Peters had already commented on this during last month\u2019s kingmaker\u2019s debate, when he said the tax credit boost should be $120 and \u201cpossibly more for some\u201d, and it would be paid for by NZ First\u2019s proposed Future Fund.<\/p>\n
The minimum wage has been increasing every year under this coalition, but at a rate less than inflation. It is now $23.95 an hour. <\/p>\n
How the minimum wage might move would be a point of contention in any post-election talks, should the coalition be returned to power.<\/p>\n
Act announced last month that it wanted to freeze the adult minimum wage for three years. The reasoning was that wages should only rise along with productivity, and a freeze would \u201cgive productivity and market wages time to catch up\u201d.<\/p>\n
Act also wants to reduce the training minimum wage for workers under 20 years old, which is set at 80% of the adult wage. Act wants this lowered to 60%.<\/p>\n
Peters told the audience in Invercargill that NZ First had consistently pushed for increases to the minimum wage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are the party that has been responsible for the yearly increase in minimum wage in three separate governments \u2013 2005, 2017, and 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cWorkers need to have the ability to afford the basics without falling behind the rate of inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the ongoing boost through the in-work tax credit, Peters said: \u201cThis policy will turn the temporary relief into a long-term pathway for hard-working parents to be able to plan for their families\u2019 future.\u201d<\/p>\n
He estimated the commitment to cost between $500-$600 million per year.<\/p>\n
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Peters had already commented on this during last month\u2019s kingmaker\u2019s debate, when he said the tax credit boost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":626130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1975,138,102329,35936,219,14768,1888,3499,83644,1943,5840,29484,111,139,1536,69,1118,90,6729,19257,1529,60700,6728,379,1530,80],"class_list":["post-626129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-at","tag-business","tag-campaigning","tag-campaigns","tag-economy","tag-every","tag-first","tag-growth","tag-increasing","tag-inflation","tag-least","tag-minimum","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-on","tag-peters","tag-rate","tag-three","tag-wage","tag-winston","tag-year","tag-years","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/626130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=626129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=626129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}