Election 2023: Political parties policy analysis

If elected the Labour Party will:

Give direct cash support to parents for help with early childcare & education.
Implement a contracting model for ECE that requires the government to award contracts based on the quality of service provision, with a focus on child and community centered outcomes.
Improve the quality of professional development for teachers.
Offer fair pay for all teachers, increase funding for teaching assistants and improve specialist support in schools.
Build curiosity in children and youth, including a 'facilitated play' approach to learning in the early years of schooling.
Invest in ‘structured literacy’ to boost educational outcomes, including international accredited training for teachers.
Support lifelong and flexible learning, including funding for ‘night schools’.
Review the Tertiary Sector to support both student outcomes and academic research.

Labour

Implement the recommendations of the Highest Needs Review and improve transition support for neurodiverse students moving between secondary.
Continue to support the Learning Support Coordinator rollout, start with the new Specialised Learning Support Coordinators in Kaupapa Māori and Māori medium education that were funded in Budget 2023- end goal of having on for every 500 students in schools.
Continue to invest in learning support modifications to school buildings for students with access needs, including automatic doors, lifts, hoists, and bathroom modifications.
Increase specialist and employment services and industry partnerships, and link up vocational education, trade training and apprenticeships with employment services to facilitate employment and on the job learning.
Increase subsides for ECE centres to ease pressure on fees.
Extend 20 hours free ECE to 40,000 two year olds.
Develop and deliver programmes to support students accelerate their progress in reading and maths, especially over years 2-6.

NZ First

Enforce compulsory education and address truancy.
Focus on doing the basics better through emphasising the ‘Historic Three R’s’ – Reading, Writing, Arithmetic.
Provide better pathways and funding for STEM subjects.
Remove gender ideology from the curriculum.
Review the New Zealand curriculum to remove critical race theory and de-colonialism.
Conduct a Select Committee Inquiry into the future NCEA to see if it is delivering for students, parents and employers.
Change ‘Fees Free’ in the first year, to make it ‘Fees Free’ in the third year, for full-time students successfully passing all coursework to that point.
Free apprenticeships for in-demand vocations by refunding fees and course costs after successful completion of each trade examination.
Student Loan Abatement Scheme for in-demand critical workers so that one-year of student loans is wiped, for every two years of full time work in New Zealand post-qualification or registration.
Make Apprenticeship Boost permanent and return to a Targeted Trade and Apprenticeship Fund.

TPM

If elected the Green party will:

Remove the power of schools to expel any student younger than the school leaving age of 16.
Fund schools to hire additional Māori support staff who are well-paid and centrally funded.
Establish a Māori-led taskforce with the mandate to transform how Māori students with disabilities and learning differences are taught and supported.
Require a minimum of 25% of the education budget be directed to Māori models of delivery and pastoral care.
Ensure that te reo Māori and Māori history are core curriculum subjects in primary up to Year 10 at secondary schools.
Establish an independent Māori Standards Authority to oversee Māori language funding and audit providers to ensure they meet cultural and reo Māori competency standards.
Fund free digital devices and free internet for all children from Year 4 – Year 13.

Greens

Ensure that every child can reach their full potential with a high-quality, accessible public education.
Ensure that Aotearoa New Zealand’s obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child are met within education.

Provide an enforceable right to inclusive education, in line with Articles 4 and 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Provide resources to schools and group special education to ensure the Government meets its obligations to children with additional learning support needs.
Allocate needs-based funding for learning support needs to schools based on the numbers of children with special education needs they have enrolled, and ensure that extra funding for students with the highest needs is sufficient.

Hold schools accountable for the way they use disability funding.
Fund new Learning Support Centres for disabled students within mainstream schools to meet demand.

Ensure that blind and low vision students have access to a full range of adaptive tools and reading options to support their learning, including assistive technology, screen readers, magnification and Braille instruction. Additionally, ensure provision of orientation and mobility instruction, as appropriate.

Ensure that deaf children, their teachers and their immediate peers are taught New Zealand Sign Language and other communication skills and techniques, as appropriate.

Increase funding for community-run early childhood education centres, kindergartens, and kohanga reo- and work towards universal, public, free ECE.
Improve working conditions and staff-to-student ratios at all levels of education from ece to high school.
Prohibit Public-Private Partnerships in the building and operating of schools.
Require Education Review Office reports to assess the service provided by schools for students with disabilities.
Oppose the publication to league tabled with rank schools on academic achievement.
Create school hubs with health and social services on-site, including mental health support.
Expand Ka Ora Ka Ako lunches in schools to provide fresh, nutritious lunches to all students at all schools.
End classroom streaming or grouping by perceived ability, recognising this exacerbates inequality and is not supported by evidence for improved learning outcomes.

Ensure that all schools and early childhood services have policies, practices, resources and programmes to create a whole school culture that is inclusive, and supports the identification and elimination of prejudice, racism, bullying, intimidation, and violence.

Ensure the use of an independent authority for appeals in the case of enrolment, stand-downs, suspensions, exclusions and expulsions.

Ensure that all schools provide an inclusive learning environment with supports for children with disabilities and additional learning needs, and opportunities for all tamariki to thrive.
Elimate the use of seclusion and put in place safeguards against the abuse of disabled people in state care, disability services, or schools, including training people to help identify and respond to the signs of abuse and ensuring appropriate pathways for disclosure.

