100 reasons to vote Labour

Soon, people across New Zealand will get to decide who they want to see leading our country through the next three years. 

We’ve always believed that putting people and our shared futures at the heart of everything we do is the only way to run a Government, and we want to make sure we can keep doing that after October 2020.

Still trying to make up your mind who to vote for? Check below for a list of 100 things we've done in our first term.

 

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1. Boosting the incomes of 384,000 families by $75 a week through our Families Package
2. Widened Working for Families eligibility to include 26,000 more families, as part of the Families Package
3. Helping families with our BestStart payment, making life easier for parents with new-born babies with $60 extra each week, for up to the child’s first three years
4. Extended Paid Parental Leave from 18 to 26 weeks, and increased Paid Parental Leave by up to $20 a week
5. Lifted 18,400 children out of poverty as a result of the Families Package
6. Extended the Nurses in Schools programme to cover decile 4 and 5 secondary students
7. Expanded the free lunches in schools programme, expecting to benefit around 200,000 children by the third term of next year, creating thousands more jobs
8. Banned smoking in cars with children, to protect young people, and passed legislation to regulate vaping products and heated tobacco devices
9. Began a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions
10. Made the largest-ever investment in preventing, and responding to, family and sexual violence
11. Permanently increased main benefits by $25 a week to support Kiwi families
12. Introduced measures to stop predatory lending that often impacts low-income families
13. Boosted funding for suicide prevention services and those who are bereaved by suicide, and set up a Suicide Prevention Office to coordinate action to reduce New Zealand's high rate of suicide
14. Made visiting the doctor cheaper or free for nearly 600,000 New Zealanders
15. Changed the law to provide legal access to medicinal cannabis
16. Rolling out frontline mental health services, like Piki, which provides free mental health and wellbeing support to 18-25 year olds, benefitting more than 300,000 people
17. Providing free period products in schools for those who need them, beginning at 15 Waikato schools and expanding to all state and state-integrated schools on an opt-in basis next year
18. Boosted funding for air and road ambulances
19. Launched a new Cancer Action Plan, created the independent Cancer Control Agency, and made the largest ever investment in radiation therapy
20. Rolled out the National Bowel Screening Programme to more DHBs
21. Lifted the cap on gender confirmation surgeries
22. Making a record investment in repairing our rundown hospitals and health services, including the biggest-ever funding increase for DHBs, and increased funding to deliver approximately 153,000 more surgeries and procedures, radiology scans, and specialist appointments to help clear the backlog caused by COVID-19
23. Paying our carers and Mental Health and Addiction workers fairly
24. Delivering the largest-ever funding boost for disability support services
25. Strengthened our health workforce by adding more doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health workers
26. Helped to keep Kiwis warmer with our Warmer Kiwi Homes programme, ensuring an estimated 9,000 additional houses will be warmer and healthier, and supporting hundreds of jobs
27. Expanded Housing First to help long-term homeless people into homes
28. Changed the law so all private rentals have to meet minimum standards to be warm and dry
29. Building consents at a 45-year high
30. Introduced the Winter Energy Payment - and doubled it for 2020
31. Banned unfair letting fees and no-cause tenancy terminations
32. Banned offshore speculators from our housing market
33. Put an end to National's state house sell-off
34. Launched the Progressive Home Ownership scheme, supporting more New Zealanders into home ownership
35. Scrapped the need for consents for basic home improvements, through exemptions to the Building Code
36. Supported Kiwis through the COVID-19 crisis to remain in their homes with our six-month freeze on residential rent increases
37. Implemented a mortgage holiday for homeowners affected by the economic impacts of COVID-19, now extended to March 2021
38. Secured more than 1,000 motel units for homeless and vulnerable people during lockdown
39. Delivered unemployment to around its lowest level in over a decade, and lifted wages up 4.4%, before COVID-19 pandemic
40. Increased the minimum wage to $18.90 per hour from 1 April 2020
41. Backed Kiwi research and development innovators, entrepreneurs, and crown researchers with a $401 million funding boost through Budget 2020
42. Made targeted vocational training courses free for all ages over the next two years, which will help people who have lost their jobs retrain and also allow new employees in some essential services to train on the job
43. Invested $232 million to boost jobs and opportunities in the primary sector and rural New Zealand
44. Established a $400 million targeted Tourism Recovery Fund, assisting the industry to recover and restart
45. Rolling out our COVID-19 worker redeployment package to keep more people in work
46. Made significant business tax changes to reduce cashflow pressure, including lifting the provisional tax threshold, reinstating building depreciation, writing off interest on the late payment of tax, and providing greater flexibility for businesses to meet their tax obligations
47. Supported more than 1.7 million people through the initial lockdown with the Wage Subsidy, and hundreds of thousands through the Wage Subsidy extension
48. Provided interest-free loans of up to $100,000 to help more than 50,000 businesses stay afloat
49. Supported Māori communities in the face of COVID-19, with a targeted package for Maori businesses
50. Announced the $12 billion New Zealand Upgrade Programme, investing in roads, rail, hospitals and schools, and our regions to future-proof the economy. This gives a $10 billion boost to New Zealand’s economy over the first five years; includes transport projects to boost productivity and long-term growth; will upgrade and modernise land, air, and sea assets throughout regional New Zealand
