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I can see why people don't want politics to be all about personality. Our age is dominated by a celebrity culture that's often superficial.

People rightly don't want superficial selfishness to seep into our politics. We want politics to be a contest of ideas - an informed forum for debating how our country can be better.

But I think some of what we label as ‘personality politics' is legitimate, even essential.

That's because part of what we call ‘personality politics' is also about a politician's personal values and ethos. And values - commitments that reflect our view of what a good life is - matter in politics.

Don't just take my word for it.

Here's British writer George Monbiot, in his just released book, Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis: "Values are the bedrock of effective politics.

"They represent the importance we place on fundamental ways of being, offering a guide to what we consider to be good and worthwhile."

We see the values of politicians in the policies they talk about. But we also see their values in how they carry and conduct themselves personally, and how they interact with others.

Here's where ‘personality' can be relevant.

At a concrete level, having politicians with good personal values matters because they're meant to represent us. They should make us proud, not just in how they represent New Zealand overseas, but also in how they are as people around the country.

People were confident that Helen Clark, when she was Prime Minister, took seriously New Zealand's commitments overseas.

Many liked John Key's relaxed but affable way of interacting with people domestically. It is not too idealistic to hope that politicians should reflect the best of who we are as a country.

Relatedly, politicians don't just represent us - they affect us. They're role models.

President Donald Trump's bullish, aggressive style is legitimising bullish aggressiveness in the American population. We have many sides of who we are as people, and politicians draw out certain qualities in us.

Canadian writer Naomi Klein has said we must recognise "our inner Trump" that's being tapped into by the current US presidency.

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• Max Harris, author of The New Zealand Project, is a PhD student at All Souls College in Oxford, England.

Moreover, their ambitions are bold and explicit.

National is promising to reduce child poverty by two-thirds - at least on one specific income-based measure - by the end of the next parliament.

Labour has committed to ending child poverty and enacting legislation containing multiple official poverty measures and related targets. Several other parties, notably the Greens and the Maori Party, support broadly similar initiatives.

These political commitments are of historic significance. They mark the first serious cross-party consensus in New Zealand on the need to tackle child poverty in several generations - perhaps ever.

Whatever the composition of the next government, the outcome is destined to be positive for many of our poorest families. This is great news.

Not only will reducing poverty alleviate family hardship and suffering, but it can also be expected to generate better long-term social and economic outcomes: improved health status, better educational results and lower unemployment.

Yet any effort to reduce child poverty on a durable basis must proceed carefully.

First, there is no universally agreed way of measuring poverty and no one correct poverty threshold. As most people recognise, poverty is multi-dimensional. It has many aspects, as well as many causes and consequences.

Ideally, therefore, a range of measures is required.

These should include measures using various income thresholds as well as those assessing the level of material deprivation or hardship based on how many specific necessities people lack.

Additionally, there should be explicit measures of poverty severity and persistence.

A comprehensive measurement and reporting framework along these lines was proposed by the Expert Advisory on Solutions to Child Poverty in 2012, based partly on the British Child Poverty Act 2010 and partly on advice from leading international poverty researchers.

Under this approach, explicit medium-term and long-term targets would be set for several selected poverty measures.

Second, any official poverty measures and targets must be buttressed by relevant child-poverty related indicators.

The Expert Advisory Group recommended five types of indicators covering outcomes in the domains of health, education, social inclusion, disability and child quality of life. Continue reading

• Jonathan Boston is Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington.

As a catch-cry it is nonsensical. Religions and faith have always been in the politics game and vice versa. The Sanhedrin, the body which oversaw the trial of Jesus, was political.

And civic institutions which support and uphold democracy across our globe are founded on a Judaeo-Christian understanding of the person and society.

So it is to be expected that over the holiday period many of us have looked back on the big political events of the year through our eyes of faith. For many, Brexit (the Brits voting to leave the European Union), and for almost everyone, the election of Trump, leave us disturbed and perplexed.

Both those votes have been called protest votes. Protest against toffs and talk, dynasties and old boy networks, fat salaries pensions and bonuses for the few, self-serving bureaucracies, tax avoiders and those professionals who advise them.

It seems we know what we don't want. But can we articulate what we do want?

Americans, in protest against an out of touch political class, elected a maverick who may well go down in history as the least listening American President ever. What and who he approves is what and who he likes. Facebook on steroids.

NZ too has had its protest vote. The Flag. That vote (like Brexit) was a brilliant example of the purpose of a vote changing along the way. The Brexit vote was, in my opinion, too complex a subject for a referendum. In NZ the subject of the vote, though emotive, was far less complex.

But as soon as Mr Key linked the vote with "my legacy" rightly Kiwis began to resist. A groundswell of public opposition emerged, the flag itself plummeted to insignificance, and we voted No: your term of being our prime minister has nothing to do with creating a personal legacy.

Serve us and lead us, but don't patronise us with a need to be remembered.

