Nicola Willis
speaker
1,507 appearances
29 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2026
last heard 4d ago
Nicola Willis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 29 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 7.
Appearances
And what this is about is two things.
One, extending paid parental leave so that every family has more weeks of leave.
And second, giving greater flexibility to allow parents to take that paid leave at the same time or in overlapping installments.
That's flexibility that's not afforded to them by the current regime that we think should be there.
And as Brooke pointed out yesterday, as a government, we've also made changes to holiday payrolls so that women aren't penalised for periods on parental leave.
And National will also make changes to ensure people continue to get KiwiSaver contributions while they're on parental leave.
So overall, this is a policy about supporting Kiwi parents during a time that's very important for them and their family, but also very important to the country.
Well, there's not an additional cost on business because the government meets the cost of paid parental leave payments and businesses already need to provide parents up to 12 months of leave.
So this is no change for businesses.
This is about giving more financial breathing space to parents.
I absolutely didn't do that.
I was asked why National hadn't done it in our first term, which is a fair question.
I gave an honest answer, which was that it wasn't prioritised in our coalition agreement and that Brooke has had a very busy work programme.
She's achieved a lot in her role, whether it's repealing fair pay agreements, health and safety reform, expanding 90-day trials.
changing personal grievances the holidays act contractors she's had a lot to do and so what we need to do is prioritize this commitment and our next coalition agreement and that's what we announced we will do yesterday this will be a priority for national next term and we're seeking the party votes that will give us the support to get it done
Not true, Mike.
I was asked a question.
I watched it.
It simply wasn't in our coalition agreements, Mike, and what we said yesterday is we will prioritise it for our coalition agreements going into a second term so that we can ensure this change is prioritised.
We have kept it on the agenda in a private member's bill from Dana Kirkpatrick in our caucus, so we've had that
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