Kia ora John,

You’ve probably already heard that last week, the Government released this year’s Budget. It’s something we’re really excited about (and if you are too, you can read more here), as it’s a key part of the plan to secure a strong COVID recovery.

But with all the focus on the Budget, you might have missed some of the other good news coming out of the Beehive recently - and there’s been a lot! So, in case the news slipped you by, we wanted to share five Labour highlights from the past few weeks.

Here’s what you might have missed:

We’ve delivered on our election commitment to double sick leave to 10 days a year.

COVID-19 has shown us how important it is for people to stay at home if they’re feeling unwell. Last week, we passed legislation to increase the minimum sick leave entitlements from five days a year to ten - another way Labour is backing working New Zealanders.

We hit a major milestone in our vaccine roll out.

Rolling out free vaccines to everyone in New Zealand is a key part of our recovery plan. It will provide an extra layer of protection as we begin to safely reconnect with the world and move into the next phase of our COVID recovery. Last week, we reached a new milestone, with more than 500,000 doses administered!

We’ve trained more than 5,000 COVID-19 vaccinators.

Dedicated vaccinators are working extremely hard to help protect New Zealanders as we continue with our COVID recovery. Last week, we took another step forward, celebrating that we now have more than 5,000 vaccinators trained to safely deliver the Pfizer vaccine.

We’re getting more people into jobs.

Earlier this month, unemployment fell from 4.9% to 4.7%, showing that our economic recovery plan is working. While unemployment is likely to move around due to the ongoing impacts of COVID-19, we’re proud that recent figures from Stats NZ show more people moving into work and more people feeling secure in their jobs.

We opened a quarantine-free travel bubble with the Cook Islands.

Thanks to the massive team effort over the past year, quarantine-free flights between New Zealand and the Cook Islands were able to take off last week. Safely opening the bubble is an important step forward in our COVID-19 response, and will mean Kiwi families can reconnect with their loved ones in the Pacific.

Our Government is busy securing our COVID recovery while tackling long term challenges like child wellbeing, housing and climate change - and we’re making good progress. These five achievements are just a few of the ways we’re getting on with the job.

However, we know that none of this would be possible without people like you backing us every step of the way. Thank you for your support so far. It’s thanks to you that we have a strong Labour team at the helm, leading a strong recovery that delivers for all New Zealanders.

We’ll be back in touch soon with another update on everything we’re doing to keep Kiwis safe and keep our economy moving. For now though, will you share last week’s good news with your friends and family?

Thanks,
The Labour Campaigns Team