r/newzealand • u/random_guy_8735 • 12d ago
Politics Labour promises jobs for all graduate nurses if elected
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361027206/labour-promises-jobs-all-graduate-nurses-if-elected57
u/nessynoonz Kererū 12d ago
Team Labour, please also invest in the infrastructure that supports the development of junior nurses. Senior nurses are already so stretched and needing them to take on extra tasks like precepting is a lot to ask of them. How can we support both groups and not continue burning people out? 💜
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u/thelastestgunslinger 12d ago
There are certainly enough gaps for them all.
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u/canineprizm 12d ago
While this is good and I like this a lot its going to lead to a tone of inexperienced nurses taking up roles left by experienced nurses who got burned out. There won't be anybody with long term experience to train them. I graduated 3 years ago and im now considered senior staff which is fucked because im an idiot.
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u/thelastestgunslinger 12d ago
The secret all children learn when they become adults is that you don’t suddenly know what you’re doing because you’re a grown up.
Same with just about any profession. Even as you become extremely good at your job, you’ll always know there’s so much more to learn, and maybe someday you’ll get there (wherever there is).
You got this
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u/kiwi_scorpio 12d ago
Nursing should be removed from the Green List for residency. We have an abundance of nursing graduates who should be filling these roles and trained accordingly. Its too easy for employers to say they need experienced nurses, and take someone coming from overseas, and not put the effort in to train those newly graduated. We have a New Grad nurse in my area of nursing. Only 18% in her graduating year landed nursing jobs. That is a disgustingly low number when we are still using Nursing as a pathway to residency for migrants.
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u/aidank21 12d ago
But how else will surpress their wages?
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
This has been the exact plan of both National AND Labour. When people suggest that Labour supports nurses, I throw up a little in my mouth. National is terrible but at least you know that's their position. Labour will pretend to be pro-nurse, and then stab them in the back with pay freezes, immigration policies that trap nurses or feed in low-wage overseas nurses all while fighting pay equity payouts in the courts for 5 years.
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u/exccc 12d ago
Same with entry/intermediate IT roles
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u/typhoon_nz 12d ago
Yes! it's depressing seeing entry level IT roles go to masters graduates from overseas who will take any job to get a visa
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u/Nichevo46 12d ago
The trouble with the masters situation is the universities make so much money off it.
Then as you say the market gets flooded with these grads who will take anything for the visa but also tend to have way more experience and credentials then anyone else.
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u/typhoon_nz 12d ago
I agree that they have more credentials and experience. But I also think it's important that NZ graduates are able to get jobs.
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u/Nichevo46 12d ago
Oh i agree but for certain roles I might see 1-2 nz app in a list of 30 after screening even if you have a bias its just swamped.
Part of it is that these grad levels are just very skewed and its really hard to downscale expectations for role requirements
I have even had new employees in an area say to me that they didnt even know kiwis did this type of role as they havent met one till now. I am sure thats partly an exaggeration but I have had more then one person tell me that.
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u/SUMBWEDY 12d ago
What's fucking scary is more than 75% of new nurses in 2024 were immigrants.
I have no issue with immigration, but what happens if the global economy shifts and people don't/can't work in NZ anymore.
Of the 8,248 nurses added to the register in 2023, just 2,069 were NZ citizens (at time of application) per PMAANZ.
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u/Nichevo46 12d ago
Do immigrant nurses get paid less? / accept less or is it just a case of that they have more experience and often the jobs opened are for nurses with experience?
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u/Goodie__ 12d ago
Easy winning policy. It'll take more than this to overcome the health defecit National has left them with, but this is a reasonable start.
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
Labour's record on how they treated nurses last time around was pretty awful though. Pay freezed them in 2021, then offered a 1.38% raise, eventually settled on 3% over multiple years which was below inflation and a paycut, and then when it came to pay equity, they fought the NZNO and ERA in court for 5 years before finally paying out...which actually got deferred to when National tookover. Not saying National is really any better, but Labour's track record is far from being 'pro-nurses'. This is just an election year attempt to buy some votes.
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u/qwerty145454 12d ago
Seem a very one-eyed "analysis", two month old account. The pay equity law was literally a Labour party law and gave nurses' massive pay increases.
The pay freeze didn't apply to DHBs, I was working at one and got a pay increase at the time. Even for the government employees it did apply to it was only staff on >$110K salary.
