Part B. Individual issues

9^{A MORE PLEASANT SOCIETY}

Introduction
The Party for the Animals generally believes that people ‘should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood’ (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 1).

Government
The government designs and enforces legislation and should, therefore, also set a good example. In addition, the government is the administrator of societal facilities that are essential for a well-functioning society.

Measures

9.1	The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (LNV) should be disbanded. Animal welfare should be brought under the auspices of the Ministry for Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VROM), which should then be renamed Housing, Animal Welfare, Spatial Planning and the Environment (VD ROM).
9.2	An independent animal welfare authority, analogous to the Financial Markets Authority, Consumer Authority and the Independent Post and Telecommunication Authority (OPTA), should be established. This should serve as a complaints centre for abuses and infringements of the law. This authority will advise the government with respect to animal welfare and rights.
9.3	Public transport and energy services will be returned to governmental control. The eventual privatisation of services of general public interest will not be carried through.
9.4	Governmental canteens will serve at least 75% organic food. Animal produce must, however, always be of organic origin.
9.5	A governmental trademark will be developed in the area of socially responsible enterprise. This will be linked to promotional measures.
9.6	The district water boards will be disbanded given that they are a surplus and expensive administrative organ.

Employment and income
A well-organised society should do justice to the talents of all people.

Measures

9.7	The establishment of one’s own business should be encouraged by giving new entrepreneurs, who meet the (to be established) governmental criteria for socially responsible business practice, exemption from tax on profits for the first 3 years.
9.8	The transition from social security benefits to paid employment should be stimulated by, for example, loan supplementation and internships.
9.9	Voluntary work should be more greatly encouraged, also among those with paid employment.
9.10	Child support should be income-related.
9.11	Labour market opportunities for the unemployed and handicapped should be increased by the provision of more subsidised, labour market orientated training courses.
9.12	The long-term unemployed should be financially stimulated to fulfil societal tasks, thereby maintaining and advancing the work ethos.
9.13	It should be made easier for small businesses to reintegrate those who have withdrawn from the employment process. Small businesses should no longer be the victims of situations in which people drop out (e.g. due to illness) yet again.
9.14	The Old Age Pensions Act (AOW) should continue to exist in its current form. Changing this legislation now would not be fair to the current and forthcoming group of those who have a right to an AOW pension.

Education
Schooling and education provide the intellectual basis for our society. Both should, therefore, be highly accessible.

Measures

9.15	Pupils should take centre stage in education and not the budget or curriculum.
9.16	Aside from the responsibility of choice, secondary schools should also bear a budgetary responsibility for school books. Rental systems for school books is preferable to pupils having to buy their own.
9.17	Vocational training will be reinstated. The obligatory broad curriculum for all children will be abolished. Schooling should be based on the child’s aptitude, interests and talents. The child must take centre stage in the curriculum on offer.
9.18	The differentiation in tuition fees and selection at the gate should not be implemented.
9.19	Health, nutrition, nature, animal welfare and the environment should be an essential part of natural science and biology lessons.
9.20	The sponsoring of education and school books by commercial parties will be prohibited to preserve the independence of education and scientific research.
9.21	Students should at least have the same budget as their peers who receive social security benefits. This can be in the form of a interest-free loan, which is repaid when they become self-supporting via an ordinary income.

Security
The Party for the Animals attaches great importance to the individual freedom of citizens. However, this must not infringe the freedom and well-being of other living beings.

Measures

9.22	Research should be conducted into more effective punishments for violent behaviour towards both humans and animals in order to preclude recurrence.
9.23	In the fight against criminality more priority should be given to cases in which the welfare of humans and animals are the most greatly compromised. This means that precedence should be given to tracking down the perpetrators of assault, theft and burglar, rather than, for example, parking violations.
9.24	The privacy of citizens should be guaranteed. Tapping and/or recording telephone and internet data constitutes a fundamental infringement of civil liberties and should thus be kept to a minimum and be conducted under the supervision of an independent supervisory body, which annually presents its recommendations and findings in a public report.
9.25	The police and judiciary should give higher priority to combating human trafficking and forced prostitution of women and children in particular.
9.26	Honour killings and female circumcision should be actively dealt with.
9.27	There must be far stricter control of the trade of and transit in weapons. A public register will be established with respect to the arms trade and the position of the Netherlands as a weapons supplier and country of transit.

Refugees
The Party for the Animals attaches great importance to the fair treatment of people and combating abuses of human rights. Not just at home, but also internationally given that the Dutch government also has a responsibility in this regard. Moreover, sanctions should be imposed as a result of abuses of human rights in other countries, irrespective and independent of our own economic interests and political collaborations.

Measures

9.28	Victims of flagrant abuses of human rights should be granted asylum, unless the asylum-seeker is guilty of reprehensible crimes in his country of origin.
9.29	At a European level, the Netherlands should push for the improved shelter of refugees within their own region. In addition, the Netherlands should offer its own help for the organisation of refugee centres in its own region.
9.30	The Netherlands must apply a humane and fair asylum policy. The Party for the Animals believes that asylum seekers should receive a decisive answer about their right to remain in the Netherlands within a reasonable periods; people who have already spent more than four years in a asylum seekers centre should automatically be granted a residence permit.
9.31	Asylum seekers should, just like Dutch citizens, have access to all the essential medical care they need.
9.32	If there are concerns about the safety of individuals in the event of deportation to the land of origin, then deportation should not occur.

