New Zealand First has today announced it will campaign on introducing a ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ that will support New Zealand citizens raising the first three children, through the first three years of their lives.

The ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ will help with the costs of raising a child through the vital first three years of a child’s life, encourage Kiwis to have more kids, and remove the barrier of the increasing costs of having children.

The rate of New Zealand citizens having children has dramatically fallen over the past decade from 52,506 in 2006 to just 36,351 in 2025. That is a 30% drop in just the last ten years. 

New Zealand’s current birthrate is 1.53 births per person, which is well below the rate of replacement of 2.1 births per person needed to just maintain our population. This is a ticking timebomb for the future of our country.

With an ever-decreasing birthrate, we will face a future where we are totally dependent on immigration to maintain our economy and mounting costs of supporting our population and growing our economy.

As the number of New Zealand citizen births is dramatically decreasing, the non-citizen birth number is dramatically increasing, from 8,001 non-citizen births in 2006 to last year almost doubling to 14,380 births.

Put in simple percentage terms, in 2006 87% of all births were by citizens and 13% non-citizens. Last year that percentage was just 72% New Zealand citizens giving birth, and 28% non-citizens.

This equation is severely unbalanced and will only equal a diminishing kiwi population.

We are at the eleventh hour of a crisis point that we cannot ignore.

The issue of a declining birthrate is similarly found around the western world.

Masking this massive problem with increasing migration is just papering over the cracks and will be disastrous for our future.

There are many and varied reasons why in modern western society people are deciding to not have children or having families later in life – which inevitably leads to having smaller families.

Those reasons range from prioritising careers, prioritising a dependent-free adulthood, increasing costs, and sacrifices of raising children.

We need more Kiwis having more children, and one way to do that is to substantially lower one main barrier to having more children – which is the cost.

The ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ is a universal, non-means tested grant of $5000 annually for the first three years, and for each of the first, second, and third child. This regular monthly payment will be facilitated through IRD, with an option of the first-year grant for the first child being taken as an upfront lump sum to help with the costs of preparing for a first child.

The $5000 will be tax free and will be in addition to all other existing mechanisms of support that parents are currently eligible for.

One parent must be a New Zealand citizen to be eligible for this grant.

This policy has an estimated cost of $400 million by the third year once the full cycle is established.

This is an essential investment in our country’s future demography, culture, and sustainable economic future. 

New Zealand needs to get our birthrate increasing before it’s too late.