After Jessica Hammond Doube, TOP candidate for Ohariu, contested the Equality Network’s Scorecard of the Parties on Facebook, the Equality Network is delighted to lift TOP’s score from overall just one star, to one and a half, bringing the minor Party in line with both Labour and the Maori Party in second equal place on the Scorecard.

Eight major Parties were scrutinised for their commitment to addressing inequality with policies proven to reduce wealth and income inequality. The Equality Network, a group of New Zealand organisations united by the vision of a more equal Aotearoa New Zealand, released their Party Scorecard at the start of October, giving up to three gold stars, for policies likely to have a very positive impact, or a black star for no policy, or policies likely to have a negative impact.

Best overall ranking was given to the Green Party with two and a half stars for having the most policies likely to make progress toward reducing inequality. Second equal were Labour, the Māori Party and now The Opportunities Party with one and a half stars each. NZ First scored one star for policies that were unlikely to progress but also not likely to worsen the situation. National was granted just half a star while Act and New Conservative were given black stars for their suite of policies.

“Hammond Daube questioned why TOP’s proposal of a Royal Commission into election funding wasn’t considered worthy of stars. She also contested why TOP was given just half a star for the proposal of instituting a Digital Services Tax in order to set up a Public Journalism Fund as part of NZ on Air,” says Dr Prudence Stone, one of the Scorecard Analysts for the Equality Network.

“These had unfortunately been overlooked at the end of September when we were scrutinising all Parties. After further consideration of these policies, we are thrilled to lift our scores for The Opportunities Party. It is excellent to see the Party has policies like these which go toward political equality and better public access to information.”

Each election the network hopes their scores for the Parties support and inform voters’ decision-making about who gets to form a new government.

Parties are mainly assessed based on their ambition (how strongly they are committed to tackling inequality) and their plan (the level of detail they have for policies to reduce income and wealth imbalances) based on information published by the parties and summaries from independent election websites.

These scores are accurate as at October 12 5pm. The committee will endeavour to update scores as new policies are released by each Party. For more information visit the Equality Network website: equalitynetwork.org.nz/election 2020

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