Democracy
The Party for the Animals believes that democracy is the form of government that does the greatest justice to a country’s inhabitants. Democratic standards in our country need to be strengthened, particularly with regard to the decision-making process. Nonetheless, democracy must not go too far. The government must not be simply swayed by the issue of the day or the country ruled according to the primacy of the market. The electoral system must continue to safeguard the diversity of the political spectrum in order to afford new groups the opportunity to establish themselves.

Measures

9.33	The electoral system in which existing and new parties have a reasonable chance of representation on parliament should be preserved. Subsidies for political parties should be allotted according to the number of members, which means that new parties are afforded the same rights as those already represented in parliament.
9.34	Consultative referenda should take place in the event of important decisions.
9.35	The ‘citizen’s initiative’ (i.e. a process according to which Dutch voters can, supported by a petition of at least 40.000 signatures, get an issue on the parliamentary agenda) should be stimulated and simplified.
9.36	The system of political appointments for governmental positions should be brought to an end.

Healthcare
The Party for the Animals believes that within healthcare service more responsibility should be given to people on the shop floor and less to management. This will improve the efficiency within the health service and will better help to prevent distressing situations. This responsibility should also be financially rewarded and applies to many branches of the social sector. In addition, there should be significantly more care for the elderly in nursing homes and volunteer aid (e.g. care for one’s own family members) should occupy an important position in our society and be given the recognition it deserves.

Measures

9.37	The patient should take centre stage in the healthcare service and not the protocols.
9.38	Medical personnel should receive more money both in terms of budgetary responsibility and income.
9.39	Small-scale healthcare facilities at a local and neighbourhood level should be striven for.
9.40	Child health centres should be easily accessible to parents with young children and thus should be available at a neighbourhood or district level.
9.41	The no-claim discount (for health insurance) must be abolished given that it is conflict with the solidarity principle within the healthcare system. Compensation should be introduced for those who have long-term health expenses.
9.42	Patients who do not show up for appointments without cancelling them on time should bear the costs of the consultation themselves.
9.43	Domiciliary care facilities should be of such a standard that people who cannot rely on volunteer aid are able to live independently for as long as possible.
9.44	Volunteer aid should be made more fiscally attractive.
9.45	It should be easier for an ordinary farm to make the transition to an organic ‘care farm’ (i.e. a working farm that assists the (re)integration of the handicapped, delinquents, drug addicts, etc.). These kinds of businesses improve the liveability and employment opportunities in rural areas and respond to the increasing needs of urban areas for recreation, nature and healthcare.
9.46	The government should actively pursue a prevention policy with respect to obesity. This is an increasing health issue, particularly among children.
9.47	Physical education should be extended and tailored to the needs of the individual pupil. Swimming lessons should be reintroduced to the curriculum.

Justice
Many people increasingly regard the results of the current legal system as unjust. Access to justice appears to be primarily reserved for the affluent who can afford expensive legal advisers. The administration of justice is not always about determining who is in the right in a law suit, but who can hold their breath the longest. Many victims of bodily injury are forced to accept meagre settlements because they do not have the trial of legal strength to take on the insurance companies. In many cases, whistleblowers will find their career and personal life in ruins because they do not have any legal protection. This is why access to justice should be reformed.

Measures

9.48	There should be better legal arrangements to protect whistleblowers who bring social abuses to light.
9.49	Social organisations that successfully contest government policy through the courts should receive reasonable compensation for the legal costs they have incurred. Under the current circumstances, governments frequently hold out longer than social organisations, in both a personal and financial sense, which means that policies that are at odds with the law are perpetuated. Take , for example, the granting of shooting and environmental permits.
9.50	Lawyers should not receive fees from sources with a clear criminal origin. Top lawyers who declare huge sums from major criminals know that this money comes from ill-gotten gains. This should be regarded as the receipt of unlawfully obtained goods, which should also benefit equality before the law.
9.51	Access to the judiciary should be increased by the provision of better legal aid for those with a limited income.

Social life
The Party for the Animals assumes that people do not just have rights, but also duties to one another and the society in which they live. This also means that the economy and social life should not be purely driven by financial factors. People have the right to a safe, clean and carefully designed living environment. The government should take an active attitude and reduce its bureaucracy in this regard.

Measures

9.52	Initiatives that seeks to improve social cohesion should be stimulated and also funded wherever possible.
9.53	Immigrants are expected to learn the language themselves and to adopt the social skills that are necessary to function within Dutch society. The government must ensure that this happens and provide the necessary assistance.
9.54	People should be free to live according to their own cultural traditions as long as these are not incompatible with the law and the freedoms of others.
9.55	The government should ensure that urban neighbourhoods, villages and rural areas in general remain liveable and are revitalised.
9.56	The policy relating to the elderly focuses on allowing people to function independently in our society for as long as possible. The government should help to make this possible and must provide made-to-measure solutions in this regard. Multi-generational homes should thus be encouraged by a generous policy with respect to the construction of sheltered accommodation for young people or the elderly on one’s own land.
9.57	The causes of mass immigration must be tackled. One important cause of immigration is poverty elsewhere. This poverty is often related to wars, high birth-rates and too few opportunities to provide for oneself. Development aid should therefore focus on birth control, knowledge development and the prevention of war.

