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National promises to extend paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 30, if re-elected
National has pledged to extend paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 30, if re-elected.
The party is also proposing to revive a policy that allows parents to take some or all of their leave at the same time.
Since 2020, primary carers have been eligible for 26 weeks of paid leave and an additional 26 weeks of unpaid leave.
National has proposed changing the entitlement incrementally, increasing it to 27 weeks in 2027, 28 weeks in 2028, and then 30 weeks in 2029.
Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis said the policy modernised paid parental leave, supporting families to give them more financial breathing space while they took on caregiving responsibilities.
“The birth of a child is an expensive time, as families juggle the costs that come with a new baby while their household income is less than when both parents are in paid work,” she said.
TU NATANAHIRA / RNZ
“Extending paid parental leave to 30 weeks will ease that pressure and give more parents the option to stay home with their baby for longer.”
Leave is currently capped at $811 a week. National’s policy did not propose an increase to that, but Willis said the government had increased the cap each year.
National is also bringing back a previous policy that would allow parents to split their leave.
TU NATANAHIRA / RNZ
The party used an example of instead of one parent taking 30 weeks’ leave, both parents could take 15 weeks together, or both parents could take 4 weeks together, then one parent could take 10 weeks, and then the other parent could take 12 weeks.
Willis said the current law was restrictive and got in the way of families doing what they thought was best for their babies.
“Whether a dad wants to support mum in the first few weeks after birth, or two caregivers want to share paid leave in overlapping instalments, the choice should sit with families and not restricted by outdated government rules.”
The policy would be funded out of Budget operating allowances, costing $27 million in 2027/28, $56.6m in 2028/29, and $119m in 2029/30.
That larger extension is timed to coincide with the forecast return to surplus.
National claims its long-term intention is to increase the entitlement to 40 weeks, but it has not put a timeframe on when it would want to achieve this.
The policy announcement comes as National MPs rally around their colleague Katie Nimon.
The Napier MP’s would-be challenger, Stuart Nash, resigned as a New Zealand First candidate, after coming under fire for labelling Nimon as lazy for taking nine months off after having a baby.
MPs do not get paid parental leave. Nimon confirmed she took ten weeks of parental leave and returned to Parliament after six months.
Nimon, who was present at the press conference, said Nash called her on Thursday to apologise.
“He just offered his apology for offending me,” she said.
The party insisted it had not timed the announcement off the back of the saga, but Nimon said her views on the policy would be the same regardless of recent events.
“I’ve said a lot this week, there is no right way of being a working parent. We just need to give people the choice. This policy that we’re putting forward is really going to give people that choice. I stand by that, whether what happened this week happened or not.”
In 2023, Willis proposed allowing parents to share their leave entitlement so they could take time off together. The member’s bill was voted down by Labour at first reading.
Labour then went on to campaign for four weeks’ paid parental leave for partners.
National had put forward a member’s bill this term to allow for split parental leave, in the name of East Coast MP Dana Kirkpatrick.
It had been unable to get the changes into the coalition agreement or pass them as a government this term. Willis said the responsibility for parental leave rested with the Workplace Relations and Safety Minister, ACT’s Brooke van Velden.
“I think it’s a shame that it wasn’t prioritised within the minister’s programme for this term, and we are really keen as a National Party to see this done.”
ACT leader David Seymour defended his colleague, saying van Velden had not worked on parental leave flexibility because she had not been asked to.
“She hasn’t been asked by the National Party to do that. It’s not in their coalition documents. They didn’t try and negotiate it into their agreement. I was disappointed because I think people want to see the coalition pointing to what it’s achieved rather than pointing fingers at each other.”
Seymour said the timing of the announcement felt political, given the events of the past week.
In 2016, National blocked a plan by Labour to extend paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks, before campaigning on raising it to 22 weeks.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins asked why National should be trusted now.
“They have had three years to make life easier for Kiwis and support families, but have instead cut Best Start support for parents, reduced funding for school lunches, cut women’s pay, and failed to tackle the cost of living.”
Hipkins said Labour would have a “comprehensive” paid parental leave policy, which it would set out in due course.
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said National’s policy was too little, too late.
“The only time that government cares about women is when it is polling low. We have seen them trash the lives of women, whether it’s through cancelling pay equity claims for hundreds of thousands of women, whether it’s in keeping wage growth low, because that impacts disproportionately women. This government made decisions to keep one in seven children in poverty. That is, children and their mothers.”
Last month, National announced a policy to continue paying the government KiwiSaver contribution to people on paid parental leave.
Some parents online called National’s promise to extend paid parental leave a “lolly scramble”.
Many questioned why National would wait until after an election to implement much needed help, and more said the policy was not enough.
A few commenters on Facebook suggested that increasing the payments rather than the length of the leave would help families more.
A couple said they had had to go to work earlier because they could not afford to live on PPL payments.
Lisa, Wellington mum of a two-and-a-half-year old, said the policy was a step in the right direction but was missing the bigger issue: the cost of early childhood education (ECE).
“I know parents that are paying upwards of $1500 a fortnight for two children just to keep their jobs, or else they’re just opting to leave their careers,” she said.
She said help with childcare costs would have left her better off financially than more time off work.
“We constantly hear Christopher Luxon saying he wants to get people back to work, but you’re getting people back to work who are then having to spend half their salary on ECE fees just so they can go to work. It’s just this awful cycle.”
She said the high fees were also keeping people from having more children.
Instead, Lisa cited Norway, where childcare costs are capped, as a better model.
RNZ
The chief executive of the Parliamentary Service is confident there will be enough room to accommodate the increased number of MPs and their staff coming into Parliament.
On current numbers, up to 131 MPs could be sitting in the Chamber following the election, brought on by a record overhang result.
Clerk of the House of Representatives Dr David Wilson told the Spinoff that currently the debating chamber had enough chairs to seat 124 MPs – including the Speaker of the House – and work was being done to accommodate more by altering the seating arrangement.
In a statement, Parliamentary Service chief executive Rafael Gonzalez-Montero said planning for a larger Parliament had been going for “some time”.
“Now that the election results have confirmed an increase to the number of members we are looking at several options.
“We are confident we will be able to accommodate all members within the Chamber.”
VNP / Phil Smith
Gonzalez-Montero said office accommodation for members and their staff would be “stretched” for a short time, but the new Members’ Building was only a few months away from “practical completion”.
That building – located behind Parliament – was due to be ready to occupy in April next year and had capacity to accommodate around 30 backbench MPs.
“All members should be in fit-for-purpose accommodation from that point,” Gonzalez-Montero said.
Following the 2023 election, 123 MPs sat in the Chamber – a record number at the time. That decreased to 122 following the resignation of National MP Judith Collins.
Collins held the seat of Papakura and stepped down in May and Parliament voted against holding a by-election because it was too close to the election.
The election result also meant high-ranking National Party MPs like Chris Bishop, Paul Goldsmith, Nicola Willis and Gerry Brownlee – Speaker of the House and an MP for 30 years – would likely not make it back into Parliament.
Only resigning or retiring MPs were permitted to give a valedictory speech meaning none of them would get the chance to give a valedictory statement.
Asked if their would be special allowances for valedictories, Wilson said in a statement that normally only MPs were allowed to speak in the House but the House could suspend its own rules or temporarily alter them.
“It could do so to allow former members to address the House.”
Wilson said no such arrangements could be made until the next Parliament opened and members sworn in.
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