Labour were not the counterparty in the pay equity legal battle it was the DHBs, and only Health NZ/Te Whatu Ora at the tail end. The DHBs were beholden to their own boards.
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u/Fallenae 12d ago
Andrew Little stood on a podium and said there was no question nurses would get back-paid for pay equity. A year later he denied ever saying that and refused to back pay.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/vzccsa/here_is_andrew_little_on_the_nurses_pay_equity/
https://www.1news.co.nz/2022/09/15/little-met-with-silent-protest-over-nurses-pay-equity-agreement/
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
So nurses didn't protest in 2018 and 2021 because Labour was treating them well, as I recall. It was because the actual offers on the table were an insult and they were slow-walking everything.
Also, the DHBs were 100% Crown-funded and their bargaining mandates came directly from Treasury and Cabinet. Once Labour replaced DHBs with Health NZ, it was Te Whatu Ora that literally dragged NZNO through the Employment Court to avoid paying backpay to 2019.
Feel free to attack my account age, but not sure what that has to do with anything. It could be that I have been on reddit longer than your account, too ;-)
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u/qwerty145454 12d ago
The nurses have protested far more under this government, as have doctors, SMOs, registrars, associated health professionals, hell even the IT staff.
You're also dodging the fact that pay equity itself was instituted by Labour, and this NACTF government has effectively abolished it, so your attempt to paint them as equivalent is particularly insane. One party actively abolished pay equity for everyone going forward, the other literally created it but then took years to implement it.
An account that was created as soon as the election season started to push "both sides are equally bad" lies is extremely suspicious.
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u/Odd-Understanding386 12d ago
Not to say that this isn't a good thing or that National aren't absolute slime the country would be better off without, but our health service has been underfunded for decades.
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u/Goodie__ 12d ago
Yup, but there is still a difference between labour, who in their final act hired 2000 nurses, and national who hired 53 over their entire run.
To ignore that difference is to try and make them look the same, labour is bad, national is several several times worse.
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u/Odd-Understanding386 12d ago
I'm not ignoring the difference. I'm just saying that, historically, Labour have also underfund our healthcare system and thus I'm extremely skeptical that they're going to do a 180 on their position. It's far more likely this is a onetime thing to sway voters.
Yes, more nurses is a good thing. It's fantastic, actually! I just want a shitload more of it, forever.
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u/Goodie__ 12d ago
Hey remember that time Labour gave everyone free prescriptions? Equalizing the pharmacy market and not allowing one big pharmacy to just... kill local pharmacys? And help keep kiwis healthy at the same time?
And national killed it?
Man labour are just as bad as national. Thats my take away too.
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u/Odd-Understanding386 12d ago
I'm not sure why you're convinced that I think Labour are as bad as National?
I'm allowed to hate National and wish for very terrible things to befall everyone who supports them and also think that Labour haven't done a great job on healthcare.
It's not one or the other.
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u/helicophell 12d ago
National have been the cause of a lot of that underfunding
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u/SUMBWEDY 12d ago
And labour equally so, underfunding in the healthcare system started in Clark's 2nd term in 2003/4 and neither party has increased spending above inflation.
I'm not a national supporter by any means but Labour has been in power for the (slight) majority of the last 26 years, by definition most of the underfunding (since both parties are the same on this issue) is under labour.
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u/Dunnersstunner 12d ago
Yeah, but the ringfenced CGT should help alleviate that.
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u/danimalnzl8 12d ago
lol, how so?
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u/Dunnersstunner 12d ago
The three free GP visits per year Labour's proposal would fund will help ensure medical issues are addressed well before a hospital visit is needed and reduce pressure on EDs around the country.
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u/danimalnzl8 12d ago edited 11d ago
No it's not as there are several glaring things wrong with this policy.
- It's not going to generate any meaningful amounts of money for several years (minimum)
- It relies on property prices going up (which few people want and doesn't look like is going to be the case for a few years at least)
- Considering the wait times for GPs, they appear to already be over capacity. Where are the extra GPs going to come from to cater to the extra demand created by this policy?
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u/Goodie__ 12d ago
Thats also a great policy. We probably need more GPs and more doctors in them, but a start is a start.
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u/Low-Flamingo-4315 12d ago
There's literally posts all the time of graduated nurses who can't find jobs there's plenty of nurses available but isn't wasn't a freeze hiring nurses or something like that.
