Dear Minister, Lake Horowhenua is a taonga. Despite it's awful treatment over decades - sewage, stormwater and other run off from the land - this is a place we treasure and have long wished to clean up. We are asking, firmly, for you not to exclude Lake Horowhenua from your National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, due to be finalised this year. It is a terrible precedent to set that when a lake has been polluted then we can just forget about it, let it become a dump. This is a slippery slope that we ask you not put Aotearoa on.

SOUL is urgently seeking Government and Auckland Council intervention, to either buy the land at Ihumaatao known as SHA62 from Fletcher Building Limited or mandate a process that will enable all affected parties to come up with an outcome everyone can live with.

My name is Gurdeep Singh Sahni, and I am not the first bus driver in New Zealand to be assaulted while at work, and unfortunately, I won’t be the last. But with better protections for bus drivers like me, we can ensure that we’re as safe at work as we possibly can be. I’m asking you to support bus drivers by signing and sharing this petition and showing your support for drivers’ safety on the job. Three things can be done by our employers and councils to ensure we are safer at work: 1. Install secure cabins for bus drivers for their protection (including retrofitting existing buses). 2. Significantly increase the presence of Transport Officers on buses to keep both drivers and bus users safe, including to be available to assist in de-escalating any issues that may arise. 3. Set up a Workplace Health and Safety Committee in all bus depots and make sure that representatives are properly trained. These three basic protections outlined above would help significantly in making us feel safer at work and being protected when something inevitably does go wrong – we cannot change passengers’ behaviour on our own, and that is a wider issue that New Zealand should separately be grappling with.

We call on Western Bay of Plenty District Council to take urgent climate action to declare a climate emergency and urgently address climate breakdown through new policy initiatives and specific deadlines. We call for united action from our political representatives to acknowledge and address this challenge to be able to transition our present harmful economics to nurture the planet and look after the people. Sign this petition to urge the Council to urgently declare a climate emergency so it can make decisions and allocate resources to protect our future.

The Government has recently announced a commitment to halve net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This is a great start. However, two-thirds of this will be through buying carbon credits at the cost of roughly $1 billion per year [1]. It has to be done every year because if our emissions don’t drop we will still need to buy the credits. Instead of spending $1 billion on offsetting carbon emissions, can we please spend the money on actual emissions reduction projects here in Aotearoa New Zealand?

Dear Prime Minister, No matter who we are or where we live, we all know that relationships and connections with other people are what help us through the hard times. That strong communities are formed when we can rely on each other. When we lose a job, become sick, or our relationship breaks down, being able to ask the people who care about us for support, in the ways that meet each of our needs, is key to getting through those hard times. Right now, the Government is isolating people and punishing them for supporting each other during hard times, instead of encouraging people to build strong connections and support networks. People in politics have written the Social Security Act so a person at Work and Income can decide to stop or reduce a person’s income support, if they believe they have entered into a relationship “in the nature of marriage”. What this means in practice, is that people who start dating someone for up to six weeks, or have someone to stay up to three nights a week, or even people who have long-term flatmates, are having all they financial support cut. Some people at Work and Income have been insisting that friends, casual acquaintances, and new romantic partners should become financially responsible for that person, and often their children. There is no clear criteria used by people at Work and Income to decide whether to cut someone’s financial support. This results in random and unjust practice which lacks common sense. For instance, to determine if someone is reliant on another person financially, people have been asked by Work and Income caseworkers, “If they won the lotto do you think they would give you some of it?” This policy is eroding, not building, connections between people in our communities. It stops people developing new supportive relationships, that over the long term help people live a normal life. It makes people fearful of connecting with others in case their income is cut by people in Work and Income, and harms their mental wellbeing. Also, when people in government insist that a person becomes financially reliant on a new partner, it forces them, especially women, children and disabled people, into relationships that may be risky or abusive, without the financial independence to get out. It traps people in unhappy, dangerous and stressful living situations. The government should instead be seeking to support strong connections between people and build strong, resilient communities. The solution is for people in government to change how relationships are treated by Work and Income New Zealand so people get what they need to live a dignified life that does not trap them in poverty and make them fearful to build relationships. For instance, disabled people need to continue to get financial support to manage their health needs, regardless of their romantic status. And women raising children on their own need to have the financial independence to make decisions for the good of their children, whether they are in a relationship or not. The Government should be encouraging people to build strong connections because that's what builds great lives, great communities and flourishing countries. We are asking your Government to individualise benefit entitlements to ensure that everyone can retain their financial independence, no matter their relationship status.

