Q+A: Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei interviewed by Greg Boyed

The Green Party announces “budget for all mothers”

“Parents need more time and more money to be able to do a great job of taking care of their kids,” said Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei.

Speaking to Greg Boyed on Q+A this morning Ms Turei announced her party’s new plan to extend the parental tax credit, increase sick leave from five to 10 days per year, provide a waha kura baby pod for all newborns and extend the OSCAR subsidies for after school and school holiday care.

“When we get to the Government in September of this year, then we will have more access to all of the information from Treasury. We know it’s affordable. We know that it is necessary,” said Ms Turei.

“We can't keep having systems like the parental tax credit and the in-work tax credit which discriminate against the families that have the greatest need, and especially for families who are bringing home a newborn baby. It can be very difficult. They need as much support as possible. $2000 a family is not much for the government to be providing that assistance,” she says.

END

Please find the full transcript attached and you can watch the interview here.

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Q + A
Episode 11
METIRIA TUREI
Interviewed by Greg Boyed

GREG Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei. First of all, if I can just get your reaction to what Bill English had to say about the TPP.

METIRIA First of all, he refused to give Corin the numbers of the value of the deal to New Zealand now that the US is out. They must know what those numbers are. The last numbers that they made public was less than 1% of GDP. So now the US is gone, it begs the question of — what is the value of the deal to the New Zealand economy now? And they should come out with those numbers and be honest about it. And two, New Zealand will have to bear all of the costs of the US demands, like the length in copyright protection, like their tax on Pharmac, but none of the potential benefits. And on top of that, the investor-state dispute process will undermine any of the human rights or environmental protections in the agreement. So it’s still a very bad deal for the country, and the New Zealand public do not want a bar of it.

GREG Let’s get to why you are here. You have an announcement. The Greens have an announcement. It’s going to benefit mothers. Tell us what this is.

METIRIA Yes, so, this is the budget for all mothers, and what it does is it provides support for both time and money. Parenting is really difficult at times but an incredibly important job, and parents need more time and more money to be able to do a great job of taking care of their kids. So this package has— the budget for all mothers has four parts to it — extending the parental tax credit, increasing sick leave from five to 10 days a year, a waha kura baby pod for all newborns where their families want it and extending the OSCAR subsidies to give parents more time during after-school and during the school holidays.

GREG How will the parental tax credit work? What are we talking numbers-wise?

METIRIA Right, so, all families are entitled to either the paid parental leave or the parental tax credit, but that excludes all families who are on the benefit or who receive New Zealand superannuation or who are on ACC or who get a student allowance. So there are about 20,000 newborn babies and their families who do not get access to any of that support that other families do. That’s unfair. We want to have a fair system. So we will extend the parental tax credit to those families who are currently excluded. Many of those families need as much help as possible when their babies are very little. It means $220 a week for the first 10 weeks that they bring their babies home.
GREG $220 a week for 10 weeks, about 20,000 people affected, around 44 million is the bottom line. Where does that come from? Where is that money from?

METIRIA It’s going to come out of government budgets. When we get to the government in September of this year, then we will have more access to all of the information from Treasury. We know it’s affordable. We know that it is necessary. We can't keep having systems like the parental tax credit and the in-work tax credit which discriminate against the families that have the greatest need, and especially for families who are bringing home a newborn baby. It can be very difficult. They need as much support as possible. $2000 a family is not much for the government to be providing that assistance.

GREG That said, $220 a week for some families – this is not means-tested. Some people are not going to need this, yet I suspect they’re going to apply anyway. What do you do there?

METIRIA We want this to have universal access.

GREG Because it’s not means-tested, is that right?

METIRIA There is an abatement rate at the moment, but we want to get rid of that. And I understand it. But one, for those high-income families, it doesn't always mean that because someone is earning a lot of money in that family that the mother and the baby are getting what they need. And so then you have to decide — is it worse that some people who don't need it as much will get it? Or is it worse that people who do need it don’t get it? I want all mothers and babies to have access to the best possible financial support when they bring their babies home from the hospital. So I think it’s much better if it’s universal. It’s less complicated, and we know then that no baby or their mum will miss out.

