Straight to the top
The people who petition Parliament for a fair go
Lynne Low is so angry with the window displays of a sex shop in Auckland that she passes with her children on the way to school that she has petitioned Parliament to change advertising rules.
The champion of bondage-free streetscapes is just one of many people who exercise their democratic right to petition MPs.
Although some would appear to have little prospect of success – ‘‘No more money used as currency’’, for example – many are pleas for law changes to make markets, and people’s economic lives, function better.
These include Low on advertising standards, anti-workplace bullying campaigner Allan Halse, apartment guru Charles Levin and franchisee law reformer Gurmeet Singh – all hoping to get orphan business issues off the bottom of MPs’ to-do list.
MPs on Parliament’s select committees must consider every petition, so the process offers a chance of being heard in the corridors of power.
THE CONCERNED MUM
Low resents her children being exposed to pictures of women in bondage on a main street in a busy shopping area, and believes it’s time advertisers were forced to comply with standards of common decency.
‘‘I go through efforts to put safety filters on my children’s devices … and I can’t stop them from looking at this stuff on the street corner,’’ she says.
The images were the covers of fetish toy boxes containing rope, handcuffs and whips, showing women in black lingerie who had been restrained, and in one case, being caressed by a man.
‘‘It’s not okay to teach innocent children that it’s okay for women to be tied up for sex,’’ she says.
Low’s petition says she asked the owner of the store on Great North Rd, New Lynn, to remove the items, but he refused, citing ‘‘free speech’’.
Frustrated, she contacted police, and complained to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), but she says she was told her complaint was in a ‘‘grey area’’.
ASA chief executive Hilary Souter says its complaints panel will make a decision on whether the products in the window were advertisements, and whether their display breached the code.
The ASA is a self-regulatory body funded by members.
Although it inquires into complaints from the public, its decisions have no legal force, though Souter says advertisers have a high level of ‘‘buy in’’ to its decisions.
Low is petitioning MPs to require the ASA to define all window displays as advertisements.
But since learning the ASA has no official government standing, she is considering amending her petition, perhaps to ask MPs to pass a law requiring advertising in public places, including shop windows, to exclude explicit sexual imagery.
‘‘We don’t have the reinvent the wheel here. We need to use already established standards,’’ she says.
THE ANTI-BULLY
Allan Halse, right, is celebrating the sixth anniversary of being dismissed by Hamilton City Council, where he had fought what he called ‘‘a bully culture’’.
In the years since, his CultureSafe NZ organisation has fought to publicise New Zealand’s workplace bullying culture.
Halse’s decade of experiences advocating for victims has led to his petition for MPs to ‘‘create a low-level disputes resolution process based on the United Kingdom Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) model’’.
Acas operates a ‘‘conciliation’’ system where workers can ask for help to resolve their bullying issues.
For Halse, the system offers the prospect of rescuing working relationships before they become so toxic they are beyond repair.
It also offers the potential for national
culture change, and filling the gap left by the decline of unions.
The productivity gains, and savings for businesses, individuals and the health system were so large that a New Zealand scheme similar to the Acas scheme would pay for itself, he says.
‘‘The Acas model saves the UK economy £13 (NZ$26) for every £1 spent on it.
‘‘They (MPs) have been very reluctant to do anything, so I thought a safer approach would be to get a lower level process going that wouldn’t have any negative implications for anybody.’’
He hopes his petition, which has so far gathered fewer signatures than one calling for koalas to be introduced to New Zealand, will make workplace bullying into a political, and even an election issue.
Halse estimates as many as 500,000 workers were subject to forms of bullying at work.
‘‘These are people of voting age. Why wouldn’t politicians do it? I’d be putting it at the top of my voting list.’’
THE APARTMENT GURU
National MPs believe the Unit Titles Act governing the running of body corporates – the mini-councils running apartment buildings for owners – needs updating, but the party was voted out before it could act.
Labour believes the same, and Commerce Minister Kris Faafoi says it will be reformed ‘‘when the time is right’’.
Supporters of change, such as petitioner Charles Levin, right, grumble that it comes a distant second to reform of tenancy laws.
Body corporates are charged with keeping buildings running, organising long-term maintenance plans, and amassing the funds needed for immediate and future repairs. Their good operation is vital to the future of rapidly intensifying cities, most notably Auckland, Levin says.
Horror stories circulate in property circles about the behaviour of some body corporates.
‘‘The problem is few people have the depth of understanding or knowledge to tell whether a building is well run,’’ Levin says. ‘‘We need more professionalism, and less amateurism.’’
More economically efficient countries would not tolerate the poor functioning of a market, says Levin, who plotted the petition with National MP Nikki Kaye in a bid to get reform back onto the political agenda.
‘‘It’s good government. You look at Singapore,’’ says Levin. ‘‘They would get this sort of stuff sorted. Australia would too.’’
Kaye says she believed she had secured Labour’s commitment to reforming the act, but it had come to nothing, even though the current situation could be described as a ‘‘market failure’’, and updating the law was important to protect the interests of young people trying to secure home ownership by buying an apartment.
The intensification of