Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena kotu, kotua. My name is Jim Hilton, my river is the Karamea, my mountain Aoraki Mt Cook.
My ancestors originally settled in Southland and Nelson and have the surnames Hilton, Robertson, Nuttall and Bell. Their descendants can now be found all over New Zealand.
In the West Coast Tasman electorate my grandfather lived and / or worked as a doctor at Karamea, Millerton, Greymouth, Harihari, Whataroa, Nelson and Murchison. My mother schooled at Hari Hari, Whataroa and Greymouth. My aunty retired in Golden Bay and I still have cousins living there. I have four adult children and seven grandchildren.
I have spent most of my adult life at Karamea, the Northern most settlement on the West Coast which I still call home. I am now retired but during my working life I have been paid for the following work: market gardening, fruit picking, research assistant, wool stores, machine operator, government scientist, deer culler, disease tester, possum hunter, deer capture, school teacher, farm worker, farmer, sphagnum moss, offshore fishing, gold mining, tractor driver, truck driver, carpenter and builder in roughly that order.
I have joined the Outdoors Political Party because the visions and ideas of many of their candidates are similar to mine.
I have worked closely with their co leader, lawyer Sue Grey since 2017 on court actions trying to stop aerial poisoning.
Since my retirement in 2013 I have devoted much of my spare time to researching and trying to understand why New Zealand continues to poison its forests indiscriminately with 1080 and similar poisons. The reasons are mostly political so in order to stop aerial poisoning I have engaged in politics at many levels. I co-authored a book “New Zealand’s Changing Biodiversity – Nature Under Pressure” with Roger Childs in 2018 which explains simply why we do not need to aerially poison our native forests and grasslands.
I am personally shocked about the way politics works in Aotearoa New Zealand. I’ve discovered that it’s lip service only about democracy and freedom from most of our elected representatives. It’s also lip service only from the people our members of parliament appoint to the various boards, authorities, agencies and heads of departments which make the important decisions which affect us all in our daily living. I’ve discovered many allies with other people trying to get changes to our Economy, Employment, Unemployment, Education, Health, Housing, Policing, Justice, Environment and more. I have a vision for West Coast Tasman where there is no more “Yes Minister” and “Yes Prime Minister” politics, where there is no more “divide and rule” politics where people are bullied and played off against each other.
Maori against Pakeha, Miners and timber millers against the Green conservationists, Government workers against Private enterprise, Town folk against Country folk, Corporates and large business against Small business, Commercial fisherman against recreational fisherman, Mountain bikers against Track walkers, Tourists versus Locals, Truck drivers versus other road users, Central Government versus Local Government, Regional Councils versus Town and City Councils, Drug users versus straights. Firearm owners versus people who don’t own firearms, Property owners versus renters and share farmers, Rich versus the poor, Old versus the young, the Healthy versus the non healthy, the well educated versus the poorly educated. The list is endless.
It is called discrimination. We are probably all guilty of it to some degree.
This “divide and rule” , “yes minister” politicking has to stop. I have a vision for West Coast Tasman where we are all team players, every player respecting the positions of the others and working toward common personal and community goals. Employment for all, Housing for all, Education for all and Health, Policing, Justice and other systems which work for all of us and which we can be proud of.
So Outdoors Party is not just about the Outdoors, it’s new, it’s exciting, it’s policies are not set in concrete, it’s about freedom and choice, real democracy with genuine consultation and transparency with decision makers at all levels. That’s not what we have now.
Tick Outdoors Party for your party vote and Luke King for your electorate vote if you think YOU could do better when your elected representative genuinely listened to you, answered your letters and emails fairly and acted in your best interests.
We want to know how the present systems have failed you so we know what needs to change so you and your extended families can be healthy, happy and prosperous.