GREG What sort of difference is this—? $220 a week for 10 weeks – what sort of difference is this actually going to make?

METIRIA It makes a huge difference. Even government papers are saying that when families bring their new babies home, they’re the most financially constrained, they’re under a great deal of stress, often, that mothers and their families will spend that money on things they need for the baby. They’re also often on better-quality food for the breastfeeding mum. I mean, these are ways of making sure that mums and babies have the best chance of the great start of life for that little baby. You know, good food, less parental stress – these are all really important for new families.

GREG This is going to hit business owners, though.

METIRIA Oh, the leave provision—

GREG And it’s going to cost them, isn’t it?

METIRIA Well, look, the sick leave provisions is essential. When we rung up mothers to talk about this, the one thing that they say, ‘Oh my God, yes, please,’ is more leave – domestic leave.

GREG Of course they’d say it.

METIRIA Yeah, well, that’s right, because, you know, not only do they need it for themselves when they’re sick, but they need it to take care of their kids. You know, any parent who’s had a baby with a three-day vomiting bug knows that you need to have more leave. We know that 80% of workers who are on collective agreements – so negotiated with their unions – get more than the minimum five days anyway. So we’re saying, ‘Look, let’s bring it up to 10 days a year for a worker,’ and that means that people have the chance to both have sick leave and have domestic leave to take care of their kids, but also grandparents to take care of their grandchildren when they need to and people of our generation taking care of our parents too when they need it.

GREG But if you’re a small business owner, and all of a sudden, it goes from five days to 10 days sick leave a year, that’s going to hurt you in the pocket.

METIRIA For some small business owners, that might be true. It's also true that most of those people will have been parents themselves or are now, and they know how important it is for parents to have the time that they need to take care of their kids. We know, for low-income parents who are working in very insecure employment, that they are very nervous about taking extra days off to take their kids to the doctor, because they’re worried that they’ll be fired if they take extra days, unpaid days, and we also know that kids who don’t get to the doctor soon enough are the ones most likely to end up in hospital with serious bronchial illnesses that will affect them for life. So if we want to make sure that our babies are getting access to the best health support they need, then their parents need the time to be able to get them to the doctor and take care of them.

GREG You have an MOU with Labour, of course.

METIRIA Yup.

GREG Have you spoken to them about this? Their thoughts are what?

METIRIA Yup, they know about this policy. I know they know about this policy. I’m not sure what their response is. This is why we need to be talking about the value of parenting to the New Zealand community, because if New Zealanders want parenting to be valued in this new and progressive government that we intend to form with Labour, then we need the greatest amount of support for the Greens to get these policies through.

GREG Okay, I wonder is this—? A lot of people see Greens; they’re environmental. Is this type of thing—? Social policy, is this the sort of thing you should be pushing?

METIRIA Oh—

GREG Particularly gave your memorandum of understanding with Labour?

METIRIA Yes. Yes. Yes, absolutely. This election we’ll be talking a lot about families, the cost of living that families are suffering and making sure that families have got what they need to do a great job of taking care of themselves and their kids, and we’ll be talking a lot about the environment and particularly water, because we know clean water is so critical both to our economy but also to our communities. So the Greens, we’ve always—

GREG Isn’t it tough to spin two plates three months—four months out from an election?

METIRIA No, this is an election campaign. This is when we get to talk about the great ideas that the Greens will put in place when we are in government after September, and so the more we can talk about the breadth of policy that will take care of families and take care of our environment, the better. We know that New Zealanders really value their own families and really value their environment. That’s what the Green Party stands for.

GREG If there is a Greens-Labour government, your thoughts if asked about a Donald Trump administration – presuming he’s still around then – would be what?

METIRIA Well, as you know the Green Party did not support the motion to congratulate Trump when he took the presidency, and we maintain that critique. I think Bill English is the prime minister, and any prime minister should reflect the concerns of the New Zealand public. I think the New Zealand public are very concerned about what Trump's election has meant, and we’re seeing amazing disasters happen in America as a result of that election. So really, I think our leaders, our political leaders should be reflecting the public concern more openly.

GREG All right, Greens Party co-leader Metiria Turei, thanks for coming in.

METIRIA Kia ora.

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