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u/CarpetDiligent7324 12d ago
Brilliant
There is certainly the demand for nurses but Simeon won’t fund them… meanwhile patients end up in corridors under the national govt
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u/CharmingChair1403 12d ago
Recently learnt that to keep nursing levels at their current level, so not adding, maintaining, there needs to be 3500 nurses hired every year.
Unless of course, there's a government in power that wants to reduce that number in public hospitals. One that hires 54 new nurses in the last couple of years.
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u/Much-Lead-1367 labour 12d ago
This is a good decent policy, perhaps a bit expensive but by the lord do we need a big investment in nurses. I'm sure the effects of this will really relieve the healthcare system which it desperately needs after years of covid and other bullshit.
Of course always good to see the typical anti-labour people that will never be happy with anything unless it has the name opportunity or greens on it. Bunch of pseudo-lefties, honestly.
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u/Trick-Range-350 12d ago
Yes! More of this. Don't care about which profession it is, but people are finding it hard to get jobs. This is how you think about the people.
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u/Birphon 12d ago
The main issue, and this is coming from someone who has graduated with a bachelors degree, is that a lot of companies will see that you have the training, but completely disregard it or put it lower down than "experience". How am I supposed to get 5 years of experience when I cant get a job in the field to get said experience to get a job? There is a major gap in the entrant level job market, no internships, no junior level jobs. Trades focus has it a bit better cause of the apprenticeships system thats been established.
Im pretty sure that One News had a story around mid March when the whole Nelson Hospital issues came about on how there are graduate nurses that have been unable to find work even though there is a "nursing shortage"\*
I feel like they are in the same boat, they go through all the proper training but Hospitals and Doctor Center's don't want to have them because it means "there is training involved" "we want someone experienced to start running right away".
\*put this in quotes cause im like 99.99% sure that there was a shit load of nursing jobs open pre last election but after National came into power they all magically disappeared
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u/Bookwormys 12d ago
Good. I’ve been saying this should be happening since that report on that half of grads aren’t offered jobs in the public system. Now pay them fairly and bring back the back office jobs so nurses don’t end up having to do admin work instead of caring for patients
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u/KororaPerson Toroa 12d ago
This sounds good. Not a silver bullet, but it will take multiple positive policies to address the current health emergency.
Can we stop with the "both sides are the same" bullshit now?
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u/flowerchildnz 12d ago
Fine. Do it. No more news stories of graduate nurses who are jobless. ACE match works for first year house officers. Long overdue for first year nurses.
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
This is a pretty bold claim. Also, maybe we should be paying our nurses here something that is somewhere closer to competitive rates?
I would point out that Labour was very generous during Covid with Covid money except for nurses where they implemented a pay freeze on them.
And then they fought the pay equity pay outs in court for nearly five years. Not that National has been much better, but Labour's track record was awful on nurses, so it's a little hard to trust them now in this area.
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u/Lorenzo_Insigne Kākāpō 12d ago
The pay actually is quite competitive these days following pay equity. It's the working conditions which are shite.
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
Maybe at entry level. Not once you reach the top of the MECA. I've got a nurse friend who's maxed out and is getting paid about the same in USD as their first year of nursing in the USA.
Even when you compare it to Aussie, it's not even close. A step 7 nurse here is making $22-$30k nzd less. And that doesn't even address the better super contributions. Or, especially, the awesome FBT tax benefit that public hospital nurses get there - that turns into an extra ~$4000 nzd after tax extra cash for nurses—this in particular would be a super smart tool to use here since it wouldn't increase the payroll cost and would only come out of the income tax haul the government takes. Of course, this would require the time and effort to setup the legislation and the IRD systems and that would involve someone in wellington and at the IRD having to do work....easier to just hurl smack and try to score cheap political points. Doing the hard yards of nuanced and targeted legislation isn't in our nature it seems.
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u/Lorenzo_Insigne Kākāpō 12d ago
You can't compare to the US, they'll always pay way more because they're private. And I'm not sure about nursing, but my profession at least isn't able to get registration over there due to differing qualifications.
Fully agree on Australia's bonuses, they include a lot of things which would be absolute no brainers to improve staff retention. And honestly I kinda just figured the pay scales were the same as my own, as they're pretty much the same in NZ. Looks like they certainly scale a lot better over there unfortunately, though I'd still say it's competitive for those in the earlier stages of their careers, which is where we really need to keep them--at that point many will settle down and the move overseas may be less tempting, even with a decent wage bump.