ACT

Enable public schools to become partnership schools.
Enable secondary schools to opt out of NCEA and instead offer an internationally recognised qualification (e.g. Cambridge or International Baccalaureate) by funding all qualifications at the same rate.
Fundamentally reform the Ministry of Education and strip it back to basics, focusing on negotiating collective agreements, monitoring student and school progress, setting minimum standards of accreditation, and auditing schools.
Establish a $250M p/a Teaching Excellence Reward Fund that will be administered by school principals to recognise and recruit for teaching excellence. Funding would be allocated to schools in proportion to the number of teachers at the school.
Introduce and provide every child with a Student Education Account that parents can use at any registered educational institution that will accept their child’s enrolment, public or private. SEA will follow a child throughout their educational journey, from early childhood education to tertiary. Extra funding, such as that distributed by the Equity Funding Index or to support disabilities and special needs would also be added to the SEA.

National

Launch their Teaching the Basics Brilliantly policy, which consists of an hour on reading, writing, and maths daily, minimum requirements for what schools much teach every year in reading, writing, maths and science, regular standardised assessment and clear reporting to parents, and better training and more tools to support teachers.
Implement a Literacy Guarantee that will use a structured literacy approach teach every children to read, using short phonics checks in Year 2 to assess student progress. Students who need extra learning support will be provided with a structured literacy intervention.
Reprioritise funding from Reading Recovery (current intervention programme) and fund structured literacy interventions instead.
Invest $60.5M over four years so every primary school can engage with an approved structured literacy provider.
Establish education targets of 80% of Year 8 students being at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing, maths, and science by 2030.
Establish education target for NZ students to be in the top 10 for PISA rankings for maths, reading, and science by 2030.
Introduce an age-appropriate skills check-in for the end of Year 2 to assess basic skills such as counting, phonics, and letter formation.

Health policies

Disabled people are often at high-risk of poor health and wellbeing outcomes. They can also be high-users of the health system. The statistical outcomes surrounding disabled people and health aren’t great. The 2018 New Zealand General Social Survey asked to rate their general health status, 50.2% of disabled people said their health was ‘fair or poor’, compared to 11.1% of non-disabled people.

ACT

Establish a separate stand-alone entity called Mental Health and Addiction New Zealand (MHANZ), which would give patients the right to choose between a range of providers instead of the current system of accepting what their DHB offers.
That MHANZ would not be a provider in it’s own right, but a commissioning agency that assesses individual needs and contracts the best providers for the individual patient.

Increase GP funding by 13%, the equivalent of 2.5 million GP visits per year.
Enable physician assistants to take on less complex tasks to take pressure off GPs.

Publicly subsidise more of the common elective surgeries in private hospitals through competitive tender. This will utilise spare private hospital operating capacity, reduce public waitlists, and free up public hospital operating theatres for urgent and major surgeries.
To seek an independent review of Pharmac’s operating model for greater transparency and timeliness in decision making, a more strategic focus, and a productivity perspective based on real lives.
To attract more doctors and primary healthcare professionals under a new immigration policy and establish better pathways for training and accreditation.
Allow private provision and leaseback of public hospitals. This would allow lease-back and build arrangements with large, reputable global infrastructure investment groups for the refurbishment of existing public healthcare infrastructure and the construction of new facilities. Such long-term leases would have the private lessor responsible for all build, maintenance and through-life utility costs.

Labour

Develop and roll out diagnostic and assessment pathways for neurodiversity in the public health system, this will improve access to early intervention supports.
Increase number of NZSL interpreters working nation wide so that deaf people can better access health services, including increasing interpreters pay and providing more training so that interpreters can better understand language used in the health sector.
Back Te Aka Whai Ora to deliver equitable health outcomes for Māori.
Progressively expand free basic dental care, starting with 18-30 year olds, starting with 390,000 under 24-year-olds from 1 July 2025, and growing to nearly 800,000 under 30-year-olds across the next term of Government.
Work to increase access to general practices and after hours care where there in limited provision or where practices have closed books.
Break down barriers between community and hospital care using digital tools and video consultations.
Support womens health through free cervical screening and implementing the womens health strategy.
Clear the backlog of people waiting more than one year for treatment (other than orthopaedic surgery) by 31st December 2023.
Clear the waitlist for people waiting more than one year for orthopaedic surgery by 30TH June 2024.
Deliver 3,500 more cataract surgeries so everyone can access surgery according to the same clinical criteria. This means no one will be legally blind before they are eligible for cataract surgery.
Expand primary mental health services to 3.5M NZers.
Continue rollout of the new workforce of mental health professionals to stop early mental health issues from becoming large ones.
Continue to treat addiction as a health issue and investing in support services.
Build a new hospital in Hawke’s Bay, and complete the new builds of Whangarei, Dunedin, and Nelson hospitals.
Train 50 more doctors a year from 2024 increasing to 335 a year by 2027.
Increase Pharmac funding by more than $1B over the next four years.
Work towards a Global Pandemic Treaty and increase our engagement with multilateral health institutes while supporting them to continue to do the important work they do.

TPM

Establish a Mana Haua Authority.
Reallocate 25% of all disability funding to the Mana Haua Authority.
Establish Kaupapa Māori disability organisations and rehabilitation centres.
Establish a Māori ACC Authority.
Ensure that antenatal screening programmes are not biased towards termination of pregnancies if a disability is diagnosed.
Remove all barriers for Tangata Haua to access timely, accessible, and affordable health services.
Ensure that Whanau Haua have the right to access cultural avenues of hauora in addition to the medical or the psychological model.
Ensure that medical decisions must be based on quality of life for whanau haua with requests by them and their whanau being acknowledged and actioned (especially regarding End of Life Care, and antenatal screening programmes).
Increase funding for Te Aka Whai Ora (Māori Health Authority) by transferring 25% of all health funding to Te Aka Whai Ora.
Ensure free primary and dental care for Whanau earning less than $60,000.
Implement a Māori Health Card. This would be linked to NHI numbers and ensures that health funding follows the Māori patient in order to better meet their needs.
Establish a comprehensive Kaupapa Māori Mental Health Service.
Accelerate and protect Matauranaga Māori Models of Health.
Invest $1B p/a in Health Workforce Development.

