Larry Williams Drive

Labour’s paternity leave policy is a good one. Finally. They’ll be relieved commentators like it- they’re clearly trying to change the subject from the GST off fruit and veges policy only two days ago, because it's gone very badly for them. But I'll happily play the game and change the subject for a bit. So what they’ve announced is that they’ll fund four weeks paternity leave for the second parent, which in most cases is a dad. They'll roll it out in stages, two weeks leave from next year, and then a third week in 2025, and the fourth week in 2026. The truth is that our paid parental leave in New Zealand is actually pretty miserable compared to other developed countries.  We get 26 weeks at the moment, which sounds not bad- but the amount we get paid is rubbish. And when you add the two together, there are only five countries in the OECD more miserable than us. Take what we get, triple it, and the Germans still get more than that. We can do better, and we have to, because we need Kiwis having kids. We need