There are still groups of people in New Zealand who can and do organise to resist the damage of the right.
My previous post invited gentle readers to identify where they might put their activist energy. If you want to do more than complain about it in 2024, here’s a few groups to join in with or donate to that are effective at resisting the damage of really dumb government.
Iwi
The Maori King has been first off the block to organise resistance by summoning iwi to a hui that will be held on January 20th at Tūrangawaewae Marae, whereby the “mauri of the hui” will be carried on to the annual Rātana and Waitangi Day celebrations later in the year.
I have no idea if all iwi can be brought together in a few days time, but good on the Maori King for giving it a go. Certainly a concentrated voice of iwi and kingitanga will be great to see going into Waitangi and Ratana and from there to energise the rest of the year. Bolger, Clark, Key and Ardern all had to grow up fast to deal with high level Maori engagement. Can Luxon reach that level?
I have no particular sympathy for kingitanga, but good on them for calling out a voice for unity and resistance.
Unions
You could help out one of the remaining unions. The powerful ones are the NZEI, Nurses Union, Union of Salaried Medical Specialists, Public Sector Association, E Tu, and First Union.
With unemployment stubbornly low, it is a great time to be in a union. There are about 400,000 union members in New Zealand which is about 17% of the overall workforce. Wages have risen strongly in recent years. Public servants are required to be politically neutral but unions don’t.
Conservation
New Zealand has proportionally one of the strongest conservation activist networks in the world. The Forest and Bird Society has over 100,000 members and branches in nearly every part of the country. A branch as rural as North Canterbury has over 1,200 members.
There are about 70 national and regional organisations with an interest in the environment, conservation and outdoor recreation here. There are major branches of international organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. If you want to feel good about activism in a hurry, join in with a group and plant a tree or clean up a beach, and your heart will be brimming with virtue again.
The list of conservation and environmental groups in New Zealand is simply massive, some covering a few acres of bush and others going for full landscape rehabilitation.
If you want to see a really simple win, a reminder that 40,000 people chipped in to buy a beach in Abel Tasman National Park in 2017 to stop it being sold. The latent power is there.
Justice
There are so many amazing people working for justice here in Aotearoa that it is heartwarming just to read the stories. Here’s just three of them:
There’s Pillars, who support positive futures for whanau of people doing time in prison.
There’s the Pathway Charitable Group, which is all about support for people getting out of prison and setting their life up again.
JustSpeak is a youth-initiated organisation that puts a lot of work into legislative submissions about criminal law, among other things.
There’s a full list of Corrections partner organisations listed out by region if you have people near you affected by Corrections. So many families to help.
Housing
There are so many people and families needing help with housing and there are simply massive efforts by charities to help. Just a few of the big ones include:
Smaller ones like Monte Cecilia Housing Trust show what happens from small beginnings. If you start from a place of helping people, you alter the politics of New Zealand for good one action at a time.
Aid Delivery Organisations
Whole-service Non Government Organisations in New Zealand are substantial and have grown in scale through the shrinking of the state in the 1990s. Some of the standout ones that you could join in with are:
Others that do huge work at the grassroots that will warm the cockles of your heart if you put your leftie shoulder into it include Caritas, the Anglican Trust for Women and Children, Society of St Vinent de Paul, Presbyterian Support, the Aukland City Mission and Christchurch City Mission, Baptist Community Ministries, and OXFAM.
Donors and Donor Organisations
Sir Stephen Tindall’s Tindall Foundation has donated more than $130m to help those less well off. It doesn’t have a sole focus on the charitable sector, also supporting training and research.
There’s Neal and Annette Plowman who gifted $100m to establish the Next Foundation. This one focuses on education and environmental philanthropy.
Then there’s the Todd Foundation. This is a family-run community-focused organisation that has gifted over $60m since it was founded.
And of course the Morgan Foundation, which is the one set up by Sam Morgan after he sold TradeMe. The Morgan Foundation focuses on the battle against the poverty gap and wealth disparity. Sam’s own one is called the Jasmine Trust, which does pretty much the same thing.
There are also large regional ones like the Central Lakes Trust, focusing on environmental action funding.
We ought not expect that they will always donate just for leftie grassroots causes, but mostly they do. The charitable sector in New Zealand is where much of the beating heart of the left remains, and mapping out its friendly funding partners is really important.
And finally, for those who wonder where the brains are, there’s the Helen Clark Foundation, and Child Poverty Action Group.
If you’re keen on leftie causes and getting on in life, you can always consider bequests (maybe as a social-good tax on yourself in the absence of an inheritance tax).
Hopefully everyone who is annoyed that their own organisation was left out can add their own in the comments with what they do, and a link.
New Zealand is brimming with good people doing good things for the good, and in my book that defines them as working against the right wing in New Zealand. They are nodes of resistance. They are political (though not in the Charities Act sense) because every act against the damage that the right does here is a political act. Who knows you may even find people of the right doing good as well 😊
We have no need to be pessimistic about the left as political parties being out of power when we have so many avenues with which to empower ourselves out of Left Melancholy, in our communities, in our land.
So go to it.
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