We call for better guidelines and adequate training and funding for mental health education in the New Zealand high school curriculum covering these key areas: -Causes and symptoms of common mental health issues -How to support those experiencing mental distress -Available pathways for help -Positive wellbeing actions Students need to be exposed to this every year, and all the way up to year 13. UPDATE Lucy delivered this petition in 2017 and made an oral submission to the Health Select Committee (2019). 10,000 sign petition to push mental health ed for students: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2018706698/10-000-sign-petition-to-push-mental-health-ed-for-students. Select Committee report: https://www.parliament.nz/resource/en-NZ/SCR_99943/83c94b1ab1b4476a5fb8ade064c37a11e0255d9c

To help ensure we have a flourishing democracy where all young people participate, we need to introduce robust citizenship education in all secondary schools and lower the voting age to 16.

This iconic public land should never have been transferred from Far North District Council to Far North Holdings Ltd and sold without involving mana whenua and local residents. It was scandalous to sell off the land and even worse, to sell it off secretly. We ask FNDC and FNHL to rectify their mistake and refund the offshore buyer.

Vaping is an increasing issue in our youth that is causing long term addictions and health problems. According to the Ministry of Health, “In 2021/22, 1 in 12 people aged 15 or older (8.3%) were daily vapers (346,000 people).”(1) If you are a parent, there is a real chance that your teen is addicted to vaping or vapes on a regular basis. The vape culture amongst youth is fueled by the appealing look, colours, and flavours of vapes. In addition to that, vaping has become an entrance to nicotine smoking and addiction, capturing youth who had never previously smoked. As high school students, we have seen the consequences of vaping first-hand in modern society. We have grown up without vapes, and now they seem to be a big trend among youth all over New Zealand. We want to protect those who are vulnerable and could be seriously affected by vaping, which is why we have decided to do a student-led petition. We are calling on Health Minister Shane Reti to take action to change the strong vape culture here in New Zealand. Specifically, changing the packaging of vapes to something similar to current day cigarette packaging. We suggest the following adjustments: Standardising Packaging Requiring all vape packaging to follow a basic formatting in order to appear less appealing and attractive. This would mean removing the use of bright colours, removing distinctive logos and icons, using plain fonts, and generally normalising packaging so that it has no promotional content. Graphic Images of Health Impact All packaging should include images illustrating the potential health risks associated with vaping. Risks could include: inhaling airborne metals from vape coils, hundreds of potentially toxic chemicals, drinking/injecting vape fluid can kill you. This would likely be more eye-catching and leave a lasting impression on buyers, and would show current vapers the potential consequences of their actions. Obvious Health Warnings Packaging should include clear health warnings, such as the following: • ‘There is conclusive evidence that in addition to nicotine, most e-cigarette products contain and emit numerous potentially toxic substances.’(2) • ‘There is conclusive evidence that intentionally or unintentionally drinking or injecting e-liquids can be fatal.’(2) • ‘There is substantial evidence that e-cigarette aerosol contains metals. The origin of the metals could be the metallic coil used to heat the e-liquid, other parts of the e-cigarette device, or e-liquids. Product characteristics and use patterns may contribute to differences in the actual metals and metal concentrations measured in e-cigarette aerosol.’(2)