National

Use targets to focus the health system on improving outcomes across five priority areas: shorter stays in the emergency department; faster cancer treatment; improved immunisation; shorter wait times for first specialist assessment; shorter wait times for surgery.
Reverse the decline in immunisation rates through a short-term Immunisation Incentive Payment plan to encourage GP clinics to boost immunisation rates. $52M will be allocated for the Immunisation Incentive Payment plan.
Provide free continuous glucose monitors to type 1 diabetics aged under 18.
Extend free postnatal stays for mothers of newborns to three days.
Invest $280M over four years to fund 13 treatments for cancers that are available in Australia but not NZ.
Investing $724M over four years in Pharmac (in addition to the $280M for cancer drugs).
Repealing the free prescription subsidy and capping total annual prescription costs for an individual or family at $100. Free prescriptions for over 65’s and those on low incomes (using Community Services Card and SuperGold Card).
Introduce the Mental Health Innovation Fund, which will see up to $20M in matching funds being distributed to community mental health organisations who can demonstrate they are delivering strong results with the money they are already investing. It will support innovative community providers like Mike King’s Gumboot Friday to scale up their operations.
Increase the number of psychiatrist registrar places to 50 per year.
Double the number of clinical psychologists being trained each year from 40 to 80 over the next four years by expanding the internship hub model.
Establish a Minister for Mental Health who will be responsible for ensuring taxpayer money invested into mental health is actually delivering an improvement in mental health outcomes.

Greens

Remove all barriers for disabled people to access health services – including for medical needs unrelated to their disability.
Reconfigure our health system towards recognising and acting on oppressive and intersecting biases (e.g. racism, sexism, ableism, fatphobia, ageism, queerphobia, transphobia) and the knowledge and skills required to work with affected communities, such as Deaf and disabled people.
Protect the autonomy of people, including disabled people and elders, against coercion during end of life decision-making.
Provide comprehensive sexual health and reproductive health services including contraception, abortion, assisted reproduction, and maternity, post-natal and surrogacy services.
Provide early screening, identification, immunisation, prevention, and treatment for all childhood conditions that impact on long-term well-being and capacity.
Recognise and centre the roles played by parents and guardians in single-parent, blended and Rainbow multigenerational whānau.
Support recommendations from intersex advocates, including to prohibit all nonconsensual and medically unnecessary surgeries or medical interventions on intersex children.
Provide Carer’s Leave for employees caring for members of their whānau and adequately resource people caring for whāngai and children placed by Oranga Tamariki.
Provide integrated services to support the wellbeing of kaumātua, including public housing designed for extended whānau, elder abuse prevention, and free enduring power of attorney services.
Ensure that all health workers, and other carers that engage with specific population groups and communities, receive generous pay, support, respite, supervision and supported access to training.
Provide universal, free and accessible diagnosis, treatment and management for all illnesses and injuries — including fully-funded public provision of dental care, general practitioner clinics, ambulance and emergency services, aged care, palliative care, and mental health services.
Invest in and ensure timely and equitable access to the most up-to-date research, procedures, medicines, diagnostics, vaccines and other health technologies—including gender-affirming healthcare and rare disorder treatments.
Provide early interventions for children and young people with existing and developing mental and emotional challenges.
Implement all remaining recommendations from He Ara Oranga: Report of the Government Inquiry into Mental Health and Addictions while going beyond them to ensure integration of mental health services with social services and their availability in areas with higher levels of deprivation as well as to marginalised groups.
Eliminate therapy waiting lists by training and employing more therapists, including clinical, counselling and health psychologists, clinical and other social workers, counsellors, psychotherapists, specialist nurses and occupational therapists.
Require adequate ventilation to reduce exposure to indoor airborne pathogens and contaminants.

NZ First

Return New Zealand to a single health system for all based on need not Race.
Abolish the Māori Health Authority, other race-based initiatives.
Establish a new patient-focused medicines buying agency to replace Pharmac and increase its funding for life changing medicines.
Introduce a GP-controlled Waitlist Reduction Fund with $925M available each year to end the waitlists for primary care.
Increase the number of GPs by fast-tracking them through immigration.
Introduce Mental Health Response Units to adequately address mental health distress and life-threatening harm in the community.
Provide aged-care dignity by beginning to fully fund aged-care placement shortages.
Immediately fund 2000 new standard residential care beds over the next parliamentary term, and begin to address standard bed residential care support to providers by indexing it to inflation.
Secure bi-partisan agreement to fully fund the care and dementia beds that are needed now and agree to a long term focus for 2040.
Fund St John’s Ambulance service to their requested 95% required funding level.
Fund mobile health buses to take specialists and specialist services to the people.
Universal vision screening by trained optometrists for year 5 and year 6 primary school students, and for those who need it, a follow up eye exam and to be fitted with glasses if required.
Investigate ACC and the inclusion of all Birthing Injuries to be included as well as other birth related trauma for both the mother and child.

