Five Years of Advocacy
We recently celebrated with our Diocesan Advocacy team five years of campaigns and advocating for positive change and acknowledged the hard work of Kate Day and Elise Ranck who have been behind it all. Kate has officially finished her role as Advocacy Enabler and Elise is spending a few months visiting with family in the USA whilst discerning what is next for her in this space.
Bishop Justin thanked Kate and Elise for their leadership. “It’s easy for us to forget some of what we’ve done and it’s really important for us to remember as a church the size of the impact that we can have. I don’t just want us to grow a church, I want us to grow a just church.”
Our priority will be to continue building on the work they have invested in, of transformation and justice making and we will be looking for people to join the advocacy team to continue to equip our movement.
Kate’s highlight has “been working with some amazing younger Anglicans and seeing them get involved in advocacy, through the Big Hearts Campaign and the climate mission work. Seeing them connecting their faith to their voice and seeing change come from their efforts.”
Elise reflects on a particular highlight for her: the Rubbish Revolution.
“A particular highlight for me was the rubbish revolution and seeing how the community grew around it. We had lots of momentum from the start and didn’t really know what would grow from it.
We managed to pull together something in a very short amount of time that was really meaningful for people. I love that the various people who were involved continue to reflect on the experience, how it has shaped them and how it continues to influence them in areas other than waste.
It was the kind of challenge that was achievable on an individual level but ended up with community level engagement. It was also a bit of an on-ramp for wider political engagement with advocacy opportunities such as the Zero Carbon campaign which was running alongside it.
Having the higher-level political advocacy occurring alongside the tangible things we can do helps us see that we need to make changes at both levels – each thing is needed to make real meaningful change. We are starting to see some of those links with the government announcing changes to nationwide recycling and a container return scheme.”
Kate’s time with the team has come to an end but not her work in advocacy. She is currently taking some time out with her young baby and is exploring options for continuing in advocacy work alongside the diocese in some form.
Here is a timeline with some of the great things that have happened over the past five years that we have been a part of.
Before and after in Lower Hutt
In 2017, prayer and action on the housing crisis was the focus. With 64 hectares of vacant Housing New Zealand property, services of lament were held around the diocese on the vacant lots calling for action. The lament services made the news, and our voices were heard. Now, you can see housing on these lots.
2017-2019 we called for a zero-carbon act. 563 of us had our say and in November 2019 the Zero Carbon Act was passed.
2018 we provided a prayerful Christian presence at the Petroleum Conference and we saw a bill that banned offshore oil and gas exploration.
2018 Wellington City Council became a Living Wage Employer (The Diocese is also one).
2018 the government lifted it refugee quota after campaigning on 2017 for quota to be doubled.
2019 we held a rubbish revolution which saw people from around the diocese engage in waste reduction.
2019 we campaigned for a bottle deposit scheme and in 2022 the government promises it will become reality.
2020-2021 Our Big Hearts campaign asked government for more funding to help with climate change in the pacific, and the government committed to climate finance of $1.3billion over four years.
2021-2022 we advocated for free fares asking for public transport equity. Metlink announced a trial of reduced and free fares for 2022 and nationwide we are currently able to use public transport for half price.
