Gareth Veale, a 22 year old student, is the ACT candidate for Ilam and is campaigning only for the Party Vote at this election.
Gareth was born in Greymouth and attended St Bede’s College in Christchurch before completing a BA in Political Science and History at the University of Canterbury.
Gareth is the current Canterbury President of ACT on Campus, the youth wing of the ACT Party.
Gareth's main policy focus is the growing levels of poverty in New Zealand today, with almost 270,000 children now in poverty. This concern leads him to his belief in the importance of better equipping the economy to create good, well paying jobs for everyone in New Zealand by:
• Less government interference in the economy – lower taxes, less red tape, more investment and growth in all productive sectors of the economy.
• A focus on quality, individual tailored education – not the traditional one size fits all methods of our current antiquated system.
• Drastic systematic reform of the welfare system - to break the vicious cycle of welfare dependency.
Another great concern of Gareth's is the lack of opportunity in New Zealand, leading people to leave the country to look for work - most never to return.
Gareth describes himself as a classical liberal, believing in smaller effective government in all spheres of life - social and economic freedom.
