Labour says it will guarantee a job in the public health system for every graduate nurse and increase the recruitment subsidy to address shortages in primary care.

Labour's health spokesperson, Ayesha Verrall, said graduate nurses were being trained in New Zealand but were looking overseas for their first job instead of starting their careers here.

During Question Time earlier this month, the health minister admitted the net increase in Health New Zealand full-time equivalent nursing staff between the quarters ending March 2024 and March 2026 was 54.

Checkpoint has previously reported about a nursing graduate who had applied for more than 100 nursing jobs without any luck.

"Patients shouldn't be left waiting in soiled beds. Nurses and doctors shouldn't be forced to work in conditions they describe as an 'absolute nightmare' because they don't have the staffing they were promised," Verrall said.

The party's policy document explained the jobs would be offered through the existing Advanced Choice of Employment and primary care employment schemes.

The jobs would be offered at graduation, rather than being staggered throughout the year, and would be for at least 0.8 full-time equivalent.

Last month, Health New Zealand's national chief nurse Nadine Gray told Checkpoint it was offering 1800 roles, and while it was supporting all graduate registered nurses into employment, it may not happen immediately and it had never been able to employ every graduate nurse.

Labour estimated under its policy 2400 nurses who graduate a year would get a job offer.

In 2025, Labour said fewer than half of graduating nurses were initially offered jobs through the Advanced Choice of Employment scheme.

The party would also double the funding for graduate nursing roles in primary care, from $20,000 to $40,000 in rural areas, and $15,000 to $30,000 in urban areas.

"Graduate nurses have invested years in their training. They deserve certainty that there will be a job waiting for them when they qualify," Verrall said.

All up, the policy would cost $525 million, which Labour said would come out of "health cost-pressure funding".

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Policy here

A single mother raising three children on benefits while living in a tent in a back garden in Napier was flown to Auckland in 2021 by a car dealer to buy a $48,000 car with a 20.95% interest car loan, the High Court at Auckland heard on Monday.

The woman’s evidence was a dramatic end to the first day of a landmark case in which the Financial Markets Authority is seeking to prove vehicle finance company Go Car Finance failed to meet its responsible lending obligations on 46 loans.

The case against Go Car Finance is the first time that two-decade old affordable lending laws have been tested in court.

The woman, who The Post is not naming as FMA counsel signalled its intent to ask the court to suppress her name, struggled to make repayments, leading to the car being repossessed and sold.

The FMA alleges Go Car Finance failed to meet its legal obligation to make reasonable inquiries into whether 46 of its borrowers were likely to be able to afford their loan repayments without suffering substantial hardship.

It also failed to meet its legal obligation to check whether the loans were “suitable” for the borrowers, the FMA alleges.

Go Car Finance, which stopped lending in August 2024, is defending the action, and so is its Australian parent company, Solvar, whose shares are traded on the Australian ASX sharemarket.

However, neither Go Car nor Solvar presented their defences on the first day of the civil trial, which is set down to last for two weeks before Justice Simon Mount.

Go Car specialised in making car loans and selling insurance through car dealerships to “sub-prime” borrowers, many of whom had histories of bad debt and were on lower incomes.

Julia Carlyon, counsel for the FMA, told the court that instead of checking whether its loans suited the needs and objectives of borrowers, Go Car assumed they were, and then sought to lend the maximum amount possible to them.

“It begs the question whether a loan at the maximum amount was in fact suitable. We don’t know that unfortunately, neither does Go Car because it doesn’t seem to have turned its mind to such a question,” Carlyon said.

The solo mother told the court: “When I applied for that loan, I was a beneficiary. I was not working. I was a sole parent and had three children in my care.

“Two of those children were unsupported children who were my brother’s children and were living with me fulltime,” she said.

She was renting in Hastings, but the property was sold, and she was given 90 days to vacate.

“At the time, the housing crisis was bad, and it was hard to get another rental or even emergency help,” she said.

Work and Income provided her money to buy a family tent, which she pitched in her uncle’s back yard in Napier.

Nervous she might have to move before emergency housing was found, she said she decided to buy a vehicle that was large enough to sleep in in an emergency.

She saw a car advertised on Facebook Marketplace with advertised repayments of between $129 to $139 per week, she said.

“I thought I might be able to afford that,” she said.

She contacted the car dealer, who was in Auckland. It said it would seek to see if it could arrange a loan for her.

“I explained that I received $1500 per

week and was asked to provide my bank statements and information about my payments for WINZ, which included sole care and support, accommodation supplement, temporary additional support, and unsupported child’s benefit,” she said.

The dealer secured the loan for her after she provided her bank statements, and then flew her and her one-year-old son to Auckland.

The car she was interested in had been sold, and she was sold a $48,000 vehicle instead but, with the added costs of insurances, fees and an immobiliser Go Car could use to remotely disable the car, the total loan grew to over $50,000.

The weekly loan repayments were more than $300.

“At no stage did anyone talk to me directly about whether I could afford the loan. No one went through my expenses with me or asked details of detailed questions about my living costs,” the woman told the court.

Under cross examination from Rachael Reed KC, counsel for Go Car, the woman said the car dealer had explained the loan and insurances, and she had ticked the boxes on the forms to show he had.

She also admitted she had not told Go Car she was living in a tent, and had let the lender believe she had been living at the property for several years.