Green space
In a small country like the Netherlands, green spaces should be protected and must be dealt with in relation to environmental planning allocation problems. An alternative land-use policy can put an end to speculation and unbalanced growth with respect to the partition of public space. Closing off space can lead to the impoverishment of the countryside, the withering of the level of facilities, the loss of opportunities for young people to carry on living where they grew up and the pretence of protecting green spaces. Indeed, after a long period of unbalanced growth in an area that cannot develop further, solutions to problems are found whereby large tracts of green space are sacrificed for the construction of new housing estates in rural areas, which may be significantly damaged as a result.

Changing perspectives in, for instance, agriculture can lead to land becoming available, which may be manage in a careful way and should thus be earmarked for the interests of people, animals, nature and the environment.

To achieve the better use of the existing possibilities that green spaces have to offer, stimulation schemes should be introduced to make use of empty buildings for purposes that are more in accordance with public interests.

The reallocation of space on a voluntary basis can lead to more housing, the vitalisation of village communities, the growth of nature reserves and a better use of the infrastructure. This is why there should be an environmental planning agency that is charged with the responsibility of developing and protection the green space, thus also precluding speculation by commercially oriented third parties. The government should strive towards buying out land owners and reallocating the land, always dividing it up into three parts: for nature, ecologically responsible housing and business accommodation, and ecologically responsible agricultural production with an emphasis on vegetable-based production.

Giving more freedom to build in the built-up areas within green spaces will provide a huge impulse to the economy, employment and the distribution of housing, without it being at the expense of government expenditure. Living closer together on one’s own land will be made more attractive so that a better and fairer allocation of the available green space is made possible.

Measures

9.58	There should be a planning scheme for people who are prepared to live closer together on their own land. Plots larger than 600 m2 may be designated for the construction of an additional house, on the condition that the annexing of an equivalent surface area is redeveloped. A levy of €200 per m2 will be imposed with respect to the change of land use that makes the construction of an additional house possible. The increased opportunities for building in rural areas will lead to the construction of tens of thousands of extra homes without any additional governmental contribution. This will provide a major impulse to the economy and employment. Moreover, it will also provide relief for housing demand in the cities given that the exodus from rural to urban areas will be halted.
9.59	The agricultural buildings that are freed up may in principle be used for housing of a similar size, whereby the capacity of each house/apartment must not exceed 500m3. Large agricultural complexes may be used to created apartment complexes in rural areas.
9.60	A state rural scheme whereby agricultural land owners can build on a plot of at least 5 hectares will be stimulated on the condition that at least 75% of the terrain is used for nature development. This will be assessed by the provincial land boards. The construction of apartment complexes will be permitted alongside the building of family homes.
9.61	To prevent speculation, the government will be given the opportunity to buy up land that has been freed up at an independently determined market value.
9.62	The construction of ‘visible locations’ in the form of the ribbon development of business parks along roads in green areas should be restricted.
9.63	The division of houses into smaller homes should be stimulated by a subsidy scheme, so that more independent living accommodation becomes available on the housing market.
9.64	The conversion of agricultural plots of at least 5 hectares to organic agriculture uses or nature in zoning plans will be honoured with a building permit for one house. In this way, the development of small-scale organic farms will be strongly encouraged.
9.65	Empty office buildings, which are suitable for the purpose, must be converted into housing accommodation to reduce the housing crisis and construction in current nature and agricultural areas.

Culture and media
The culture and media landscape in the Netherlands has become seriously impoverished. Given that knowledge of one’s own culture forms the basis for respect for other cultures and because the media plays an important role in making the Netherlands a more pleasant society, the Party for the Animals believes that more money and attention should be devoted to these issues, including the spatial design of our country. The monotony of the TV and radio programmes on offer can be ended by improving the position of the national channels.

Measures

9.66	There should be a substantial budget for Dutch culture. Among other things, for spatial design, the National Film Fund, the production of television documentaries and educational television programmes, the support of performing artists and for orchestras, theatre, ballet and opera.
9.67	There should be training for artists to help them disseminate their work commercially.
9.68	The national broadcasting system will be strengthened and reformed. There will be a system of promotion and demotion whereby the allotted broadcasting time and programming resources bear direct relationship not only to the number of members, but also to performances in relation to the tasks of the broadcasting system. Programme makers will get more influence and managers less.
9.69	The entry of newcomers into the national broadcasting system should be encouraged, the status of existing broadcasters should no longer simply go without saying.
9.70	There will be a complete ban on alcohol advertising on all channels.

9A MORE PLEASANT SOCIETY

9^{A MORE PLEASANT SOCIETY}