| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | |
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1 | Act | Greens | Labour | National | NZ First | Opportunity | Te Pāti Māori | |||||||||||||||||||
2 | Stop damaging restructures and cutting the number of workers in the public sector? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes | No response | Under our core principles, we support cutting consultancies and bureaucratic bloat while stopping aimless department restructures. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we agreed to reduce Core Crown expenditure as a proportion of the overall economy and to focus on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service. However, we also believe in stability for frontline staff. Historically, our policy has been to put an end to the aimless restructuring of government departments and services. We want to remove unnecessary rules and regulations within the bureaucracy and ensure that the public service focuses its efforts on serving people rather than just administering rules. | Opportunity opposes indiscriminate “top line” cuts to the public service. We also support efficiency and rationalisation of public service functions where this is well planned and executed. IRD’s modernisation process that culminated in 2022 was a good example. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
3 | Increase core (baseline, non-contestable) funding for public good research and science, including for the humanities and social sciences? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes | No response | We prioritize commercial, primary sector, and export-led R&D over general humanities funding. Our focus is on research that builds economic prosperity. We advocate for proactive tax incentives for businesses to engage in research and development to drive innovation and export growth. Historically, we have proposed to focus Public Good Research funding more tightly on innovation and on increased export earnings. | Yes. See our Breakthrough Economy policy for more detail. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
4 | Ensure tax settings support fully funding public and community services? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes | No response | We prioritize reducing the tax burden on families and businesses while raising revenue through wealth creation. Our long-term objective is for New Zealanders to pay less tax. We actively oppose any increase in general taxation. We seek to simplify and enforce tax laws so they apply equally to all and lower the personal tax burden by raising thresholds over time. We believe in funding public services by applying wealth creation policies that work, not by arbitrarily reducing social services. To ensure the integrity of our tax system and secure funding without raising tax rates, we secured a commitment in 2023 to increase funding for IRD tax audits to minimize taxation losses due to insufficient oversight | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
5 | Within the first 100 days, fund and deliver the pay equity settlement for care and support workers based on established undervaluation? | Yes | Labour is committed to restoring pay equity. Care and support workers were particularly negatively affected by the Government's scrapping of pay equity and this needs to be recognised and their claim urgently addressed. Work on these matters will commence within the first 100 days of a newly elected Labour Government. | No response | No specific 100-day commitment, but we strongly support funding and pay parity in the aged-care sector. We have consistently campaigned to incrementally work towards pay parity between eldercare nurses and DHB employed nurses. We believe in providing dignity in aged care. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we committed to investigating the funding formula for new residential care beds and engaging openly and constructively with the aged-care sector to resolve long-term funding needs. | We would take time to properly assess the pay equity framework and an appropriate route for re-establishing cancelled claims. | Yes | |||||||||||||||||||
6 | Repeal the 2024 changes to the Equal Pay Act, reinstate legislation that ensures New Zealand women can access genuine pay equity, and restore the cancelled pay equity claims and reviews? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to repealing the 2024 changes and funding pay equity claims. | No response | No | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
7 | End pay gaps based on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, sexuality and gender identity? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to ensuring that there are no pay gaps on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, sexuality and gender identity, and will work on how to best address these issues when in government. We currently have a Member's Bill in the name of Carmel Sepuloni | No response | We believe all public funding must be allocated based on need, not identity. Our foundational position is to ensure that all policy-making is based on need and not on race, creed, or colour. We believe in directing government resources to where they are of the greatest benefit while ensuring they are based on need, not race. In our 2023 agreement, we committed to reversing measures that erode equal citizenship, ensuring public services are prioritized strictly on the basis of need, and ruling out policies that ascribe different rights and responsibilities to New Zealanders based on race or ancestry. The party also introduced a member’s bill - The Public Service (Repeal of Diversity and Inclusiveness Requirements) Amendment Bill that proposes removing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates from the public service. The party introduced the legislation to ensure all government hiring and employment choices rely strictly on merit rather than demographic targets | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
