Five years of progress with Labour
Our Government has a very clear vision for New Zealand’s future.
It’s one where our economy provides security and opportunities for every New Zealander and their family. It’s one where everyone has a healthy, affordable place to call home. It’s one where all of us have access to world-class healthcare. It’s one where we look after our environment for generations to come.
We’ve worked hard to put in place the foundations for this future – and while there’s still more work to do, we’ve made good progress.
Because of the big, long-term challenges that we inherited in 2017 – like the national housing crisis, climate change, child poverty, and a neglected health system – it can sometimes be easy to forget how far we’ve come.
So five years on, here’s a look at just some of the progress that we’ve made:
Creating economic security for all
Despite COVID causing the greatest economic downturn in New Zealand since the Great Depression, our economy is in a good position.
Thanks to our strong economic management, debt is low, exports are up and our economy is larger now than before the pandemic. We have more people in work, with higher wages, which makes both families and our economy strong.
Now, we’re taking the next steps in our plan. We’re targeting investments to keep debt low, backing businesses to grow jobs and wages, and supporting families across the country with the cost of living.
Together, these measures will provide greater economic security for New Zealanders, now and into the future.
You can find out more about our economic plan here, and how we’re supporting New Zealanders with the cost of living, here.
Lifting children out of poverty
Our Government was elected to turn around New Zealand’s record on child poverty. It’s a complex issue that will take time to fix, but we’re making good progress.
Already, initiatives like our Families Package, historic boosts to main benefits and free lunches in schools have lifted 66,500 children out of poverty.
We’re also helping more families put food on the table through increases to benefits and the minimum wage, and our cost of living package.
However, we know there’s more to do. We’re committed to continuing our progress on child poverty and inequality, so that we can make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child.
You can find out more about how we’re supporting children and families, here.
Tackling the housing crisis
In 2017, our Government inherited a housing crisis that was a decade in the making. While there’s no easy solution, the actions that we’ve taken are already making a real difference.
Housing supply is ramping up, we’ve changed the law to make renting fairer, and we’ve successfully tipped the balance in favour of first home buyers.
We’re speeding up the scale and pace of house building through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, and we’ve built more public and transitional houses than any Government in decades, and are on track to deliver 18,000 by 2024.
Our free trades training and apprenticeships, which have supported more than 200,000 people into the trades so far, are ensuring we have the skilled workforce we need to get more houses built.
There’s no single answer for fixing the housing crisis, but together, the measures we’ve put in place are making a real difference.
You can find out more about how we’re tackling the housing crisis, here.
Meeting the climate challenge
Climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our time, and since coming into Government, we’ve made tackling climate change a priority.
We’ve passed the landmark Zero Carbon Act, banned new offshore oil and gas exploration, worked with farmers on a world-leading agreement to reduce agricultural emissions, invested in innovative low carbon technology and more to help us meet our climate goals.
Because of this work, New Zealand is on track to bend the curve of our emissions downwards for the first time in history.
Now, we’re taking the next steps, laying the foundations for lasting action, while creating jobs and supporting our recovery. We’re supporting schools, hospitals and businesses to make the switch to cleaner energy, and investing in low carbon transport, as we move forward with our plan for New Zealand to be carbon neutral by 2050.
Fixing the health system
Our Government believes that every New Zealander should be able to access world-class healthcare.
In 2017, we inherited a health system under serious pressure after years of neglect, and since taking office, we’ve worked hard to turn this around.
Right across the country, we’re upgrading hospitals and health centres, training more nurses and doctors. We’ve also extended free GP visits to all for children under 14, and reduced the cost of going to the doctor for around 600,000 New Zealanders.
Earlier this year we made the largest ever investment in the health system and Pharmac, to fund more medicines and treatments for New Zealanders. This is on top of our previous record investments in Pharmac to provide more lifesaving drugs for Kiwis.
We’re putting mental health workers into places where people already get support for their healthcare needs, like GP clinics, kaupapa Māori, Pacific, and youth specific services.
More than 500,000 sessions have already been delivered since the programme began in 2019, and we’re still expanding.
You can find out more about how we’re laying the foundation for a whole new mental health system, here.
There’s still more work to do, but these measures, alongside our health reforms, are making sure that New Zealand will have a health system that we can be proud of.
You can find out more about how we’re building a better health system for all New Zealanders, here
And lots more...
This is just some of the progress that Labour has made since 2017. If you want to find out more, check out our record here.
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