TOP

Introduce the Teal Card which is a physical card and digital app which enables young people to easily access healthcare, transport, and financial support. It integrates government systems like IRD and HealthNZ.
The Teal Card would deliver a series of investments in all residents and citizens under the age of 30 and would be launched immediately. Under the Teal Card T.O.P is promising that there would be fully funded healthcare for young people, including fully funded GP visits, dental care, eye checks, and mental health care.
Strengthen workforce retention of all healthcare workers by ensuring they have fair liveable wages and safer hour rosters.
Increase placements at medical, nursing and dentistry schools.
Introduce an accelerated post-graduate medical programme for people who have completed clinical or science degrees.
Support increased funding to the voluntary bonding scheme for nurses, midwives, doctors and all allied health workers.
Support a fully funded ambulance service.
Fully fund contraception (including long-acting reversible contraception).
Fully fund antenatal ultrasounds (and associated GP visits), alongside more support for maternity services.
Review funding model for primary care to empower more GP practices to provide fully funded care in the community (e.g. cervical screening and minor skin surgery).
Support Te Whatu Ora to provide public GP practices in under-served rural areas that do not currently have a primary care provider.
Support further research into psychoactive drugs and mental health treatment.

With the ongoing effects of the pandemic, unemployment, and the cost of living crisis, income support and welfare has been talked about more than ever. But for the disability community, income support and welfare has long been a very pressing issue.

Having enough money to survive and thrive is crucial to ensuring a good quality life, and yet, our welfare system is insufficient, particularly for disabled people and their whānau. Disabled people are more likely to experience poverty, especially Māori and Pacific disabled people. Disabled people under 65 are almost 2.5 times more likely to report not having enough income than non-disabled people under 65. The parents of disabled children are 1.5 times more likely to report insufficient income.

Disability often comes hand in hand with additional costs, whether it be for transport, medication, treatments, or accessibility aids. None of these things are cheap, and there are barriers for many disabled people and their whānau to engage in paid work; yet income supports for disabled people are so small that people who do not have additional disability related costs would struggle to survive on them.

NZ First

Set two years as the permanent cap for lifetime entitlement for the JobSeeker WorkReady benefit.
Fund rates relief for SuperGold card holders who are mostly on fixed incomes, to apply for a 50% local authority rates rebate for those who own and live in their only home or equivalent such as an apartment, up to a maximum of $1,600each year.
Maintain the retirement age at 65 years.
Work to increase the Accommodation Supplement for SuperGold card holders and retain the Winter Energy Payment.

Greens

Provide equitable access to social services for children with additional needs and their whānau, focused on both early intervention and continued support including better respite services for parents.
Introduce a minimum Income Guarantee where all people limited in their capacity to work due to a disability or health condition receive at least 80% of the fulltime minimum wage.
Improve access to disability related supports, including doubling the Disability Allowance and expanding the criteria.
Fund advocacy services to support people with disabilities to advocate for themselves.
Continue to work to end family and sexual violence towards disabled people.
Reform the Social Services Act to uphold the dignity of those who need support, and ensure that everyone has secure income and a decent standard of living whether in or out of work.
Transform Working for Families by creating a Family Tax Credit of $215 p/w for one child and $135 for subsequent children.
Replace Jobseeker, Sole Parent Support, and the Student Allowance with a base payment of $385 p/w for everyone out of work and an extra $135 p/w for sole parents. There would be universal eligibility for students.
Ensure that income tax settings are fair and progressive including making the first $10,000 tax free.
Introduce a 2.5% tax on net wealth over $2M.
Overhaul recoverable assistance so that grants are available as an alternative for urgent needs. This will prevent people going into debt when seeking help; and work towards writing off existing debt with MSD.
Increase paid parental leave to 15 months with additional leave for partners.
Double Best Start Payment to $140 p/w and making it universal for all children under 3, so families have more support in the first 1000 days.
Maintain universal superannuation for all kiwis 65 years and older, with a $16 p/w increase in after-tax payments from fairer tax settings.

TOP

On completion of the National Civic Service Program: $5,000 tax-free savings boost at age 18 into a savings account through KiwiBank, which can be accessed for education, training or placed into a KiwiSaver account.
Introduce a tax-free threshold of $15,000.
Reform the tax system.
Remove unfair and unreasonable sanctions on benefits ie. relationship status determining benefit allowances.
Increase income support for disabled people by $400M.
Improve accessibility to support disabled people through more streamlined processes.
Wipe all MSD debt to immediately ease financial burdens in low-income families.
Extend In-Work Child Tax Credit to all children of low-income families.
Work towards the long-term goal of Universal Basic Income.

National

Establish community providers who will be contracted to provide 18-24 year old Jobseekers (who have been on Jobseekers for three or more months) with a dedicated Job Coach to help get them into work, with funding linked to keeping young people off welfare.
Provide Jobseekers more support, with a proper assessment of their barriers to finding work, and an individual job plan to address them. Those who fail to follow their plan will face sanctions such as money management or benefit reductions. Long-term under 25s Jobseekers who get into work and stay off of the benefit for 12 months will receive a $1000 bonus.
Introduce the Social Investment Fund as the organising framework for their approach to the funding and delivery of social services.
Reinstate indexing benefits to inflation rather than wages, ensuring that beneficiaries’ support adapts to real changes in living expenses while maintaining a reasonable gap between benefits and potential earnings from full-time employment providing a vital incentive for jobseekers to actively pursue work. This would also impact the Supported Living Payment.
Introduction of the Job benefit traffic light system for benefit sanctions with sanctions ranging from frequent check-ins to benefit suspension and community work. The existing rule that jobseekers with children can only receive a maximum 50% benefit reduction sanction of their benefit payment will be maintained.
Will require Jobseeker benefit recipients to reapply for their benefit every six months, rather than once every 12 months as it is currently.
No significant increases to the Child Disability or Disability Allowances.
Modernise paid parental leave rules by allowing parents to share their leave entitlements.
Back Pocket Boost tax relief. National campaigned on a tax cut that would see “an average income family with children” receiving up to $250 per fortnight, where 3000 households would receive the $250 per fortnight.
Introduce FamilyBoost - a childcare tax rebate of up to 25% of childcare costs for families earning up to $180,000 p/a.
Repeal Labours “Fair Pay” legislation.

