This week’s confirmation of the final election results brings closer the dissolution of the caretaker Labour government, and the forming of a new National-led coalition government. Like any government, the Labour Government leaves office with its own share of good and not-so-good policies, its achievements and under-achievements, and its failures.

What does New Zealand need from any new government? We suggest we might hope and pray for a government that is…

• respectful of God, and of all people whatever their beliefs
• determined to govern with truthfulness, integrity, justice, humility, and a collaborative spirit
• working for good law and order, but not in a way that simply punishes without rehabilitating and which tends to entrench criminality
• carefully managing the economy, for the benefit of all
• willing to use taxes to better fund essential public services, including our struggling health system
• committed to the wellbeing of all New Zealanders, to reducing poverty and social deprivation, and to making New Zealand a more just and equitable society for everyone
• eager to make housing affordable and healthy for everyone
• carefully seeking to foster an atmosphere of intercultural goodwill, reconciliation and partnership, rather than of fear and division
• willing to implement measures to significantly reduce New Zealand’s carbon emissions and to reverse other environmental degradation
• more mindful of the sanctity of human life (and willing to review legislation to provide better protections for the vulnerable in regard to both euthanasia and abortion)
• more honouring of traditional marriage, gender, and sexual ethics (and willing to pull back the more extreme aspects of some current legislation and of primary school sex education)
• determined to defend everyone’s liberties of thought, belief, expression, and practice

Author: Dr Stuart Lange

Dr Stuart Lange is the National Director of the NZCN and is a Senior Research Fellow at Laidlaw College, where he was formerly Vice Principal. Stuart wrote and presented the historical DVD documentary Te Rongopai: 200 years of the Gospel in New Zealand, 1814-2014.