With the general election approaching a number of different groups have started producing resources for churches etc. A couple of recent ones just out include:

• Resources for the General Election, Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago, New Zealand. Includes an introduction to thinking about faith and politics, and resources on:
• ‘Is there a New Zealand identity?’
• ‘Working for Families’ (on families and relationships)
• ‘AA – Alcohol and Advertising’
• ‘Justice, Judgment and Jails’ (thinking about crime and punishment)
• The Spring edition of the PCANZ Spanz magazine looks at the election and the wellbeing of children and families – See Spring 2011 | Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand (Available there as a PDF file)
• Resources from the Salvation Army’s Social Policy and Parliamentary Unit (SPPU): General Election – The Salvation Army New Zealand, Fiji & Tonga Territory
• New Zealand Christian Network – 2011 Voting referendum; Election questions 2011; & Useful Election resources

Some other resources from around the place – church and non-church – (and from past elections) include:

• Referendum on the voting system | Referendum 2011
• The New Zealand Council of Christian Social Services have a number of publications from the 2008 election on their web site – haven’t seen any 2011 ones yet. Click here for publications in their database.
• Old, but still useful, CASI resources
• Before You Vote (2005) (PDF)
• Holding an Election Meeting (2005) (PDF)

Updated

I’ve now added links to all the major political parties web sites. Will see if I can find some blogs later to add (any suggestions?).

• National Party
• Labour Party
• Green Party
• ACT Party
• Maori Party
• Mana Party
• United Future Party
• New Zealand First (NZ First also have the web site nzfirst.tv, which made me smile as the ‘.tv’ bit means ‘Tuvalu’.)
• Progressive Party (for the sake of completeness)