Labour

Increase the In-Work Tax Credit by $25 p/w from 1st April 2024.
Lift the Working for Families abatement threshold to $50,000 meaning 175,000 families will receive on average an extra $47 p/w before the end of the next term.
Increase main benefits by wage growth, and not inflation.
Implement child support pass-on to sole parent beneficiaries with 41,550 sole parent families seeing a median gain of $24 p/w.
Continue to overhaul the welfare system and implementing the Welfare Expert Advisory Group’s recommendations: work to individualise entitlements; recognise and supporting diversity of family structures through reviewing of the relationship rules. This means that a disabled person would no longer be disadvantaged if they are in a relationship with another disabled person, or a non-disabled person.
Improve rates and expand eligibility to the Child Disability and Disability Allowances.
Remove GST off fruit and veggies from 1st April 2024.
Continue to work on the prevention of family and sexual violence.
Pass the Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill to reduce the waiting period required before finalising a divorce in situations of abuse.
Modernise consent law, drawing on the experience of sexual violence survivors, advocates, and legal experts.
Respond in a people-centred and mana-enhancing way to the findings of the Royal Commission into the Abuse in Care.
Introduce a Pacific Community Wellbeing and Resilience Fund.

TPM

Establish a Mana Hauā Authority.
Reallocate 25% of all Disability funding to the Mana Hauā Authority.
Abolish abatement rates on benefits for Tangata Hauā and their care workers.
Double funding for Enabling Good Lives approach administered by MSD and reallocate $35M to Māori disability organisations.
Ensure that Māori disability organisations are formally included in the development of all disability related policy and legislation.
Acknowledge that for many Tangata Hauā that paid employment is inaccessible, so will ensure that the welfare system upholds their mana.
Double baseline benefit levels, individualise benefits and remove financial penalties, sanctions and work-test obligations. This includes repeated proof of disability or sickness.
Cancel income support related debt and ensure that additional grants don’t need to be paid back in the future.
Address the institutionalised racism, prejudice and ongoing mistreatment by management and staff within WINZ towards Whānau Hauā.
Introduce and implement a transition plan to end state care of mokopuna Māori.
Introduce enabling legislation to partially repeal the Oranga Tamariki Act and create a Mokopuna Māori Act, which will set out the functions and powers of the independent Mokopuna Māori Authority.

ACT

Require MSD case managers to consider whether all reasonable treatment options have been pursued before deciding whether a medical condition should be accepted as permanent.
Expand the roles of regional health advisors and ‘designated doctors’ to pick up on fraud and ineligibility, ensure people are on the correct benefit, and are supported to meet any job seeking obligations.
Enable doctors to complete work capacity certificates privately to avoid having to provide advice under duress.
Take a more proactive and systematic approach to ensuring beneficiaries whose primary incapacity is substance abuse are taking steps to become independent.
To introduce electronic income management for people on Jobseeker Support for those who have received a traditional cash benefit for 17 weeks, and for people on the Sole Parent Support if they have an additional child whilst receiving a benefit. Supported Living Payment, Young Parent/Youth Payment, or Unsupported Child benefit will not change.
Reform the Retirement Commission to be focused on retirement villages and aging-in-place.
Design a regulatory framework to enable individualised funding of in-home care for Seniors.

Employment

Employment is always a hot button topic for most voters, so I took a look at the employment policies from the political parties. Not all New Zealanders who are disabled or have a health condition are getting the opportunities they need. Disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed, and 75% of disabled people said they would like to work if they were able to find employment. The employment issues disabled people face are not simply social welfare issues, but also involves improving how the labour market operates. Our aging population and the resulting increase in the number of disabled people means the status quo will be unsustainable. Further, Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by New Zealand in 2008, obligates Governments to recognise and legislate for equal work opportunities

Employers reported that they were unlikely or less likely to employ an employee with a mental illness such as schizophrenia (65%), with a moderate learning disability (60%), or had a moderate to high speech impediment (60%). These attitudes are often reflected in the types of employment that disabled people and people with health conditions are able to obtain; jobs that they are overqualified for, and do not utilise their valuable skills.

Labour

If Elected Labour will:

Increase Minimum Wage every year during the next term, with long-term goal of paying the projected Living Wage.
End the Minimum Wage Exemption Scheme by mid-2025 and replace it with a wage supplement so that all disabled people will receive at least minimum wage.
Implement the Disability Employment Action Plan and start to shift the way employment services are contracted for and delivered, as in line with Enabling Good Lives principles.
Increasing disabled people’s employment rates to be comparable with non-disabled people especially for disabled women, tāngata whaikaha Māori and Pasifika.
Support all disabled people who wish to work in the sector that sits them, including self-employment.
Introduce legislation to extend the claim so care and support workers can be paid the rate that accurately reflects the skills experiences needed to do their jobs.
Increase specialist services and industry partnerships and link up with vocational education, trade training and apprenticeships with employment services to facilitate employment and on the job training.
Increase abatement thresholds so people can earn more while on a benefit and aren’t discouraged from taking up part-time work.
Deliver Fair Pay Agreements across the economy.
Continue to work on an Income Insurance Scheme with a view to considering its implementation when economic conditions are appropriate.