8 | Ensure no disabled workers are paid less than the minimum wage? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour has long been committed to ensuring disabled workers are paid fairly for their work. It was the previous Labour government that introduced the minimum wage top up that the current government scrapped. | No response | We support strong minimum wage protections and robust funding for supported employment. We have a history of opposing sub-minimum wage structures in other contexts, such as our policy to abolish the "starting out wage" that permits young people to be paid below the minimum wage. We are dedicated to helping differently-abled Kiwis achieve both physical and economic independence by ensuring improved access to work. To achieve this, we support re-establishing Workbridge as the primary employment agency for New Zealanders with a disability and creating sustainable funding mechanisms for supported employment sectors. | Yes. Opportunity is broadly supportive of reinstating the process to transition the minimum wage exemption to a supplement scheme, in a manner designed collaboratively with disabled people. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
9 | Ensure the payment of at least the living wage to all publicly funded workers and people delivering government- contracted services? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour a proud track record of raising the minimum wage for all workers to close to the living wage, of ensuring that the living wage forms part of Government procurement and of paying at least the living wage in the public service. We would continue this programme of work under a Labour-led Government. | No response | We support living wage for all workers across all workstreams in NZ. Our focus has been on the statutory minimum wage to protect workers' purchasing power while supporting businesses. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we committed to moderate increases to the minimum wage every year. Historically, we have delivered on this by campaigning to raise the minimum wage to specific, sustainable targets, such as $17 per hour in 2017 and $16 per hour in 2014. We have been closely engaging with the Living Wage Movement to mandate living wage for all workers in NZ. | Yes. Opportunity’s proposed tax reset, including the payment of a citizens’ income, would achieve a living wage outcome across the board. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
10 | Ensure public and community services workers’ pay at least keeps pace with the cost of living? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Under the Labour Government, the minimum wage saw genuine increases, rising at least in line with inflation. We are committed to continuing to genuine increases in the minimum wage and also to policies to assist New Zealanders address the cost of living including a public transport fee cap and three free GP visits. | No response | In general, yes but we do not support a blanket policy of indexing all public sector salaries directly to inflation. However, we recognize that key frontline workers must be fairly compensated to prevent attrition. For example, we support reviewing Police pay and conditions to maintain numbers and achieve parity with Australian counterparts. We also support ensuring that the pay and conditions of corrections officers aid in maintaining morale, recruitment, and retention. To address the cost of living more broadly, we focus on adjusting state benefits and the eldercare subsidy to CPI inflation annually, while maintaining New Zealand Superannuation linked to the net average wage | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
11 | Reinstate Fair Pay Agreements? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes, absolutely | No response | We do not support Fair Pay Agreements. Our policies instead focus on reducing compliance costs for businesses and protecting employers' hiring flexibility. To support businesses in taking on new staff, we have actively championed and negotiated for the full reinstatement of the 90-day trial program, particularly for small businesses | Opportunity is open to examining this issue and potentially a redesigned fair pay agreement structure, providing it can be demonstrated it does not diminish productivity. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
12 | Repeal all changes to the Employment Relations Act made by this Government including fire at will, Uber’s law on contractors, and the 30-day rule for collective agreement coverage? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour has consistently opposed the government’s changes to workers’ rights, including the changes to the Employment Relations Act. We do not support these changes and would repeal them, or further strengthen the law for the benefit of working people. | No response | NZ First supports reviewing and amending unfair provisions, case-by-case. | The changes made by this government go wider than the cited examples and need to be fully reviewed and carefully modified. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
13 | Repeal all changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act made by the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill 2026? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes, we would repeal this to stop this harmful law coming into effect if elected | No response | NZ First supports strong, practical health and safety law, and will review these changes. Our established health and safety policy is to allocate sufficient resources to place a greater emphasis on training and WorkSafe NZ/OSH inspections, rather than introducing complex regulatory burdens. NZ First secured delaying the implementation of the bill to reassess the legislation and fix problems such as the small PCBUs carve out. | While Opportunity opposes the major “headline” changes made by the Bill, all elements would need to be fully considered before further legislative change. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
14 | Ensure that all workers have access to holidays by rejecting the Employment Leave Bill and repealing it if it passes? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour has consistently opposed the government’s changes to workers’ rights, including the recently passed Employment Leave Bill, which, among other things, rob part-time workers of their annual leave. Labour will not allow workers to be worse off as a result of the Employment Leave Bill and will ensure access to existing entitlements for holidays and leave. | No response | NZ First supports protecting workers’ leave entitlements and will review these changes if needed. | No. While there are some elements of the Bill that we would support reviewing, we do not support repealing it as a whole. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
