New Zealand used to be a country where hard work was justly rewarded, anyone could make it, and everyone was looked after. A country for the many, not just the few.

New Zealand must again become an innovator and world leader, by levelling up our education, health, employment and infrastructure.

A Better Educated New Zealand

• Enforce compulsory education and address truancy
• Focus on doing the basics better through emphasising the ‘Historic Three R’s’ Reading, Writing, Arithmetic.
• Provide better pathways and funding for STEM subjects
• Remove gender ideology from the curriculum
• Review the New Zealand curriculum to remove critical race theory and de-colonialism.Conduct a Select Committee Inquiry into the future NCEA to see if it is delivering for students, parents and employers
• Change ‘Fees Free’ in the first year, to make it ‘Fees Free’ in the third year, for full-time students successfully passing all coursework to that point
• Free apprenticeships for in-demand vocations by refunding fees and course costs after successful completion of each trade examination
• Student Loan Abatement Scheme for in-demand critical workers so that one-year of student loans is wiped, for every two years of full time work in New Zealand post-qualification or registration
• Make Apprenticeship Boost permanent and return to a Targeted Trade and Apprenticeship Fund.

A Healthier New Zealand

New Zealand First’s five-point plan for better healthcare:

1. Return New Zealand to a single health system for all based on need not race

• NZ First will abolish the Māori Health Authority, other race-based initiatives.

2. A new patient-focussed medicines buying agency to replace Pharmac and increase its funding, from the last Budget of $1.2bn, with an additional $1.3bn for life changing medicines.

• NZ First will replace Pharmac with a new agency focused on patients' health and recovery - not cost savings and lack of essential medicines.

3. A GP-controlled Waitlist Reduction Fund to get the 60,000 kiwis languishing on the waitlist, and funded by basing health-care on need

• NZ First will make $925m available each year to end the waitlist.
• GP’s know best what their patients' needs are and this fund will enable GP’s to buy approved specialist appointments and operations for a healthier New Zealand.

4. More GPs and better access to healthcare

• NZ First knows that we need approximately 2000 extra doctors now, not in seven-years’ time, so obtaining these doctors will be an immigration priority, and we’ll amend the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act 2003 to fast-track New Zealand Medical Council registered doctors into General Practice as well.
• NZ First will also adopt Digital Health Clinics in harder to staff areas led by Nurse Practitioners using digital technology connected to General Practitioners and Specialists.

5. Acquire the latest in diagnostic technology

• Ensure a diagnosis is available in hours not days of patient testing.  This will save enormous medical costs and expedite the speed and number of patient referrals.
  

6. Attracting the best while retaining talented Kiwis

• NZ First will enable Residence within 30-days of arrival and Permanent Residence within two years, with a commitment to live and work in New Zealand for the next eight years, for in-demand clinical staff trained and registered in Australia, Canada, Singapore, Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom.

7. Speeding up medicine approval to put Kiwis at the front of the queue

• NZ First will repeal the Therapeutic Products Act 2023 prioritising New Zealand, not global, interests.
• NZ First will end MedSafe waste, and instead commit New Zealand to enter into mutual recognition agreements, so that any medicine becomes registered here when approved by any two peer regulators. 
• Those two peer regulators will prioritise: The US Food and Drug Administration, European Medicines Agency, UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, Health Canada, Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority, or Australia’s Health Administration. 

A New Zealand with Employment Opportunity

• Examine the feasibility of lifting the adult Minimum Wage to at least $25 an hour by allowing businesses a tax concession to do so.
• Hard working taxpayers expect more so we will make two-years the lifetime entitlement for the JobSeeker WorkReady benefit - presently numbering over 99,000 New Zealanders.
• NZ First will legislate to make the lowest tax bracket (currently $14,000 pa) of income tax-free no later than 1 April 2027; providing an extra $28.27 a-week for workers.
• Remove the Accredited Employer Worker Visa and replace it with a Skills Shortage Visa and Labour Shortage Visa
• Free apprenticeships for in-demand vocations by refunding fees and course costs after successful completion of each trade examination
• Reinstate the Targeted Trade & Apprenticeship Fund so that we can assist employers to take on more Apprenticeships and Trade workers.
• Establish an ‘Essential Worker’ workforce planning mechanism to better plan for skill or labour shortages in the long term.
• We will end the abuse of immigrant workers working in slave-like conditions by ensuring those who are responsible for such maltreatment are seriously held to account.

Building a better New Zealand with Infrastructure

• Work towards the establishment of a New Zealand Infrastructure Bank Limited as a core crown agency and endowed with the capital to provide a sovereign means to fund long term publicly owned assets.
• Work towards establishing a Ministry for Infrastructure by abolishing the Infrastructure Commission and absorbing the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development along with infrastructure elements from other departments.  
• Establish a Ministry of Energy while abolishing the Electricity Authority as part of an industry shakeup that will see generators forced to divest retail assets, while enabling local lines businesses to retail, generate, and engage in transmission.
• Establish a Crown Owned Company with the Port of Auckland and Northport to relocate operations to Northport and realise real value from prime real estate in Auckland
• Investigate the reopening of the Marsden Point Oil Refinery to regain sovereignty over our own fuel security
• Build a dry dock at Marsden Point to service domestic and international shipping needs and to support our Navy Vessels. This includes establishing a Fuel Security Plan to safeguard our transport and logistics systems and emergency services from any international or domestic disruption.
• Commit to keeping Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter open, and not closing the finest aluminium producer in the world, and preserving 2200 direct and associated jobs.