A quick update

Hello!

Time to admit that I’ve been a bit slack on LinkedIn – so this feels a little like my first decent post. I’m excited to properly join you all on this platform. I’m really looking forward to keeping you updated about what the Government is up to (and probably a few other less political updates from time to time, too).

Today is my first day back at Parliament after parental leave, and feels like a good chance to kick things off. I wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has so kindly sent their best wishes to me, Clarke, and little Neve. We have received countless wonderful messages from all around New Zealand, and from further afield. Thank you for thinking of us.

I’ve been very lucky to share this special time with our little family. Now comes the next part of our journey – I’ll be a working mum, and Clarke will be a stay-at-home Dad.

I’m sure it won’t always be easy – but we are privileged to have a lot of support from our families. We’re also not unique, and we’re constantly inspired by the working mums and dads, and the stay-at-home mums and dads, who do this important work every day.

That’s probably why I’ve spent such a long time thinking about how we can do a better job at giving families and carers more choices, and more support, and how we can make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child.

One example of that work is our Families Package. July 1 was a particularly significant day for this set of policies - I spoke a little about them on the day, but I thought I’d go into a little more depth here.

A really important part of the Families Package – the Best Start payment, which will see families with newborn babies receive an extra $60 a week to help with the financial pressures a new baby brings – was actually dreamt up years ago.

I started designing it on the floor of a friend’s house in Hastings, on the East Coast of New Zealand, based on research and evidence that was telling us a child’s first years make up the most important, formative period of their life.

This was also a time during which our children were experiencing very persistent poverty. It was clear something had to change. That’s also why we had adjusted Working for Families to make it more generous, and increase the number of eligible families.

Alongside the Best Start payment, which new parents will get for the first year of a child’s life (or after paid parental leave has finished), we’ve extended paid parental leave to 22 weeks, and we’ll extend that again, to 26 weeks by July 2020.

Many of you will be working parents. Many of you will know just how precious those first few months are. And we want you to have the opportunity to be there for them.

Many of you will also be employers, and we want you to be assured your employees come back to work when they’re ready, having had the time to truly bond with their child and spend those special first weeks with them.

We’ve rolled out the Families Package, and done a lot more, while still running a surplus and meeting the Budget Responsibility Rules. (These are strict rules that will ensure we deliver a surplus every year, manage our economy responsibly, and only spend within our means.)

There’s a lot to do, but we’re working hard to get it done, by running our economy well and prioritising the things that really matter to New Zealanders and to our future generations.

I’d love to hear some of your feedback about our work. In the meantime, I promise to be a bit more consistent with the old updates!