Cost of living

How will your Party reduce cost-of-living pressures, including housing, that disproportionately affect women, especially single parents and older women?

ACT

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Greens

The Green Party are focussed on credible solutions to combat high cost-of-living pressures on New Zealanders, acknowledging that women, single parents, and senior women face particularly acute cost-of-living pressures.

  • Our Power for All of Us introduces a state owned power company and interest free loans to install solar panels that would lower energy prices, as well as removing regulatory barriers to fully legalise plug-in solar for rentals. Our state-owned generator, KiwiPower, will disrupt the non-competitive energy generation sector and build more renewable energy to bring down prices.
  • Our tax policy will make the first $10,000 you earn tax-free, benefitting the lowest income earners by up to $26 per week, and overall lowering tax for the 97% of New Zealanders.
  • Our school lunches program would provide free, genuinely nutritious school lunches to children and put less financial pressure on women raising children.
  • Our housing policy would build tens of thousands of new public homes, and limit annual rent increases to two percent.
  • We’ll also individualise benefits so women don’t have to rely on their partner’s income to survive, implement a high-trust model at Work and Income so women don’t have to fight to access support they’re entitled to, and set benefits at liveable levels.

 

Labour

Labour's number one priority is making New Zealand affordable. We’ve already released policies that will:

  • Give every New Zealander three free doctor visits a year
  • Cap public transport fares at a maximum of $20 a week
  • Make maternity scans free
  • Remove the $5 fee on prescriptions to make them free

We will be making further announcements that will help New Zealand women with the cost of living over coming months.


National

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NZ First

New Zealand First will focus on reducing the costs of essential goods and services, supporting employment and improving housing affordability. Measures include stronger competition in banking and supermarkets, economic growth and practical support for households facing financial pressure. We committed to protect Superannuation at age 65 without means testing, funds a 50% SuperGold rates rebate, and commits to 2,000 new residential aged-care beds. The party also champions pay parity for eldercare nurses and a dedicated Seniors Employment Plan.

 

Opportunity

Opportunity recognises that women can face cost-of-living pressures because of lower lifetime earnings, caring responsibilities, periods outside the paid workforce and, for older women, the cumulative effects of lower earnings and career interruptions.

Our Tax Reset and Citizen’s Income would provide every adult with a financial foundation and reduce poverty traps that can discourage people from increasing their paid employment. This would strengthen women's economic independence and provide greater financial security and choice, including for sole parents, caregivers and women returning to paid work.

Our proposed Child Support Income would provide additional support to parents without making it conditional on employment, training or study, or on children attending daycare. This recognises the economic contribution of parenting and caring and gives families greater choice in how they combine paid employment and caring responsibilities.

On housing affordability, Opportunity's Tax Reset is designed to address some of the underlying economic factors contributing to high housing costs and to make housing more affordable over the longer term. We recognise that housing costs place pressure on singleparent households and women living on lower or fixed incomes.

For older women, Opportunity would focus on strengthening financial security throughout working life and into retirement. Restoring the Equal Pay Amendment Act 2020 would provide a meaningful pathway to address the historical undervaluation of women's work, while KiwiSaver 2.0 would establish a stronger contributory retirement system.  

Overall, Opportunity's approach is to strengthen women's economic independence, financial security and genuine choice throughout their lives, rather than relying solely on short-term measures to relieve cost-of-living pressures. 


Te Pāti Māori

Te Pāti Māori will transform the income tax system to ensure that all people earning less than $180,000 take home more pūtea every week. We will tax wealth, vacant housing, and land banking to encourage the homes to be sold or rented out, easing the housing crisis and making housing cheaper and more accessible to all.