{"id":18023,"date":"2026-07-27T06:24:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18023"},"modified":"2026-07-27T06:24:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:24:36","slug":"national-promises-to-extend-paid-parental-leave-from-26-weeks-to-30-if-re-elected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18023","title":{"rendered":"National promises to extend paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 30, if re-elected"},"content":{"rendered":"
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National has pledged to extend paid parental leave from 26 weeks to 30, if re-elected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The party is also proposing to revive a policy that allows parents to take some or all of their leave at the same time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Since 2020, primary carers have been eligible for 26 weeks of paid leave and an additional 26 weeks of unpaid leave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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National has proposed changing the entitlement incrementally, increasing it to 27 weeks in 2027, 28 weeks in 2028, and then 30 weeks in 2029.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Christopher<\/div>
Nicola Willis at the announcement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

TU NATANAHIRA \/ RNZ<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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National is also bringing back a previous policy that would allow parents to split their leave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Christopher<\/div>
Christopher Luxon speaking to a child at the announcement.<\/p>\n

TU NATANAHIRA \/ RNZ<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Willis said the current law was restrictive and got in the way of families doing what they thought was best for their babies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That larger extension is timed to coincide with the forecast return to surplus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The policy announcement comes as National MPs\u00a0rally around their colleague<\/a>\u00a0Katie Nimon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Napier MP’s would-be challenger,\u00a0Stuart Nash, resigned<\/a>\u00a0as a New Zealand First candidate, after coming under fire for labelling Nimon as lazy for taking nine months off after having a baby.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MPs do not get paid parental leave. Nimon confirmed she took ten weeks of parental leave and returned to Parliament after six months.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nimon, who was present at the press conference, said Nash called her on Thursday to apologise.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“He just offered his apology for offending me,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2023,\u00a0Willis proposed allowing parents<\/a>\u00a0to share their leave entitlement so they could take time off together. The member’s bill was voted down by Labour at first reading.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Labour then went on to\u00a0campaign for four weeks’ paid parental leave<\/a>\u00a0for partners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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ACT leader David Seymour defended his colleague, saying van Velden had not worked on parental leave flexibility because she had not been asked to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Seymour said the timing of the announcement felt political, given the events of the past week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2016,\u00a0National blocked a plan by Labour<\/a>\u00a0to extend paid parental leave from 18 weeks to 26 weeks,\u00a0before campaigning on raising it to 22 weeks.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Labour leader Chris Hipkins asked why National should be trusted now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hipkins said Labour would have a “comprehensive” paid parental leave policy, which it would set out in due course.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said National’s policy was too little, too late.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Last month,\u00a0National announced a policy<\/a>\u00a0to continue paying the government KiwiSaver contribution to people on paid parental leave.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Some parents online called National’s promise to extend paid parental leave a “lolly scramble”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Many questioned why National would wait until after an election to implement much needed help, and more said the policy was not enough.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A few commenters on Facebook suggested that increasing the payments rather than the length of the leave would help families more.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A couple said they had had to go to work earlier because they could not afford to live on PPL payments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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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).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said help with childcare costs would have left her better off financially than more time off work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“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.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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She said the high fees were also keeping people from having more children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead, Lisa cited Norway, where childcare costs are capped, as a better model.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18025,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18023\/revisions\/18025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}