All people, regardless of gender, should be respected for their innate human dignity. Everyone should be able to enjoy their fundamental rights and freedoms without discrimination. Our current economic and political system does not adequately recognise the needs and experiences of women and gender minorities, leading to entrenched disadvantage.
With the Green Party in Government, the past three years have seen significant improvements for gender equality. We have overhauled pay equity legislation to make it fairer for women in work, increased paid parental leave to six months, reached settlements in key pay equity claims for teacher aides and social workers, reformed outdated abortion laws, and introduced family violence and sexual violence laws to improve safety for women.
Next Parliamentary term, the Green Party will continue to ensure Government policy responds to the needs of all women.
The Green Party will:
- Recognise unpaid care work and household labour by: creating a Universal Child Benefit for children under three; replace Working for Families credits with an increased Family Support Credit; and ensuring sole parents have enough income to support themselves and their children.
- Honour te Tiriti o Waitangi as an essential aspect of equality for wāhine Māori, and support the leadership of wāhine Māori within tino rangatiratanga. We will prioritise initiatives recommended in the Mana Wāhine inquiry.
- Close the gender pay gap by achieving pay equity settlements in the public and government-funded community sectors.
- Introduce pay transparency legislation and increase support for preparing claims.
- Provide training and workforce re-entry programmes for sole parents of school-aged children.
- Guarantee equal gender representation in Government appointments, while addressing other gaps including ethnicity and disability.
- Ensure job creation and apprenticeship programmes have policies promoting inclusion, to reduce gendered job segregation.
- Implement a fair funding model for midwives that prioritises high quality care, and increase social support services during pregnancy and postnatally, with a focus on marginalised communities’ healthcare needs.
- Increase funding to Family Planning clinics to ensure contraception and abortion care is available everywhere.
- Update abortion legislation to provide for safe zones. Expand the provision of free period products in schools.