Mon 19 May 2014 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Stephen Berry ACT has announced an openly-gay man as its candidate for Auckland’s Upper Harbour electorate. Stephen Berry, 31, lives on the North Shore with John, his partner of five years. Berry has worked in food retail for sixteen years, and currently oversees dry goods departments at his local supermarket. “ACT's principles are the same I apply to my daily life - enterprise, hard work, personal responsibility and aspiration. There is no future for individuals in state dependency. The only positive future for people is the one they build for themselves,” Berry says. “I'm looking forward to introducing Upper Harbour to ACT's plans to introduce lower and flatter taxes and a three strike policy for burglary. “Beyond my retail career, I’ve spent half a lifetime advocating that individuals should be free to create their own prosperity, unencumbered by big government. I have consistently supported low taxes and property rights. “Other political parties may promise you can vote your way to riches, but I’m honest enough to say taxing businesses to fund election lolly scrambles will only make us poorer.” This is Berry’s fifth election campaign, the most recent being Auckland's Mayoral election last year. He stood as the leader of Affordable Auckland, finishing third with 13,650 votes. The ACT Party has a mixed history on glbti-beneficial law reforms, most notably being the only party in Parliament to vote against ending the partial defence of provocation which allowed the killers of gay people to legitimately claim their victims provoked the attack by making an advance. It’s had a mixed selection of MPs, from social conservatives like David Garrett and John Boscawen to gay-friendly long-time leader Rodney Hide. More recently ACT’s had successive leaders, Don Brash and John Banks, with histories of voting against laws benefiting glbti people while they were with the National Party. However, former devout homophobe Banks raised eyebrows when he voted in favour of the marriage equality legislation and announced “After three decades and ten Parliaments, I have had time to reflect—to reflect on what I said and to reflect on what I did. If I knew then what I have since learnt, I would have acted differently.” ACT is now under the new leadership of Jamie Whyte, who has praised new candidate Berry. “Stephen has a solid record of support in this region and I’m glad he has agreed to do his best to grow ACT's party vote in the area,” he says.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Monday, 19th May 2014 - 12:35pm