1. Russell Norman's retirement as leader: Russell
Norman has been a highly effective Green Party co-leader, but despite the fact that
he and Metiria Turei have succeeded in elevating the Green Party total voter
share from eight to thirteen percent, after failing to proceed any further, he
has decided to end his tenure as Greens co-leader later this year. Norman became Greens male
co-leader after the tragically premature death of Rod Donald, the first to hold
the post. His political style and direction tended to remind some left political
commentators of the German Greens and their growing centrism after the radical
cultural and social policies of the eighties and early nineties. His
replacement may be either No 3 Green Party List MP Kevin Hague, or Wellington
Green List MP James Shaw. LGBT voters have always had time for the Greens,
whose parliamentary presence has helped to pass the Care of Children Act, Civil
Union Act, Statutory Reference Amendment Act and Marriage Amendment Act. The
party has also supported Louisa Wall's initiative to add gender identity to the
Human Rights Act and opposed the transphobic and defunct Manukau City Council
(Regulating Prostitution in Specified Places) Bill. Given that the LGBT
community, environmental and peace movements originally emerged in the same
sixties New Left political context, this isn't surprising. If Hague should be
successful, he would become the second gay man to lead a green parliamentary
party in the British Commonwealth- the first was Senator Bob Brown (Tasmania) in
the Australian federal upper house, who recently retired. Hague is a former
chief executive of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation and West Coast District
Health Board. James Shaw seems to come from the same managerial/professional
mould as the outgoing Russell Norman. Given that the Greens parliamentary
caucus unanimously support LGBT political initiatives, there seems to be little
problem if Shaw wins. However, Hague has considerable practical managerial
presence as well.
No, this isn't Tony Abbott- even if he is also swamped...
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3. Housing Policy: Early opinion polls
seem to suggest that the honeymoon may finally be over for New Zealand's Key
administration, with Leader of the Opposition Andrew Little impressing
political commentators over the Labour Opposition's forthright opposition to
the current government's partial asset sale of state housing stock to "private
providers" when it comes to "social housing." LGBT New Zealanders should be
wary of this. As with fundamentalist churches and charter schools, there is real
danger for weak and vulnerable sectors of LGBTI communities if it turns out to
be conservative Christian social housing providers that take up administration
and management of current state housing stock. While lesbian, gay and bisexual
renters are protected by the Human Rights Act 1993's sexual orientation
provisions, transgendered people must rely only on the Crown Law Office's
opinion on interpretation of the Human Rights Act, 'reading" gender identity"
into gender. However, if the Crown Law Office opinion has legal force, then why
is it that the Salvation Army continues to refuse to house transwomen in
gender-appropriate emergency housing? We urgently need research into the scale
and magnitude of transgender exclusion from state housing access and tenure. It
is time that LGBTI communities declared ourselves as stakeholders in current
housing policy debates. For that reason, relevant overseas research on housing
policy, LGBT concerns, access, exclusion and discrimination is listed in the
recommended readings section below.
Recommended:
Green Party: http://www.
greens.org.nz
Kevin Hague profile: http://www.greens.org.nz/profiles/kevinhague/
James Shaw profile: http://www.greens.org.nz/profiles/jamesshaw/
Chris Uhlmann: "LNP rout in
Queensland catastrophic and leaves Tony Abbott terminally wounded" ABC Online: 01.02.2015:http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-02-01/lnp-rout-leaves-abbott-terminally-wounded/
6060126
Andrew Little: State of the
Nation Address: Scoop: 28.01.2015:http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1501/S00125/andrew-little-state-of-the-nation-2015.
htm
Prime Minister: State of Nation
Address: Radio New Zealand:
28.01.2015:http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/264718/john-key%27s-state-of-the-nation-
speech
Sandra Huiskemiller and Sara
Luitjers: "Gay Astray: The Young and the Homeless" Mate: Winter 2011:
44-51.
Albert Kennedy Trust: http://www.akt.org.uk
Stonewall UK: http://www.stonewall.org.uk
National Gay and Lesbian
Taskforce: An Epidemic of Homelessness (2007): http://www.thetaskforce.org/reports_and_research/homeless_
youth
Jamie Grant, Lisa Mottet and
Justin Tanis: Injury at Every Turn: A Report on the National Transgender
Discrimination Survey: Washington DC: National Center for Transgender Equality:
2011: http://www.transequality.org/PDFs/Executive_Summary.pdf