National

Restore 90-day trial periods for all businesses.
Repeal Labour’s ‘Fair Pay’ legislation.
Incentivise more people to study nursing and midwifery, and to stay here with a bonding scheme that will pay their student loan for five years if they commit to working in New Zealand.
Establish a relocation support scheme, offering up to 1000 qualified overseas nurses and midwives relocation grants worth up to $10,000 each to support their move to New Zealand.
Introduce an International Graduates Visa – a three-year open work visa for highly educated people who have graduated with a bachelor’s degree or higher within the last five years from one of the top 100 universities in the world.
Introduce a Global Growth Tech Visa – a residence visa for people with highly specialised skills who have worked at a top global tech company earning at least NZ$400,000.
Investigate changes to the tax treatment of options issued by startups to their staff to make it easier to attract and retain talent in their early years.

Greens

Guarantee minimum wage increases at least in line with inflation.
Ensure skills development and working conditions meet the needs of disabled people, including through improving accessibility standards.
Implement better retraining and work-place accommodation programmes to ensure that valuable skills and knowledge aren’t lost when workers suffer permanent injuries.
Expand ACC to cover all health conditions to that everyone has support for time off work to recover from illness as well as injury.
Increase paid parental leave to 15 months with additional leave for partners.
Recognise unpaid labour and caregiving by doubling Best Start Payment to $140 p/w
Ensure job creation and apprenticeship programmes provide free training and workforce re-entry programmes for parents of school-aged children and have policies promoting inclusion and diversity.
Fund advocacy serives that support people with disabilities to advocate for themselves; including Māori led support for tāngata whaikaha.
Co-design accessibility legislation with the disability community, underpinned by enforceable accessibility standards to prevent and remove accessibility barriers.
Continue to promote and progress pay equity and require pay transparency and pay-parity management in all sectors.
Support default union membership when people start a new job (making union membership an opt-out rather than opt-in).

TPM

Immediately abolish the minimum wage exemption for Tangata Hauā rather than delaying it until 2025 as is the current government policy.
Uphold the rights of Whānau Hauā to participate in an accessible workforce without fear of discrimination or prejudice.
Immediately raise the minimum wage to $25 p/h and legislate for an annual increase to keep up with cost of living increases.
Guarantee pay equity for Māori nurses and teachers.
Eliminate starting off/youth rate wages.
Legislate to ensure the ability for multi-employer collective bargaining and collective bargaining for contractors.

NZ First

Make Apprenticeship Boost permanent and return to a Targeted Trade and Apprenticeship Fund.
Explore lifting the Minimum Wage to at least $25 p/h by allowing businesses a tax concession to do so.
Reinstate Workbridge as the primary employment agency for Kiwis who are differently abled and resource them to provide the appropriate level of pastoral support to both employee and the employer.
Fully reinstate the 90-day trial programme and expand its reach to more small businesses.
Remove the Accredited Employer Worker Visa and replace it with a Skills Shortage Visa and a Labour Shortage Visa.
Establish an ‘Essential Worker’ workforce planning mechanism to better plan for skill or labour shortages in the long-term.
Develop closer links between education and employment.

ACT

Immediately abolish Fair Pay Agreements and supporting freedom to contact.
Place a memorandum on minimum wage increases for three years.
Reinstate 90-day trials for all businesses not just those fewer than 20 employees.
Reduce costs of unfounded personal grievances to employers.
Remove January 2nd as a public holiday to help small businesses to absorb the cost of Matariki.

TOP

Strengthen workforce retention of all healthcare workers by ensuring they have fair liveable wages and safer hour rosters.
Offer fair pay for all teachers, increase funding for teachers assistants.
Introduce Long-Term Alliance Contracting Models to deliver long-term plans, workforce certainty and lower risk.

Housing policies

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which New Zealand has ratified, says disabled people have the right to adequate housing. A house is more than four walls and a roof, it is also a place of rest, comfort, and belonging.

New Zealand also has a housing crisis, with many people living in houses that are frankly detrimental to their health, and housing prices and rent soaring sky high.

Disabled people are more likely to be renters, and to live in homes that do not meet their needs and are of subpar quality. Disabled people aged 18 to 64 are 2.8 times more likely to report a major problem with dampness or mould. This is likely to be due to disabled people on average having a lower income, which in turn limits the housing options available to them.

TPM

TPM if elected will:

Reform building standards to require that all new housing builds are fully accessible.
Retrofit existing public housing to meet universal design standards and provide funding for papakaīnga who wish to apply universal design standards to their whare.
Ensure the Government re-enter the housing market to develop and build state housing stock.
Build 2000 houses on our ancestral lands and will do this in the next two years.
Ensure fifty percent of all new social housing allocated to Māori to give Whānau and tamariki a fair go in education, health and welfare
Stop all sales of freehold land to offshore foreign interests.
Place a 2% tax on the capital value of a vacant or empty house if they remain unoccupied for 3 months or longer in any one year. Add a Capital Gains Tax on all property set at 2% of the appreciation per annum – other than on the whānau home.