51. Restarted contributions to the Super Fund, to help keep the cost of NZ Superannuation affordable
52. Pursuing ambitious trade policy to help New Zealand businesses succeed overseas
53. Acted on the Commerce Commission Fuel Market Study recommendations to give Kiwis a fairer deal at the pump
54. Passed the landmark Zero Carbon Act, with a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050
55. Creating almost 11,000 new jobs in our regions to restore and protect our environment by upgrading walking tracks, restoring wetlands, eradicating pests and more
56. Acknowledged that climate change is bigger than politics – by holding cross-party meetings and welcoming support for a Climate Commission
57. Banned single-use plastic bags and committed to phasing out more single-use plastics
58. Provided the largest funding boost for the Department of Conservation since 2002
59. Stopped issuing new offshore oil and gas permits
60. Delivered the strongest ever protections to clean up our rivers and lakes
61. Established the $100 million New Zealand Green Investment Finance Ltd - a commercially-focused investment company which will work with business to reduce emissions while making a profit
62. Making it easier for New Zealanders to choose active transport with investment in new cycleways, shared paths, and expanding the Bikes in Schools programme
63. Started planting one billion trees by 2028, with 248 million already in the ground
64. Launched the Predator Free 2050 strategy
65. Giving almost every state school a one-off capital injection of up to $400,000, the biggest capital injection for school maintenance funding in at least 25 years
66. Funded 623 Learning Support Coordinators for children with diverse learning needs, so kids at more than 1,000 schools and kura can get the support they need to learn
67. Launched and expanded Mana in Mahi, supporting employers to take on apprentices, and He Poutama Rangatahi, to tackle youth unemployment, increasing support and job opportunities for those most at risk in the labour market
68. Scrapped National Standards, after listening to teachers and principals
69. Taking the financial pressure off parents by increasing funding to decile 1-7 schools if they don’t ask parents for donations
70. Removed fees from NCEA and NZ Scholarship, helping more than 145,000 households and around 168,000 secondary students
71. Addressing the teacher shortage by training and supporting thousands more teachers over the next four years
72. Making sure New Zealand history is taught in all schools and kura by 2022
73. Delivered a funding boost over four years for early learning services to improve the pay of up to 17,000 qualified teachers working in education and care services
74. Brought back government funding for adult night classes, investing in Adult and Community Education to help providers meet the increased needs for training and upskilling and give more than 11,000 New Zealanders more opportunities to learn
75. Making trades training in critical industries, and all apprenticeships, free from 1 July to get people into work and get key infrastructure built
76. Protected the productivity of the country’s vital beef and dairy sectors with a thorough and ongoing response to eradicate Mycoplasma Bovis
77. Upgrading the safety of 870 kms of high-volume, high-risk State Highways and roads throughout the country, through the Safe Network Programme
78. Recruited to achieve the largest, and most diverse Police workforce in New Zealand history, now at over 13,000 employees
79. Re-entered the Pike River drift to help families get closure and justice
80. Safely reduced the prison population
81. Cracking down on illicit drug manufacturers and suppliers while making it easier for those with substance addictions to get treatment
82. Made it easier to vote by allowing people to enrol on the day
83. Removed abortion from the Crimes Act, rightly treating it as a health issue
84. Established Te Arawhiti - The Office for Māori Crown Relations to make the Crown a better Treaty partner and enable better on-going relationships with Māori
85. Boosted Whānau Ora to support more whānau need on the ground and in the communities who need it most
86. Made an historic increase to the annual quota of refugees, lifting the quota from 1,000 to 1,500
87. Initiated the Pacific Reset, our commitment to build deeper partnerships with Pacific nations and the expansion of our development programme there
88. Leading the “Christchurch Call”, along with France, to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online
89. Worked hard to repatriate thousands of New Zealanders stuck overseas, while helping foreigners stranded in New Zealand return home
90. Banned military-style semi-automatic weapons, magazines and parts. Around 62,000 prohibited firearms have been taken out of circulation through gun buy-back and seizures
91. Restored rights for Kiwi workers by reinstating meal and rest breaks, strengthening collective bargaining, restoring protections for vulnerable workers and limiting 90-day trials to businesses with fewer than 20 employees
92. Installed 100 rural mobile broadband towers, as part of our rural broadband roll-out, to get our regional communities and businesses digitally connected
93. Established a $500 million COVID-19 health response fund, for primary care, public health, intensive care and hospital equipment, mental health support, telehealth, and Healthline
94. Boosting funding for PHARMAC to make sure New Zealanders continue to get the medicines they need despite global pressure on supply chains
95. Introduced some of the most strict border controls in the world to help keep COVID-19 out of our communities
96. Largest-ever investment in preventing and responding to, family and sexual violence
97. Joined the global search for a COVID-19 vaccine, enabling New Zealand scientists to contribute to global research efforts
98. Reached an historic consensus with our farming sector to implement farm-level pricing of climate change emissions from the agriculture sector by 2025
99. Investing in recycling infrastructure, including a recent boost of $124m for a number of initiatives across New Zealand
100. Expanded the Oranga Marae repair and development fund to support the physical and cultural revitalisations of marae.