Warning: This email contains some terrible punts puns.

Hi John,

Labour has always backed New Zealand for the win.

But over the past nine years under National, on some of the tough issues like child poverty, our health system and the state of our rivers, New Zealand's score hasn’t always been so great.

That’s why we’re putting in the hard yards to turn around nine years of neglect, tackling the long term challenges facing New Zealand.

We've made good progress:

We’ve made GP visits cheaper for 600,000 New Zealanders — that’s enough people to fill Eden Park 12 times!

We’re building more state houses than any other Government in the past 40 years. To date, we’ve built more than 2,300 state houses (that’s 10 times the number of tackles Richie McCaw made during his entire World Cup career).

We raised the minimum wage to $17.70 an hour, the largest increase in New Zealand history. When the first Rugby World Cup was held in 1987, New Zealand’s minimum wage was $5.25 an hour.

We’re managing a strong economy. New Zealand has won more rugby world cups than Australia — and GDP figures show our economic growth is also outstripping our trans-Tasman rivals. Our economy grew 2.4% over the past year, faster than Australia.

We’ve planted 140 million trees, more than one tree for every person who lives in Japan, this year’s World Cup host nation, and we’re progressing the Zero Carbon Bill.

We’ve added 2,000 more doctors and nurses — the equivalent of 64.5 World Cup rugby teams —  to care for you and your loved ones.

We’re building new schools and classrooms for 100,000 students, including many future All Blacks and Black Ferns. 

There’s still a lot more to do, but we’re proud of our achievements so far. We’ll continue backing New Zealand — this weekend, and as we keep tackling the long term challenges facing our country. 

We’re grateful that so many New Zealanders like you are supporting us. If you’d like to help us share our progress, will you pass this to a friend? Click here to forward this email to someone you know is backing New Zealand too.

Thanks — and go All Blacks!

Labour Campaigns Team

P.S. You can help back New Zealand by backing Labour - to help us continue our winning form. Click here to donate to our 2020 Campaign Fund.