15 | Increase health spending in real terms, so that the public health system can meet New Zealanders needs? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Under Labour, every New Zealander will get three free doctor's visits a year through the new Medicard. Labour will provide increased funding for primary care, starting with three free doctor's visits for every New Zealander, to keep people well and out of hospital. The health system is struggling because too many people aren’t getting early care for conditions through their family doctor: fees are too high and 600,000 Kiwis can't afford to see their doctor. Every dollar invested in primary care saves money in the rest of the health system. Unless we fix access to primary care, all other efforts to fix our health system will fail. This is Labour’s priority. We will provide free prescriptions, maternity scans, and cervical screening to make sure cost is never a barrier to essential care. Doctor's fees have increased because primary care has been underfunded for too long, and the current model is broken. Labour will fix this by establishing a new Independent Pricing Authority will set an evidence-based capitation rate for practices that reflects real costs and patient need. When the rate goes up, Health NZ will be required to fund the increase the following year. This will make sure funding for GPs is more sustainable, fair and transparent. GPs will no longer have to rely on increasing fees for patients to keep their doors open. We will also provide increased funding and support for clinics to free up appointments and capacity, to make sure wait times don't get longer. We've worked with GP representatives on a plan to provide more space, effective technology and a streamlined triage system, to make sure appointments are based on patient need, and allowing GPs to focus on face-to-face care with patients. When you look at health funding over decades, a pattern is clear: National cuts funding; Labour protects it. | No response | Yes, rebuilding the public health service is a critical investment priority for us. Under our Principle 6, we state that health will cease to be a balance sheet item and must be treated as a critical investment in New Zealand’s human resource. We historically committed to incrementally raising spending on health to reach our target goal of 10% of GDP. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we successfully secured commitments to increase funding for Pharmac every year, fund the Gumboot Friday/I Am Hope charity to $6 million per annum, renegotiate the Crown funding agreement with St John to meet a greater portion of their budget, and ensure Plunket and birthing units are fully funded. We also secured the Rural Wellbeing Fund of $4 million investment (jointly funded via the Ministry for Primary Industries and Health New Zealand) to support grassroots, community-based mental health and resilience initiatives for farmers and growers. | Yes. Opportunity’s forthcoming health policy will focus on a stable long-term consensus on total funding for the public health system. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
16 | Abandon moves to privatise health and commit to building a high-quality public health system? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes. In opposition, our requests for clear information about long-term private contracts set up under National, and hospital privatisation, have been refused. In Government, we will urgently assess these arrangements to understand where this money could be more effectively spent investing directly in the public health system, to build long-term capacity. This includes telehealth contracts, to understand whether this funding could be redirected to face-to-face care. Every New Zealander deserves access to a strong public health system they can rely on when they need it most. Rebuilding the health system will be at the heart of the next Labour Government. | No response | We are committed to rebuilding a single public health service, though we support complementary private insurance incentives. We are strongly committed to rebuilding New Zealand's public health service and establishing a single, high-quality healthcare system based purely on clinical needs. We oppose health system separatism or division. However, we do not completely reject private options. Our policies include exploring options to boost the uptake of private health insurance, including the provision of tax rebates to relieve pressure on our public hospitals. | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
17 | 16. Adequately fund administration, data and digital, and other support functions, so clinicians can focus on their jobs? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Yes. We're committed to making sure our health system has the staff and systems it needs to make sure patients get the care they deserve, their data is protected, and our systems are resilient now, and into the future. We will also provide increased funding and training to implement new technology in primary care, so family doctors can spend more time with patients. It's clear that National's cuts to the jobs and systems that keep our hospitals running are making it harder for patients to get the care they need. Our health system can't afford three more years of National. | No response | We are opposed to administrative growth, but we support funding targeted digital technologies to assist clinicians. We do not support expanding the health bureaucracy. Our explicit policy is to redress the balance between health administration and health practitioners, ensuring that extra money going into health is ring-fenced for the delivery of frontline services rather than growing the health bureaucracy. We do, however, support funding key digital and support functions that help clinicians work more efficiently. This includes funding new technology (including AI) within practices to facilitate virtual care and reviewing global implementations of Electronic Health Records to ensure New Zealand adopts best practice | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
