Source: New Zealand Labour Party
We’re committed to ensuring that there is every opportunity for women and girls to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand, with fewer barriers.
Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to support women and girls, by improving services like healthcare and tackling issues like the gender pay gap.
Here are just some of the ways we’re making life easier for Kiwi women:
Improving healthcare
We’re making sure women and girls can get the care they need, when and where they need it.
To provide fair access and equal opportunities in education for our young women we’ve made period products freely available in all schools. We removed abortion from the Crimes Act to make sure this is rightly treated as a health issue, we’ve boosted funding for family and sexual violence services, and we introduced new breast and cervical cancer screening systems to save lives and reduce inequities for wāhine in our healthcare system.
Addressing the pay gap
We’re ensuring woman are paid fairly and have decent work conditions.
We’ve launched Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women’s Employment Action, with the goal of ensuring New Zealand is a great place for women to work. This builds on the steps we’ve already taken to ensure people working in female dominated industries are paid fairly. We’ve introduced the Equal Pay Amendment Act, which has made it easier to raise pay equity claims – with many sectors already experiencing the benefits. We’re also working to close the gender pay gap, and during our time in Government the public service pay gap has recorded the lowest gap, ever.
Boosting whānau support
We’ve provided extra support for parents and families, to ease the pressure on Kiwis.
We’ve extended paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks and increased weekly payment amounts, to give new parents more time with their baby. We introduced the Best Start payment to provide additional support to families with newborns, giving parents an extra $65 a week. Our Families Package also provides families with extra support through the Working for Families tax credit. We’ve reinstated the Training Incentive Allowance supporting more sole parents into further education and training, and we scrapped the discriminatory sanction that cut benefit income to mothers who didn’t declare the name of their child’s father.
These are just some of the ways we’re making sure women and girls can thrive in New Zealand. There is still more to do, but the changes we’ve made are already making a difference for thousands of Kiwi women. Supporting women is just one way we can strengthen the future of Aotearoa, and improve the wellbeing of all New Zealanders.
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