Venkat Raman
General Election 2017 could be a turning point in the history of New Zealand’s parliamentary democracy if at least 50% of the newcomers are able to enter the debating chamber in Wellington.
More, the merrier
Labour has Priyanca Radhakrishnan, who has had sometime in campaign management, and policy-making roles, National has Bala Beeram (Venugopal Reddy), who has been an ardent supporter of the Party with a long list of participation in conferences, election campaigns and membership recruitment and Greens have Raj Pardeep Singh, a successful barrister and lawyer, who we have known since his early years in New Zealand. If these three persons are elected and if the existing three Indian MPs remain in Parliament, the community can boast of six people, each representing 25,000 people of Indian origin in this country.
That kind of statistics would not sound bad.
Ms Radhakrishnan will be a ‘definite entry’ with Labour placing her high (11) on the List, Mr Beeram’s position will be known only in August when National announces its List and Mr Singh’s political future will be determined on September 23, 2017 since he has asked to be kept out of Green’s List.
Electionlink launch
Since the launch of our Electionlink pages on February 27 and February 28 respectively by the leaders of the National and Labour Parties Bill English and Andrew Little, we have invited sitting and aspirant MPs of all political leanings to express their views openly and without reservation. Many have started doing so, which in itself is a good thing.
Ms Radhakrishnan writes for our readers regularly and her article appears under Homelink in this issue. Mr Beeram has promised to do so regularly from next issue but has sent a few notes on his recent public meeting. Mr Singh has not yet found time to put his thoughts but we hope that would not be far away.
Law and Order
Mr Beeram believes that National has delivered an extremely good budget, which will see more money in the accounts of ordinary New Zealanders than ever before.
“Our MP Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who is also the Chairman of the Parliamentary Law & Order Committee and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Police Minister told the meeting of the concerted efforts of the National government to make our homes and communities safer. Prior to the general election in November 2008, former National Party Leader John Key promised to recruit 600 new Police Officers. He fulfilled that promise and South Auckland received 300 officers. He said that Prime Minister Bill English has announced that 1225 new officers will be recruited and that 885 of them will be frontline officers,” he said.
“National has acknowledged that in recent weeks, the number of robberies at dairies and service stations has increase but the government is determined to solve this problem,” Mr Beeram said.
Photo Caption:
New faces in politics: Priyanca Radhakrishnan, Bala Beeram, Raj Pardeep Singh
