brighter voices: policy discussion document

8/2/2019 Brighter Voices: Policy Discussion Document

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/brighter-voices-policy-discussion-document 1/10

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 YNSR’s response to this. It will provide a brief summary of what

kick-start is, what YNSR’s 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:

1. If YN is to adopt policy to take to government, what should it be?

2. Is YNSR happy with the proposed process?

3. Are there any changes YNSR would care to make?

a. What can be added or left out?

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.



0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14

Civics

Organ Donation

Youth Suicide

Same Sex Marriage

Euthanasia

Adoption Reform

Drug Reform

Combined Preffered Options

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.



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 onthe member’s poll. I would suggest a more extensive member’s 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 Public Poll:

Drug Law Reform

28%

Reforming

Adoption Act

16%Youth Suicide

12%

Organ Donation

13%

Death with Dignity

13%

Same Sex Marriage

9%

Civics

9%

YNSR Members



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 member’s poll.



Same Sex Marriage

Drug Law Reform

Adoption Act Reform

Death with Dignity

Youth Suicide

Civics

Organ Donation

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

YNSR Public Poll

Same Sex Marriage

21%

Drug Law Reform

18%

Adoption Act Reform

17%

Death with Dignity

14%

Youth Suicide13%

Civics

10%

Organ Donation

7%

YNSR Public Poll



0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Drug

reform

Adoption

Reform

Youth

Suicide

Organ

Donation

Reform

Euthanasia Same Sex

Marriage

Civics in

School

Members Poll

Public Poll

Discussion:

When we compare the two polls we see a broad consistency in the results:

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 dueto 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 member’s 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.

brighter voices: policy discussion document

Documents