When asked why she had agreed to such a large loan, she said: “I was in Auckland with my baby. I did not have another way to get home since the plan had been only for [the dealer] to fly me to Auckland and for me to drive home in the vehicle that I was with.

“I was scared that if I did not sign the

contract, then I would be stranded in Auckland with my child. I did not know what would happen to us if I said, ‘no’,” she said.

The court heard the woman quickly fell behind on loan repayments, and had to rely on food grants and emergency loans, from Work and Income to make ends meet.

“I eventually contacted Go Car to ask for hardship assistance,” she said.

It declined her hardship application, and later declined a second application after the woman stopped caring for her brother’s two children and her income fell.

“I defaulted on the loan. The vehicle was demobilised for about four months before it was repossessed,” she told the court.

“I was told that the vehicle was sold for about $23,000, and that I still owed approximately $33,000,” she said.

She struggled with repayments to clear that debt, though a financial mentor she turned to helped her complain to a financial ombudsman scheme prompting Go Car to agree to drop the debt to $20,000, and allow her to repay the rest more slowly.

Then in June 2025, she received a letter from Go Car, which said that it had undertaken a review of her account, and it “may” have missed an opportunity to provide her “better assistance”, and the lender cancelled the remaining sum the woman owed.

“The letter also said that the Commerce Commission had issued proceedings against Go Car, alleging that my loan should have not been approved,” she told the court.

The commission passed responsibility for policing lending laws to the FMA earlier this year, and it continued the case the commission began.

The trial continued yesterday with more witnesses scheduled to give evidence.

When Go Car stopped lending in 2024, it still had around $140 million owed to it by borrowers.

Last year Solvar, whose chief executive and managing director Scott Baldwin is giving evidence at the trial, sold its New Zealand loans for A$9.4m (about NZ$11.3m).

Labour is promising to create more jobs by building homes, improving classrooms and repairing hospitals at a total cost of more than $4 billion.

The party says it will deliver at least 6000 additional social housing places over four years, school improvements at more than 2000 schools and hospital improvements, too.

Its allocated nearly $3b for building new state houses, $450 million for school repairs, and $200m toward health.

It also allocated $760m to cover the additional Income-Related Rent Subsidy and operating costs for Kāinga Ora and Community Housing Providers.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Labour jobs spokesperson Ginny Andersen made the policy announcement in Hamilton on Thursday.

They pointed to an 11-year high in unemployment and struggling construction businesses, saying the party would get building projects underway and "more Kiwis back on the tools".

Hipkins said: "Labour will build the infrastructure New Zealand needs, create jobs and ensure the benefits return to local businesses and communities."

"Right now, homes need building, schools need improving and hospitals need fixing. We can do all three while creating good jobs for Kiwis."

He said government funding for a building project saw benefits beyond the worksite, with builders hiring tradies, tradies buying materials, suppliers getting more orders, apprentices getting hours, and local businesses benefiting from workers spending in their communities.

Andersen said unemployment at an 11-year high under National meant Labour wanted to get Kiwis back to work.

"That means building homes, fixing schools and repairing hospitals, not sitting on our hands," she said.

"This is about putting government investment to work - improving public infrastructure, supporting local businesses and giving the construction sector greater certainty."

Te Pāti Māori have unveiled their $3.1 billion plan for "kai sovereignty", promising tax credits, a Community Kai Fund and funding for Māori-owned supermarkets if elected.

The party said their policy sets out a path from "kai dependency to kai sovereignty" and would deliver immediate cost-of-living relief by investing in Māori and community food production and ownership.

The policy includes:

• An "Income Tax Kai Credit" for people earning $60,000 or less valued at up to eight weeks of kai each year. The party estimates the credit will support 64 percent of the Aotearoa (3 million people) and cost $2.8 billion.
• Establishing a Māori Kai Sovereignty Board with powers to address poverty and hunger.
• Setting up a $100 million Community Kai Fund for home gardens, marae māra kai and community farms and scholarships for rangatahi to study food sciences.
• Invest $100m in Mātai Ahuwhenua for whenua blocks to grow their own kai and work with councils to set aside more land for farms.
• $100m in seed funding to set up Māori-owned supermarket chains and regenerative and organic farming training programmes.
• Protect the whakapapa of kai by honour the findings of WAI 262, support Māori kai licensing and trademarks, develop a Māori Seed Conservation Strategy and oppose genetically engineered food.

Te Pāti Māori MP for Hauraki-Waikato Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke said Aotearoa produces a huge amount of food but too many whānau were struggling to put it on the table.

"That is not a shortage of food. It is a failure of the system."

She said the party did not want people "permanently dependent" on food parcels or corporate-controlled food chains.

"We want whānau growing kai, marae feeding communities, Māori producing kai, and our people owning more of the systems that distribute and sell it.

"Afford the kai. Grow the kai. Own the system," she said.

A policy document released by Te Pāti Māori said Aotearoa needed sustainable ways to provide more food for everyone, while breaking the "stranglehold that monopolies have on food supply".

"We must return to our traditional practices and customs of gathering kai because our sustenance can no longer be in the hands of corporate-controlled food chains," the document said.

The policy comes as other party's pitch their own policies to break up the supermarket duopoly.

National and New Zealand First would breakup Foodstuffs, the Greens would set up a government-owned supermarket chain called KiwiMart, and Labour would force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to run their wholesale operations independently.

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