When Labour came into government, our 100-day plan was ambitious. It focused on taking New Zealand forward with a plan to help Kiwis get ahead and tackle the big challenges facing our country.
The National Government has taken a different approach. It’s spent the last 100 days stopping, reversing and cutting. Scrapping stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own.
In our first 100 days, we put more money in people’s pockets with the Families Package and a boost to the minimum wage. In the first year alone, more than 300,000 families were better off by $55 each week and over 160,000 workers, including here in South Auckland, benefited from a wage increase. Cutting the minimum wage in real terms, putting thousands more kids in poverty with benefit changes and introducing extra costs for Kiwis.
Instead of helping families with costs like early childhood education or public transport fares, we’ve seen them prioritise tax cuts for mega landlords and introduce extra costs.
National said they weren’t going to introduce any new taxes and or increase fuel taxes – and yet they’re doing both. They promised frontline services wouldn’t be cut as they search for money for tax cuts, but they’ve gone too far.
More than 100 days in, National haven’t delivered cost of living relief. Instead, they’ve made questionable choices, like reversing the country’s smokefree laws – a win for the tobacco lobby at the expense of lives and billions in healthcare costs.
As a country, we need to keep tackling the big issues, like climate change, housing, and infrastructure, but National’s plan so far has been to kick the can down the road. They’ve scrapped successful climate programmes, reversed work to upgrade water infrastructure and the resource management act, and won’t commit to continue building social housing.
The first 100 days are supposed to show vision for New Zealand. Instead of back on track, it feels like we’re stuck in reverse.
– By Ms Jenny Salesa, Labour MP for Panmure-Otāhuhu and Ethnic Communities Spokesperson.