Poverty

Too often, the poorest people in the nation are scapegoated as the country's greatest expense. Labour believes that we should not be targeting these people but helping them instead

• We support the Green parties welfare reforms. We will not stand by the reductions, sanctions and penalties the Nationals are looking to re-implement.
• Support the trial and explorations of the ideas of a negative income tax, and a Universal Basic Income. Let’s help our most vulnerable have a good start whilst maintaining incentives to earn more, in a world of ongoing automation taking yesterdays jobs.
• We will raise the minimum wage to $18, and work with businesses to increase it further in the future.
• Let's continue to invest more money into Housing New Zealand, with the intention of bringing more and more families out of poverty