Auckland, 10 September – Labour will take urgent action in its first 100 days in office to expand support for families and students, make rental homes warm and dry, find solutions to the mental health crisis and accelerate efforts to clean up our waterways, says Leader of the Opposition Jacinda Ardern.
If we have the privilege of forming a Labour-led Government after the election, we commit to the following 10 priorities during our first 100 days in office along with a range of other urgent work:
· Make the first year of tertiary education or training fees free and increase student allowances and living cost loans by $50 a week from January 1, 2018
· Pass the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill so families and all renters can live in warm, dry homes
· Ban overseas speculators from buying existing residential properties to help take the pressure off the housing market
· Stop the sell-off of state houses so we can better look after vulnerable families
· Legislate to pass the Families Package, including the Winter Fuel Payment, Best Start and increases to Paid Parental Leave, to take effect from 1 July 2018, so we can better support families, superannuitants and beneficiaries
· Introduce legislation to set a child poverty reduction target and change the Public Finance Act so the Budget reports progress on reducing child poverty
· Resume contributions to the New Zealand Superannuation Fund to help safeguard the provision of universal superannuation at age 65
· Set up a Ministerial Inquiry to fix our mental health crisis
· Take the first steps to clean up our rivers and lakes by holding a Clean Waterways Summit of all key stakeholders
· Increase the minimum wage to $16.50/hour, to take effect 1 April 2018, and introduce legislation to improve fairness in the workplace.
New Zealand faces a clear choice on 23 September – another three years where we continue to drift and risk seeing the problems just getting worse, or do we embrace the opportunity to take action and build a better, fairer New Zealand.
For the sake of so many left behind these past nine years, we can’t afford to stick to the status quo. Now is the time to make a choice so we can ensure economic growth goes hand-in-hand with greater equality and we can once again be a world leader, a country we can all be proud of.
“Together we can do this. Let’s do this.”
