“Seniors thrive, in all our diversity, and with dignity and autonomy, in vibrant intergenerational communities,” this is the vision of the newly released Green Party Seniors Policy.
The latest research and data all points to the same conclusion: Aotearoa New Zealand is woefully underprepared for our growing seniors population.
Furthermore, we have continued to under-fund and under resource services which are vital to our senior population, including delays to much needed areas of change such as the Retirement Village Act.
For everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand to thrive, we must put people at the heart of decision-making. This is the underlining philosophy of our Green Budget released in May.
With some careful planning, and a desire to return core public services and infrastructure back into the hands of the people as a rightful public good, I am thrilled to see some significant, and much needed changes for all of you within this budget.
As the Green Party’s spokesperson for Seniors, I know we need to establish a dedicated, long-term strategy for the health needs of our ageing population. Our budget announced a plan to ensure that we move towards free GP, nursing services, and dental care for everyone. With the rising number of people over the age of 65, who do not own their own homes, we need to tackle this by building more public housing to alleviate rental cost pressures.
However, this is just the beginning. In order to ensure that every senior has enough money to address their daily living, health, and wellbeing needs, we also need to address underfunding in the home and community health sector, the bottleneck that is needs assessment and service co-ordination (NASC), and address the dire state of our various care units. These are all things that I am incredibly passionate about.
As we take our Green Budget across the country, we want to hear from you on what is important.
You can also find our new Seniors Policy on the Green Party website at: www.greens.org.nz/seniors_policy.