Yet the media (the fourth estate) - a big player on the politics field - seems to be obsessed with the legacy word. It's a version of hero cult. Our faith tells us that this is wrong.

The searching question for politicians - or any leader - is not what my legacy will be but what have I (or better we) enabled others to become.

In that regard the Trump campaign slogan wasn't a bad line: make America great again. Yet, we are already cringing. The problem of course lies in what we mean by great.

Our faith tells us that the Trumpian idea of great is seriously sick: akin to the ‘greatness' of a playground bully; or a kind of nationalism that might best be described as the junk food of politics.

How do we bridge this disconnect? Whose version of great is true? That's a tricky question.

While political parties probably rarely raise this question, most do seek a coherency through their policies; a degree of unity is required to bind a manifesto and convince an audience.

Unity can come through a single cult figure (Duterte?) but that model never lasts and dissolves into division and fragmentation. Even Kings Solomon and David ended up letting down their people.

The alternative is a shared vision: "where there is no vision the people perish" (Proverbs 29:18).

The highest vision is God's revelation to us (most especially through the words and deeds, or example, of Jesus). Perish can also be translated as ‘cast off restraint' or, in other words, lose any care for the common good and be rampantly selfish and greedy. Interesting.

We Christians don't, however, advocate theocracy (a collapse of the distinction between divine law and civil law). We live in a pluralist society. Righty the vision cannot be imposed but is proposed.

How then might a party ensure their vision hits the spot? Presumably that is a question parties do often ask.

Faith tells us that getting back to the basics of a vision is important. Think about the great foundations of our faith - Christmas Easter Pentecost - we celebrate them annually not because our liturgical year is stuck in a groove but because we recognise the need to immerse ourselves regularly in the roots that give us purpose.

Similarly then, political parties might remember that civil governments were instituted to promote true human good, which is always communal, for we are all members of families which are the foundation of every civil society. This sounds obvious but evidently it is not.

In a culture marked by strong individualism such as ours, it has become in many cases unPC to uphold whanau as the vital cells of society and it has become common to divide our society into sector interest groups rather than geographical communities.

What is good for families is good for nations and what is good for a nation is what is good for its families.

The great philosopher and lover of politics, Blessed Antonio Rosmini said that "political measures must be joined to the human heart." It's an insightful antidote to the shock being experienced by political classes and traditional parties around the world as ‘surprising' polls confirm they have lost the respect of their constituents.

Rosmini elaborates further: an essential gauge of every political policy is its impact on the human spirit in terms of motivating us - individuals - to contribute to the common good of society.

He concludes that policies which promote the common good (as distinct from particular interests) appeal to and satisfy voters because such policies satisfy our deep human desire to contribute to the good of those beyond ourselves - our children, our whanau, our communities, our nation, the world.

Let's make NZ a truly good example for our world.

Politicians and parties, in this year of election we are looking for a vision that inspires Kiwis to think ‘us' not ‘me'. That needs you to do the same.

• Most Reverend Charles Drennan is Bishop of Palmerston North, New Zealand.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, having received the opinion of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, has decided that it would be appropriate to publish the present Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life.

This Note is directed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church and, in a particular way, to Catholic politicians and all lay members of the faithful called to participate in the political life of democratic societies.

Central points in the current cultural and political debate - Doctrinal notes

It is not the Church's task to set forth specific political solutions - and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one - to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each person.

It is, however, the Church's right and duty to provide a moral judgment on temporal matters when this is required by faith or the moral law.

When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility.

In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognise that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person.

This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia (not to be confused with the decision to forgo extraordinary treatments, which is morally legitimate).

Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death.

In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo.

As is stated by The Congregation for The Doctrine of the Faith it is a serious sin to vote for a candidate or party who proposes a policy that is contrary to the Church's teachings on abortion or euthanasia.

Whilst it is essential that an elector must be aware in conscience that God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end every Catholic should know the Fifth Commandment, Thou Shall Not Kill.

This is not just a matter that can be left to an uneducated conscious but requires the clergy to exercise its commitment to teach God's law.

Our NZ Bishops appear to disagree with this teaching and they say "Certainly, it is not sinful to vote for the party or candidate you think is most suitable overall, even if that candidate or party advocates free abortion or euthanasia."

They then refer to a clarification on this matter by Cardinal Raymond Burke (who says "Catholics who support pro-abortion candidates participate in a grave evil. They must show a change of heart and be sacramentally reconciled or refrain from receiving Holy Communion.") and say that Cardinal Burke is caught up in uncharitable warfare and is an extremist.!!!

Prefect of the Sacred Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and the President of the Advisory Board of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute Cardinal Raymond Burke could be wrong but he is fairly senior and one would assume qualified to speak on these matters.

As the New Zealand elections are fast approaching I would like to see some further advice from our Bishops advising the laity, for whom they have a Sacred responsibility, not who to vote for but who NOT to vote for, to avoid mortal sin.

Joe Hannah