To whoever wants to win our vote in 2017, We call on you to restore at least $1.85 billion in Government funding to our public healthcare system. We also seek your commitment to ensuring future annual health budgets cover: - provision for new treatments - population growth - demographic changes - inflation

To whoever wants to win our vote in 2017, We call on you to restore at least $1.85 billion in Government funding to our public healthcare system. We also seek your commitment to ensuring future annual health budgets cover: - provision for new treatments - population growth - demographic changes - inflation

To whoever wants to win our vote in 2017, We call on you to restore at least $1.85 billion in Government funding to our public healthcare system. We also seek your commitment to ensuring future annual health budgets cover: - provision for new treatments - population growth - demographic changes - inflation

We demand you follow the recommendation of Judge Henwood and the draft Human Rights Commission Report and set up a wide-ranging independent Commission of Inquiry into the historic sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children in state care, to ensure these abuses can never happen again. [1] The Inquiry should seek to discover the scale of abuse, acknowledge the harm done to victims and clearly identify the failures in the system that allowed the abuse to occur. It is your professional, moral and ethical duty as Minister to expose and address the systemic failings in state care, give a voice to victims and create a robust framework to offer redress for the immense harm these children - our most vulnerable - suffered while in the care of the state.

Dear Prime Minister, We support your call to treat drug use as a health issue. This is especially important right now because every week people are dying from synthetic cannabinoids. Many want to access help, but find it’s just not available. You’ve got some big decisions coming up very soon about next year’s Budget. We the undersigned ask you to follow through on your commitment to treat drugs as a health issue by: • Doubling the investment for drug-related treatment and harm-reduction initiatives in Budget 2019. This means putting aside an extra $150million. • Ensuring that people using synthetics and other dangerous drugs get a referral to health and other services, rather than a criminal conviction. The Law Commission proposed a workable system in 2011 – it’s time to implement their recommendations.

Join these New Zealand’s Intergenerational Climate Ambassadors, aged from 13 to 88, to call on the Government for a climate reset now. We are all a group representing all generations including the Solid Generation (pre 1946), Baby Boomers, GenX, Millennials and Centennials, calling on the Government for accelerated climate action. The climate crisis is major, global, and perpetual – until we do something about it. In July 2017 Jacinda Ardern proclaimed “This is my generation’s Nuclear Free moment!” Since the Ardern-led government came to power, there has been progress. The Zero Carbon Act has become law, the Climate Change Commission has been created and is working on its first emissions reduction budget, and the first Climate Change Risk assessment has been published. But we still need rapid action to reduce those emissions. If we keep going the way we are we will have one and a half degrees of warming (compared to pre-industrial) in 10 years, two degrees in twenty years, and 3 to 4 degrees by the end of the century. While New Zealand is moving towards action on climate change, we need to move faster.

Over 50,000 New Zealanders live with the mental distress of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Exposure Response Prevention (ERP) therapy provides the skills needed to break free from OCD, whereas other kinds of therapy are ineffective. It is frustrating and wrong that ERP therapy is very difficult to access in the public health system (1). Those who can afford to do so turn to the private sector. Many people living with OCD can’t afford private therapy. The Disability Allowance is nowhere near enough to cover the cost of a course of weekly treatment. Those who do manage to gather enough money will struggle to find a psychologist or psychotherapist who has expertise in ERP and is accepting new clients. People remain trapped in an exhausting cycle of unwanted scary thoughts (obsessions), fear, doubt and anxiety, and time-consuming routines (compulsions). Everyday activities such as going to school or work, sharing a meal and driving a car can become impossible. People often get exhausted, and more problems develop - relationship breakdown, unemployment, depression, substance use, self-harm and thoughts of suicide. We call on the The House of Representatives and on the Cross-Party Mental Health and Addiction Well-being Group to support the 50,000 New Zealanders who live with OCD, by ensuring timely and equitable access to effective therapy via training to expand the workforce capable of delivering ERP therapy, both in primary and secondary care.

Dear Ministers, We call on you to legislate that all councils must install and service public drinking fountains in 50 per cent of public playgrounds, parks and sports grounds. Easy access to safe drinking water in outdoor spaces is an important public health and environmental issue and an essential community service. Making water fountains compulsory in public places will make it easier to find free drinking water when out, encourage better health for our communities and reduce plastic pollution from bottled drinks.

We call on every political party in Aotearoa New Zealand to commit, in their immigration policy, to act with urgency and humanity by: 1. Ending Tied Visas Decouple work visas from single employers. Migrant workers must have the right to change jobs freely to escape exploitation, creating a fairer labour market for all. 2. Suspending the 12-Month Stand-Down Period Scrap this cruel and counterproductive rule. It creates a massive risk of exploitation as migrants scramble to find any way to remain, while simultaneously harming family wellbeing and stripping our industries of the experienced workers they need. 3. Implementing Reasonable English Language Requirements Replace rigid, one-size-fits-all English testing with flexible, reasonable and role-appropriate language standards. 

We are calling on the Government to address the inadequacies in our failing health system. There is a lack of action and a need for a bipartisan approach to healthcare and to address the state of staffing issues. This petition seeks to address the failing state of our hospital infrastructure, and the need for the Government to build facilities that are fit for purpose. The public needs transparency, information and engagement regarding investigations and reports on these issues. ACTION 1: Ensure that all hospitals in New Zealand are properly staffed and resourced to meet the needs of their communities, now and into the future.   ACTION 2: Those hospitals that need rebuilding, such as Nelson Hospital, are rebuilt to meet the needs of the local community, now and into the future. ACTION 3: Publicly release all independent and internal reports into care at Nelson Hospital as well as all reports into healthcare provision in New Zealand, to provide full transparency to the public on issues of care within hospitals and the healthcare system.