National

Increase the number of Social Housing places.
Put families in emergency housing motels and care at the front of the queue for social housing by establishing a new Priority One category on the Social Housing Register.
Commission an independent review of Kainga Ora.
Revamp Kainga Ora by introducing consultation requirements for new developments, directing it to evict unruly tenants, ensuring it improves services for tenants, and driving efficiencies to lower the time and cost of building new state houses.
Reintroduce no-cause rental terminations. This would allow landlords to evict tenants for no reason as long as there’s a 90 day notice.
End the automatic roll-over of fixed term tenancies to periodic tenancies.
Provide targeted support to tenants for isolated, low-level offending against other tenants or neighbours.
Relocate offenders for repeated or serious incidents to protect neighbours, with increased support to manage underlying cause of behaviour.
Establish a Social Impact Bond to address emergency housing. Initial funding of $50M over three years will be administered through National’s Social Investment Fund. The Social Impact Bond will be a contract with providers who can shift families out of emergency housing into secure homes in the short term- with the goal of keeping them there in the medium and long-term. Payments will reflect the long-term aim of ending emergency housing.
Over time National’s goal is to pay housing providers, including Kainga Ora, and Community Housing Providers based on the outcomes they achieve for their clients or tenants.

Greens

Reform the Building Code so new houses and buildings are accessible by design, unless specifically exempted.
Build more accessible social housing in all communities.
Fund Māori led initiatives to provide accessible housing within papakaīnga.
Provide supported housing for people with complex needs who are experiencing homelessness, with quick pathways to a long-term home.
In the first 100 days of a new government, the Greens will introduce a new Renters Rights Bill that aims to create and affordable, healthy rental market.
Implement rent controls by halting the rise in rents by ensuring that annual rent increases cannot be more than 3%, and link rents in a new tenancy to what the previous tenants paid.
Improve the Healthy Homes Standards by extending temperature requirements to bedrooms, narrowing exemptions, and creating a rental warrant of fitness.
Establish a national register of all landlords and property managers that will keep track of how many properties are rented, who owns them, house much rent is charged over time, and compliance with the Rental Warrant of Fitness.
Introduce development bonuses, allowing more storeys to be added when buildings are energy efficient and accessible. Buildings that meet the criteria (both Universal Design, and Homestar 7 standard) will receive a development bonus to provide an extra 1/3 height allowance.
Significantly upscale the Kainga Ora to implement a partnership approach with iwi and hapū for development of housing in their rohe.
Expand government support for first home buyers through shared equity and progressive home ownership schemes and low-interest government backed loans.
Provide government underwrites of community housing developments that provide long-term affordable rental and shared ownership housing.
Ensure public and community housing provides for the needs of senior citizens, and increase funding for papakaīnga housing for kaumātua.
Review the Retirement Villages Act to ensure it upholds the rights and interests of residents.
Require retirement homes to keep 25% of their housing available as affordable rental units for seniors.

Labour

Deliver universal design in 20% of new public housing so it is fully accessible for disabled people by 2027, as they work towards 25% and an overall housing stock that reflects the diversity of those who need public housing.
Continue upgrading NZ’s public housing stock, retrofitting a futher 2,500 state homes to meet or exceed building standards for new builds.
Protect the Healthy Homes Standard and extend the Standards to include provision of curtains.
Work to phase out emergency housing accommodation in motels and boarding houses as quickly as possible.
Develop the next state of the Homeless Action Plan to implement the NZ Homelessness Strategy. This includes working with a range of agencies, community organisations, and local government, dealing with mental health, addiction, crime, family dynamics. Employment, welfare, accessibility, and affordable housing issues.
Deliver 27,000 public and transitional homes by 2027.
Roll-out the largest ever investment in Māori housing through Whai Kāinga Whai Oranga.
Require tenancy managers to be licensed and meet standards of conduct and care to landlords and tenants.
Support a greater security of tenure for rentals. Security such as a just cause for eviction, a longer period of notice, and managing annual rent increases.
Continue to strengthen the enforcement of the Healthy Homes Standards by increasing the number of inspections conducted each year and the level of enforcement of requirements through the Tenancy Tribunal.
Use the Affordable Housing Fund to partner with investors, philanthropic organisations, developers, and affordable housing stakeholders to expand the range of housing options for people whose needs are currently not being met by the market.

ACT

Reinstate interest deductibility for residential landlords with effect from April 2024, rather than phasing it in over three years.
Simplify the process for evicting unruly tenants. ACT would allow landlords to issue a 90-day notice without providing a reason or applying to the Tenancy Tribunal.
Clarify that tenants who are terminated for anti-social behaviour will be moved to the bottom of public and emergency housing waitlists.
Specify that a tenancy can be terminated and not simply transferred to a different Kāinga Ora property if the tenant engages in dangerous or severe disruptive behaviour. Such behaviour would include drug production or supply, acts of violence, presentation of weapons, persistent intimidation or malicious harassment, and threatening or intimidating behaviour.
Reverse Labour’s changes to notice periods for landlords and tenants. ACT will return tenants’ notice period to 21 days (currently 28) and landlords’ to 42 days if they want to sell or move in (currently 90 days if they want to sell or 63 days if they want to move in).
Enable landlords to charge a pet bond to increase the number of rentals allowing pets.
Comprehensively overhaul Resource Management laws based on property rights. Meaning you have the right to develop your property and the only objections arise if you harm other people’s enjoyment of their property.
Use Codes of Practice to reduce the need for consents, saving time and money.
Use building insurance as an alternative to building consent authorities.

TOP

Stabilise rents and housing prices via a Land Value Tax that reduces property speculation, incentivises higher density development and encourages the productive use of land.
Require a deposit of 100% of the value of an existing home when purchased as an investment property or purpose.
Clear the public housing waiting list via the establishment of a $3B development fund for Community Housing Associations.
Returning the GST on new residential builds back to local councils to fund infrastructure development.

