From the Labour Party Caucus
Wellington, April 6, 2023
The last few weeks have bought prosperous times across Aotearoa, we as a Caucus were pleased to join all the people who celebrate this auspicious holiday.
We know that Ramadan is a time for peace, reflection, gratitude and family, and we are honoured that communities across New Zealand share their culture with us.
This week, we will celebrate Easter, a time to come together and find some rest as a family. We wish all of you a happy and calm Easter holiday.
These celebrations are ways to come together in hardship, the past few years have not been easy and that is why this government is working hard to great positive change.
Extra support to families
A number of changes kicked in at the start of this month to lift incomes and provide extra support to workers and families. These measures won’t fix everything, but they will help to ease some pressure and I wanted to make sure people heard a bit more about this cost of living support.
From 1 April, over a million Kiwis started receiving a bit more in their pocket to help make ends meet. This included an inflation-adjusted lift for superannuation, benefits, veteran’s pensions and student supports, benefiting many in our community.
People should be confident that they can get ahead and create the life they want for themselves and their families through hard work. But right now, as global inflation is causing costs to rise around the world, it can feel pretty tough.
To support those workers who are really feeling the bite from the rise in the cost of living, we have increased the minimum wage by $1.50 to $22.70 an hour. This will see a full-time minimum wage worker earning an extra $60 a week and around $3,120 extra each year, before tax.
We are also really pleased that nurses in aged residential care, hospices, home and community support services, along with those in Māori and Pacific healthcare, will start receiving up to 15% more in their take-home pay. This boost follows the recent historic pay increase for hospital nurses which made our nursing wages competitive with Australia.
These increases will help to keep nurses in important roles across New Zealand, which is good news for everyone in our community.
While these measures alone will not fix everything, they will make a difference for many.
