I attended two forums this week, both organised by youth organisations. One was arranged by a group of students who were not yet able to vote. Despite this they arranged an evening with representatives from most parties and a great introduction on what MMP is and how it works.

One thing I definitely took away from both was that the younger generation (which at 30 I think I’m still part of) are more interested in what party’s can do together, than what they promise to do alone.

As one member of the audience put it, in the real world people need to work with others, even those they don’t like.

My job is about identifying opportunities for improvement and engaging with people throughout a large organisation to make them happen. This means understanding the issues and challenges, doing proper research and understanding past decisions.

It means listening to and understanding different views that people have, not just believing my solution is the only solution. I often find myself championing the ideas of others, representing their needs and wants.

Making these ideas happen means convincing people of the benefits and coming up with solutions that are beneficial for everyone. It means working  with people, not against them.

At one of the forums, one representative (who I won’t name) made a strong point that they would never work with a particular party. While you can admire the honesty, it shows how negative politics can become. It seems that this election there are number of parties standing against things, rather than for something.

UnitedFuture has achieved a great deal in the past decade, by working with other parties. In fact, no party since MMP began has passed any law without the support of other parties. Every party has needed the support of others.

Bottom lines and ruling out particular parties is not helpful.

We always identify what policy areas that we can agree on, then discuss where we an work together. This is how we’ve delivered real results, which I’m proud of.