imnofox joined volunteers in the head office to reach out to Māori voters up and down the country through their telephones

“Kia ora, Jason. It’s imnofox, calling on behalf of the Green Party. How are you tonight?”

”Yeah, I’m good mate. Aren’t you the co-leader or something?”

“That’s right, I’m co-leader of the Greens alongside your local candidate for Te Pōti Māori, /u/AnswerMeNow1. We’re both working hard to throw out this destructive Liberal National government that has locked more and more people into poverty and continued to degrade te ao mārama and to form a new progressive government for the good of New Zealand.”

”Oh yeah, it’s been pretty shitty seeing the destruction of our rivers. We’ve watched as the mauri of our local awa continues to get worse over the last few years.”

“I’m glad you’ve brought this issue up. When the Greens were in coalition with our friends in the Labour Party, we spent $137 million every year to support the cleaning up of our rivers. It’s true that much of river pollution can be attributed to farming, especially to nitrate fertilisers. That money came directly from the nitrate pollution charge, so we were reinvesting that revenue straight back into cleaning up the damage caused to our waterways. Unfortunately, the National party totally abolished that programme, whilst keeping that tax to pay for other things, like new planes. I can promise you that we will instantly restore that programme, and it’s something I’d like to do straight away as Minister for Primary Industries.”

”That sounds pretty good- but didn’t that naked National candidate promise to clean up rivers?”

“He did, but it was clearly an empty promise. They have presented no plans to make that happen, and have a record of continually slashing waterway restoration programmes, dropping water quality standards, and have had what can only be described as an anti-river record for their entire parliamentary career. Those are the promises a backbench National MP can make- but the record shows, whatever they do in government will be totally harmful to the mauri of our rivers.”

*”Thanks for that man, I’ll definitely be voting two ticks Green!”

“Have a good night, my friend!”

imnofox clicked the ‘Next Call & Save’ button, after entering in the call’s reflection form

“Kia ora, Summer. It’s imnofox, calling on behalf of the Green Party. How are you tonight?”

”Kia ora, I’m well. You’re the Green Party co-leader, right? Oh my god, I can’t believe I’m speaking to you. I actually have a couple of questions, if that’s alright?”

“Oh that’s great, fire ahead!”

”Yeah, so I’m currently studying to become a doctor, and it’s a real challenge. My background isn’t one of money, so it’s really hard to get by without a student allowance and the student loan limit.”

“We’re hearing that struggle a lot, and it’s something we definitely are passionate about changing. We’ve promised to lift the 8-year cap on student loans for medical students, and we’re going to restore student allowances for postgraduate students to ensure everyone gets a chance at a world class education.”

”Oh my god, that’s perfect! That’ll make a HUGE difference to my life! I guess my second question is around taxes. I heard the Liberal Party wants to raise GST, and I’m afraid of other parties doing the same.”

“That’s a valid concern. GST is a totally regressive tax, that impacts those on low incomes the hardest, simply because low income households spend more of their income on goods and services. The Greens are committed to introducing no regressive taxes, including a commitment not to raise GST or the low to middle income tax brackets. Ideally, I want to reduce GST further, but that’ll depend on the affordability. We want to fund our plans by introducing a new higher tax bracket for income over $140,000, not by taxing the poor. The Liberal Party’s record shows that they’re all too happy to leave working people on the curb if they’re able to give their friends a bigger tax cut. That’s why it’s so important to vote for the Green Party and for /u/AnswerMeNow1 in Te Pōti Māori. /u/Ninjjadragon will agree to whatever finance proposals the Liberals tell them to agree to, and the last budget shows that, with cuts to almost every service.”

”Thanks for chatting, it’s been great hearing about the Green plans. I know I’ll be voting for /u/AnswerMeNow1 and the Green Party”

“Have a great night!”

imnofox filled in the reflection form and moved on to the next contact, doing this well into the late hours of the evening