Giving Kiwi children a good start in life is a priority for this National-led Government.
That’s why the well-being of young children and their families has been at the focus of the Government’s spending.
From 1 July all children under-13 became eligible for free GP visits, delivering on National’s 2014 election promise.
We have almost doubled investment in early childhood education, delivering better results for our children – a recent survey showed 85 per cent of parents are satisfied with their child’s early childhood education overall.
National is also supporting children to achieve great results at school through the KickStart Breakfast in schools programme – over 5 million breakfasts have been served in schools since we expanded the programme in 2013. Kids in Auckland region are benefitting from this, in term 3, 6,463 children participated in the scheme.
In April we extended New Zealand’s paid-parental leave scheme by two weeks to 16 weeks, and we will extend this by another two weeks next year.
In a world where workplace and family arrangements often change, the Government continues to support parents to be there for their child at the critical early stages of life. That’s why from 1 April 2016 we’re extending the eligibility of paid-parental leave to non-standard workers such as seasonal employees, and to other primary carers such as formal adoptive parents, grandparents and whangai parents.
Earlier this year we also agreed to work with Act leader David Seymour to review the support provided in situations of multiple birth, disability and pre-term births.
While assistance is already available to parents of multiple-birth children and to parents of children with disabilities, we found there was an opportunity for the paid-parental leave scheme to provide more assistance for parents of pre-term babies. So this week we announced an extension to paid-parental leave to eligible parents of babies born earlier than expected.
Under the change, eligible parents of pre-term babies will be entitled to paid-parental leave payments longer than the standard 18 weeks (as of 1 April 2016) if the baby is born before 37 weeks of gestation.
National is committed to supporting parents and children so our kids get the best start to life. Our results so far show our plan is working.