18 | Regulate to ensure any use of AI or automated decision making in public and community services improves services, maintains people’s privacy and data rights? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour believes the safe use of AI is important and used in a way that protects privacy and data rights. | No response | We are staunch defenders of digital privacy. We support New Zealanders' right to privacy and advocate for a review to ensure the right to privacy is included in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Furthermore, we mandate that New Zealand citizens' personal information used by public sector agencies must be stored in New Zealand. | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
19 | Pass an AI at Work Act to protect the quality of jobs, protect workers’ rights from high-risk AI uses and give workers a say in AI driven change that impacts their work? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is concerned about the emerging evidence of job losses being seen, especially by young people in New Zealand. | No response | NZ First supports worker protections from high-risk AI uses and worker input into AI-driven change. | Opportunity will release a dedicated AI policy covering both regulation and enforcement and productivity opportunities | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
20 | Reverse cuts to Māori capability roles in the Public Service and reinstate Te Aka Whai Ora? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to strengthening the role of Māori in our Health system. Labour is committed to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. | No response | We campaigned on abolishing the Māori Health Authority to focus on a single clinical system. We do not support reinstating Te Aka Whai Ora or creating separate race-based public service roles. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we successfully committed to abolishing the Māori Health Authority and removing co-governance from the delivery of public services. Our policy is to focus on a single, unified healthcare system where public services are prioritized strictly on clinical need, not race | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
21 | Measure and close pay gaps for Māori in the Public Service? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to a Public Service that is fair and equitable for all and will consider how best to measure and address pay gaps for Māori when in government. | No response | We believe public service priorities must be based on need, not race or ancestry. We do not support separate, race-based metrics or targets in the public service. We believe that the Coalition Government must defend the principle that all New Zealanders are equal before the law. We will not advance policies that seek to ascribe different rights and responsibilities to New Zealanders on the basis of their race or ancestry, and we expect public services to be prioritized strictly on the basis of need, not race. | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
22 | Strengthen references to Te Tiriti o Waitangi in legislation and repeal government reforms that remove and weaken references to Te Tiriti principles in law? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to honouring the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. We have already announced that we will restore Te Tiriti in education and will repeal the governments Treaty clause legislation to reflect our commitment to honouring the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. | No response | We do not support strengthening references to the Treaty of Waitangi in general legislation. Our explicit policy is to remove, where appropriate, references to the 'principles of the Treaty' and associated terms from legislation and regulations. | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
23 | Stop rate caps and ensure local government is sustainably funded? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is open to rates caps, but we do not support the regime imposed by the current government. | No response | We prioritize ratepayer relief and sustainable alternative funding. We do not support lifting rate limits; our priority is to protect ratepayers, particularly seniors on fixed incomes, from rising costs. We seek to restrict rates to 50 percent of the revenue raised by local authorities and remove GST from rates on residential property. To ensure local government is sustainably funded, we established a $1.2 billion Regional Infrastructure Fund to support capital projects. | Yes | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
24 | Retain or enhance existing Māori representation arrangements (those established through Māori constituencies, Māori wards, local Acts or by appointment)? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour changed the law so Māori wards were under the same rules as every other ward. Ultimately, this is about fairness and strengthening local democracy that reflects all people in the community and honours our obligations to Te Tiriti. | No response | We have consistently opposed the establishment of separate Māori Wards at the local and regional government levels. In our 2023 Coalition Agreement, we successfully committed to restoring the right to local referendums on the establishment or ongoing use of Māori wards, including requiring a binding referendum on any wards established without one at the next local body elections. | Yes. Opportunity supports the maintenance of existing commitments, and local government initiatives to establish cooperation arrangements of their own. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
25 | Ensure a fair transition for local government workers affected by reorganisations, including transition on the same or better pay and conditions? | No response due to capacity restraints | Yes | Labour is committed to ensuring that workers are treated fairly through any process of change and will work closely with unions and affected communities as local government reform is progressed. | No response | NZ First supports fair, stable transitions with protection of pay and conditions. | No. It is impossible to predict every individual circumstance. | Yes | ||||||||||||||||||
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