NZ First:

Develop a Seniors Housing plan to address the increasing numbers of Seniors in rental accommodation and requiring Accommodation Supplement support.
Establish a Housing Commission to ensure a non-political approach in solving housing issues.
Support social housing especially for seniors housing and public rental housing projects.
Undertake a Select Committee Inquiry into improved policy for first homes for Kiwis.
Restore tax deductibility to encourage more landlords into meeting rental accommodation shortages.

Accessibility and transportation

Accessibility is not a guaranteed right in Aotearoa, but instead something that requires ongoing advocacy at both an individual and systemic level. Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Article 9, accessibility is to “enable persons with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life” and that “States Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure to persons with disabilities access on an equal basis with others”. We do not have legislation in Aotearoa that specifically enshrines access as a fundamental right, and we believe that we are failing to meet our obligations under the UNCRPD (2007).

Labour

Significantly improve the frequency, reliability, accessibility, and quality of public transport to improve productivity and reduce congestion.
Legislate to increase the uptake of audio-visual technology in the courts.
Strengthen the resilience of our roading network through a 41% increase in investment for essential maintenance of state highways and local roads, and significant new interregional connections through the NZ Upgrade and Strategic Investment package.
Respond to the recommendations of the Independent Review on Electoral Reform.
Continue to work to ensure that frontline public services are easily accessible by all, and that departments interact with citizens using plain language.
Address digital hardship and exclusion so that all NZers have the ability to access digital devices and the internet at home.
Develop policies to promote digital literacy and ensure basic training on the use of digital devices is easily available to all.
Ensure emergency management systems are geared towards an inclusive, community-led response to natural disasters through the passage of the Emergency Management Bill.
Listen to the disabled community and strengthen the draft of the Accessibility for NZers Bill so that it better follows a rights-based approach and has mechanisms to ensure public and private organisations fulfil their responsibilities under this legislation.
Work to increase the number of mobility vehicles available 24/7 in major cities so Total Mobility users have a greater quality of access.
Support and grow Total Mobility so it increases equality of access outside of major cities, particularly in rural areas.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, Labour answered that they will not commit to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will not commit to introducing regulations ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

Greens

Co-design accessibility legislation with the disabled community, underpinned by enforceable accessibility standards and cultural requirements to prevent and remove accessibility barriers.
Require television to provide media in an accessible format, including captioning, audio description and NZSL.
Set a target of 100% captioning for all television programming in NZ.
Repeal the Acceptable Standards of Health test so migrants and refugees and their children aren’t discriminated against based on health conditions or disability when seeking residency.
Implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch by updating the Human Rights Act protections against incitement to cover religion, gender, disability and Rainbow communities as well as race.
Expand the Election Access Fund to disabled people who are running in local elections.
Ensure that the public service is a leader in accessibility support, hiring and appointment practices that promote representation of disabled people.
Require tertiary institutes to provide disabled students equitable opportunities to achieve their individual capabilities and participate in all aspects of tertiary education life.
Extend Community Connect to provide free fares for students and apprentices, community service card holders, under 18’s, and all Total Mobility card holders.
Uphold the right to vote by reducing the voting age to 16 in both local and general elections, and extending voting rights to all people in prison.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, the Greens answered that they will commit to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will commit to introducing regulations ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

National

Priority projects to reconstruct transport infrastructure damaged during recent floods and Cyclone Gabrielle, enhancing long-term resilience in flood-affected regions.
Keep the Super age at 65 until 2044, increase NZ Super every year, and boost it with our tax relief plan which means a couple on Super get over $600 extra a year. Remove the Auckland Regional Fuel Tax, cancel Labour’s 12 cents per litre petrol tax hikes, and freeze petrol tax for three years.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, National answered that they were undecided about committing to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will not commit to introducing regulations to ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

ACT

If elected ACT will:

Completely abolish the Human Rights Commission.
Introduce a range of policies to ease the health workforce crisis and ensure there is proper planning and forecasting to meet the needs of an ageing population.
Re-orient the public service to target need based on robust data instead of lazy-based targeting.
Abolish the Māori Health Authority.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, ACT answered that they were undecided about committing to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will not commit to introducing regulations ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

TPM

Establish a Māna Hauā Authority.
Require te reo Māori proficiency to be assessed in NZSL qualifications.
Provide pathways for te reo Māori speakers to learn Te Reo Rotarota and NZSL.
Recognise Te Reo Rotarota as an official language of Aotearoa and provide scholarships for te reo Māori speakers to learn Te Reo Rotarota and NZSL.
Support Māori disabled children to receive all supports necessary from whānau, hapū and iwi to access their environment whether it’s schools, hospitals, funding, accessible equipment, interpreters, or specialists to ensure they have what’s needed to live a full life.
Ensure that Māori disability organisations are formally included in the development of all disability related policy and legislation.
Ensure that all national Māori events such as Te Matatini and Nga Manu Korero will be accessible for Whānau Hauā.
Assert the rights of Whānau Hauā to participate in sports - set up funding streams for Māori disabled sports clubs and promotional schemes to increase Whānau Hauā participation in both non-disabled and disabled sports groups.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, TPM answered that they will commit to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will commit to introducing regulations ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

TOP

Introduce more systemically innovative democratic techniques for consultation - both digital and participatory.
Lower MMP threshold to 3.5% as recommended by the Independent Electoral Review.
On the CCS Disability Action Scorecard, TOP answered that they will commit to a rewrite of the Accessibility for NZers Bill that includes codesign with disabled people and includes enforceable accessibility standards; will commit to introducing regulations ensure public housing and private residential new builds to meet Lifemark Universal Design standards.

NZ First