THE BRIGHT FIVE: POLICY EDITION

The YNSR plan to developing a bright five policy framework to submit to the Young Nationals National Conference in 2012.

Prepared by YNSR Policy Chair: John Brinsley Pirie.

YNSR Policy Schedule:

This paper is an informational document discussing the initiation of a nationwide Young Nationals agenda called kick-start and the YNSRs response to this. It will provide a brief summary of what kick-start is, what YNSRs responsibilities to it are, the channels of feedback and communication and will finally end on a section discussing YNSR policy objectives, the Bright Five.

The Kick-start programme, developed by National Policy Chair Meghan Hands is a programme used to develop inroads into the National Party to garner more influence into nationwide policy development. The mechanism for achieving this goal is the discussion document Kick-start. The Kick-start programme will initiate on the 1st April 2012 with the target of developing a robust process for policy development. The National YN Executive wants feedback on this proposal by 20th March 2012. The YNSR should consider what, if any feedback to submit. On 1st April 31st June, the proposal will take effect; regions will convene policy meetings backed by financial and communicative aid by the YN National Executive. The policy meetings will be used to develop five key policies to be submitted to the national Young Nationals on 1st July to be tabled for the YN Conference Agenda. The YN Conference will be held in July 2012 and each region will introduce their policy proposals. In September November 2012 a policy forum will be convened where five policies will be adopted nationwide. Megan Hands stresses the need to remain consistent to the principles of accountability, openness and democratic processes in the discussion of our regional policy proposals. There are several key changes that are being proposed in line with the kick start programme. The first is the formation of a policy team made up of regional policy chairs, this team will be delegated new powers and resources for research into strategy and policy. Secondly a review of the role of policy chair will be initiated; this may include expanding the role, providing training to advocacy and so forth. The third change is less of a change than a passing thought, which is that the regional branches should support the national executive in setting regional policy events.

There are a number of questions YNSR must ask of themselves: 2. Is YNSR happy with the proposed process? a. What can be added or left out?

1. If YN is to adopt policy to take to government, what should it be? 3. Are there any changes YNSR would care to make? b. Is five national priorities the right number?

c. Does YNSR support increasing the role and scope of the proposed new policy team? The answers to these questions should be sent to Megan Hands and replicated in this document.

YNSR Policy Development:

In line with the above document on the kick-start programme, I, in my role of policy chair have already taken the time to conduct two concurrently running polls on policy issues we may like to adopt. These polls are purely indicative and we will need to hold a policy symposium to finalise our proposals. I would suggest that we aim to complete a feedback document for Megan Hands by the end of exec meeting on the 4th March. I propose using executive prerogative to do this and submit the document to membership to retrospectively review. I see no harm to this as I believe any consensus on the executive is likely to flow to consensus to the society. Obviously if there is contention we will need to have a wider consultation process. However I would like to stress that the faster we provide feedback, the more time we have to work on developing policy. Onto development of policy, we are already halfway there. I have isolated seven viable policies to submit to a discussion with the membership. This is by no means an exhaustive list and suggestions can always be made to amend the list. It I now up to the executive to decide on the process of consultation. Again I would stress a rapid development of this process. As time goes on our members will become busier with study and our own workloads will increase. Preferably sometime before the mid-semester break or the week after I would submit we should convene a policy symposium made up of all interested members to finalise our five policies. The executive will then prepare discussion documents to send to the National Executive. I would like a framework for this forum to be developed by the end of executive meeting on the 4th march 2012 to be included in this document.

The following pages show the results of the recent concurrent polls I have undertaken and the isolated on the seven viable policies.

YNSR Public and Members Poll:

Preferences: As can be seen there was a variety in the preferences chosen by participants in both polls. The preferences have been ranked in order of preference 1-7. The topics were then given points based on their ranking in both polls. If an option received a number one ranking in one poll it received seven points. If it received a number seven ranking in the next poll it received one point.

Combined Preffered Options

Drug Reform Adoption Reform Euthanasia Same Sex Marriage Youth Suicide Organ Donation Civics 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

This shows a clear preference for Drug Reform as the favoured option, closely followed by Adoption Reform, Euthanasia, and same sex marriage. These would appear to be the most favoured options through the course of both polls. It is worth noting that I am of the belief that the results of this poll are slanted by a poor turnout on the members poll. I would suggest a more extensive members poll trying to get at least double the answers of this poll. The following results show the individual break-downs of both polls.

YNSR Members Poll

The results of the poll illustrate a clear preference for drug reform policy with nearly twice the number of votes than the next largest option. Reforming the Adoption Act received five votes which gave it the second place position. However the Adoption Act option only received one more vote that the next three options of; Youth Suicide, Organ Donation and Death with Dignity, all on four votes. The least popular options were same sex marriage and civics in schools, both with three votes. The obvious limitation of this poll was the low number of participants. This reinforces the proposition that the poll be merely indicative of the leanings on members in the society.

These results were cross references with the public poll, which in contrast gained over 700 votes.

YNSR Members
Civics 9% Same Sex Marriage 9% Death with Dignity 13% Reforming Organ Donation Adoption Act 13% 16% Youth Suicide 12%

Drug Law Reform 28%

YNSR Public Poll:

For reasons relating to the volume of answers and variety of answers, the results have been limited to the top seven results. The criteria for choosing these seven were based upon their popularity, feasibility and consistency with National Party Principles, in that order. Non desired results were ones which were, obscure, overly generalised and humorous. It is possible that in the selection of the top even results that there will be some lower down in popularity which are consistent with National Party Principles and/or feasible, however popularity is the main filter employed for more or less arbitrary reasons the results have been cut off at the top seven. These seven are not only the most popular but they are feasible and broadly consistent with National Party Principles. They are also broadly consistent with the proposals found in the YNSR members poll.

Organ Donation

Civics

Youth Suicide

Death with Dignity

YNSR Public Poll

Adoption Act Reform

Drug Law Reform

Same Sex Marriage

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

YNSR Public Poll

Organ Donation 7% Civics 10% Youth Suicide 13% Drug Law Reform 18% Death with Dignity 14% Adoption Act Reform 17%

Same Sex Marriage 21%

Discussion: When we compare the two polls we see a broad consistency in the results:
30 25 20 15 Members Poll 10 5 0 Drug reform Adoption Reform Youth Suicide Organ Euthanasia Same Sex Civics in Donation Marriage School Reform Public Poll

There is a finding here that there is no fundamentally opposed difference between the public poll and the members poll. There are two intriguing differences between the two polls; (1) drug reform option holds a nearly 10% preference among members than with the public, this is likely to be due to the greater numbers of people who voted in the public poll than the members poll.

Conclusion: I am of the opinion that these polls provide clear indicative data of policies which resonate with youth in NZ. The filter system deployed to narrow the policies to seven revealed seven possibilities that should be discussed. I make the following five propositions: 1. The YNSR should consider merging a policy of same sex marriage and adoption reform together. They complement each other and tackle a principled objection many people have to negative discrimination by the state. 2. The YNSR executive should initiate a policy forum amongst its members to discuss the selection of the bright five policies. This discussion would negate the suggestion for another members poll. 3. The YNSR executive should consider developing another poll after a bright five have been finalised and make it public to generate news value of the policies. 4. The results in this document, along with the assessment of the kick start programme and any added material should be made public to the YNSR members for input. 5. This document, when completed by the YNSR executive should be presented at the symposium, and to the local National party branches for greater input form the NZ National Party. Any input from non YNSR members should be taken on board as merely indicative.