ACT's Simon Court

Over the weekend, at the United Nations General Assembly, Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced that New Zealand would not formally recognise a Palestinian state.

This follows weeks of the Government not explicitly laying out what their plans were regarding recognising Palestine, unlike countries such as France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, who all announced they would be recognising a Palestinian state.

The government’s decision to not recognise a Palestinian state has received criticisms from the opposition parties, international relations experts, and pro-Palestinian advocates.

For our weekly catchup, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to the ACT Party’s Simon Court about the country’s decision not to recognise Palestinian statehood.

We also discussed the government overhauling the Holidays Act.

The changes include a shift to hours-based accrual system for annual leave and a 12.5% Leave Compensation Payment for casual employees as opposed to accruing leave.

Joel also spoke to Simon about this topic, specifically about its impact on casual and part-time employees.

But first, we discussed the Government’s decision not to recognise Palestine.

On Saturday, roughly 20,000 marched in the pro-Palestine rally, the ‘March for Humanity,’ with protesters walking from Aotea Square to Victoria Park in Auckland’s CBD. 

For our weekly catchup with the ACT Party’s Simon Court, News and Editorial Director and Monday Wire Host, Joel, spoke to Simon about the rally and what protestors are calling on the government for, regarding their response to Israel’s war on Gaza, as the death toll in Gaza reaches over 64,000, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

As well as this, Regulations Minister and ACT Party Leader, David Seymour, has not ruled out changes to the labelling of alcohol, nicotine, and tobacco products.

However, firstly, they discussed the ‘March for Humanity’ rally.

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