Brownlee, after refusing to apologise for her statement.

As well as this, last week, Education Minister, Erica Stanford, announced cancelling the early-reading book At the Marae from its Ready to Read Phonics Plus series. 

The government’s reasoning for this is through “mixed” evidence suggesting that learning both English and te reo Māori for young learners could confuse them.

The move has been widely criticised by linguists, academics, and educators, for being “an act of racism” and “white supremacy”.

For our weekly catch-up with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, Producer Castor spoke to Simon about both these topics, starting with recognising a Palestinian state.

Find out more about the Māori words which are a part of the official Oxford English Dictionary here

Last week, it was announced that the FBI would open a dedicated attaché office in Wellington, to investigate threats, such as terrorism, child exploitation, and cyber crime.

Announcing the office, director of the FBI, Kash Patel, sez the event is a “historic moment” and that with this move, symbolises the FBI’s prioritisation of having a permanent presence across all Five Eyes countries, which New Zealand is a part of.

Police Minister, Mark Mitchell, says Patel’s visit to the country “send[s] a clear message to criminals” that they “cannot hide behind an international border”.

For our weekly catch up with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel spoke to Simon about the FBI’s office, and some criticisms the move has had.

They also spoke about multiple countries recently indicating their moves to formally recognise a state of Palestine, and what plans Aotearoa has in this space.

But first, they discussed the FBI’s new office in the capital.

The government has recently announced that Te Pūkenga is set to return to ‘regional governance,’ re-establishing 10 polytechnics that were merged under the previous Labour-led government.

For our weekly catch up with the ACT Party, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to MP Simon Court about these developments with Te Pūkenga.

They also discussed Labour MP, Camilla Belich’s member’s bill — the Employment Relations (Employee Remuneration Disclosure) Amendment Bill, passing its second reading.

In the government, National are in support of the bill, however, New Zealand First, and ACT, are not. We discussed why ACT are not supportive of the bill, despite their coalition partner, National, being in support.

But first, they discussed the re-establishment of the 10 polytechnics that were previously merged under Te Pūkenga.