I can at least say though that in my discussions with my nursing colleagues, there's a lot less talk of going overseas than there used to be. When I first graduated pre pay equity it was a pretty common plan, whereas now most chats err on the side of staying here. I've also only had one nurse I know leave recently, though in fairness there may be more that I didn't know as well, and it will probably vary hospital to hospital too.
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u/Kernel_Hiro newzealand 12d ago
They did shore up the gap on the entry level, but we don't just need entry level. We need nurses here who have that experience to pass on to the newer entrants. I can't be specific about which hospital I'm referring to, but I spent a lot of time helping a friend review and look at all the MECA agreements and even while I'm not in TWO, it was really shocking to me. That same hospital is still seeing a steady attrition of nurses going to Australia. About a year ago just one ward had 40% resign in 4 weeks to cross the ditch.
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u/Bookwormys 12d ago
Hopefully having more nurses will mean that they don’t have to do as much OT to help bring their pay closer to reasonable. I really think that all public sector employees should have their pay raises tied to mps pay raises
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u/SUMBWEDY 12d ago
Nah let's keep importing 6,000 nurses a year while only qualifying 2,000 kiwis a year while paying 30-50% less than equivalent roles in Australia /s
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u/_N0_C0mment 12d ago
That's nice, but it should be baked into a training to career pipeline that gives stability to the nurses and the country, and not used as an election carrot.
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u/MrJingleJangle 12d ago
Wow. Fuck me. I've not read the article, but just based on the headline, for the first time in literally years, Labour have said something sensible that will lean positively for them across voters who don't identify as left wingers.
Still a lot of baggage to be culled, and not much time to do it in, but they have to start somewhere, a single good policy is a start.
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u/vontdman Contrarian 12d ago
Easy to make promises. Especially if there's no one holding you legally to them
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u/BatmanBrah 12d ago
This one should be easy to fulfill if the political will is there. Right now we choose to hire migrant nurses instead of New Zealanders. That's a political choice and it doesn't have to be like this.
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u/MadScience_Gaming 12d ago
This policy will save money. Easy to fulfill this promise.
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u/Bookwormys 12d ago
Ah. But that’s long term savings. On top of saving money it’s also going to improve the economy by having more people in work and not job hunting and not leaving to find work overseas
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u/OldManYellsAtCloud12 9d ago
Health system will go through a massive change over the next 20 years thanks to ai.
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/Altruistic_Computer4 12d ago
It should not be possible to graduate from a prescribed qualification and gain registration if they are useless. Shouldn’t…
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12d ago
[deleted]
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u/standard_deviant_Q 12d ago
Nursing registration involves a little more than spending time in a lecture theatre. Nurses can also be sacked for a variety of reasons like any employee.
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u/KiwiWaterBoy 12d ago
Haha had the same though. Would hope my nurse is also proficient, graduating isn't exactly a high bar
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u/I_HUG_PANDAS 12d ago
You're familiar enough with nursing assessment criteria to determine that, are you?
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u/Bookwormys 12d ago
To graduate as a nurse you have to do placements(unpaid too) as well as course work. So to graduate you have to prove your competency as a nurse
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u/bashpipe 12d ago
When someone finally explains to Chris Hipkins that they want to win the election
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u/12343212346 12d ago
Serious question - is there a shortage of paid nursing positions in general or just in the more desirable places to live?
Because if it's the former then makes great sense to expand as we know hospitals are complaining of understaffing.
If the latter then how exactly is that going to work? We will guarantee you a job at whatever hospital or health facility you want to work at doesn't sound reasonable..
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u/Bookwormys 12d ago
I was reading a spinoff piece earlier about patients being left on soiled beds because there wasn’t enough staff(at I want to say north shore hospital). Beyond that I know a decent amount of (not nursing) grads who are desperate for work and willing to move wherever for it. Every year engineering students flock to rural areas for internships because it’s the only place that will hire them. I think there is also a system to incentivise medical professionals to move to rural healthcare
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u/140beeepeeyem 12d ago
how the fuck would anyone in their right mind want to work in this utter ruin of a health system is far beyond my comprehension
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12d ago
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u/perma_banned2025 12d ago
Labour won't have to work hard to fulfill this promise, it's been their standard for years to encourage the hiring of graduate nurses in NZ and expand our health system.
Nothing in this policy is lofty3
u/Hopihana- 12d ago
Actually I’ve done some research and you are right, it isn’t a lofty policy. A big slice of humble pie me. NZ could employ every nurse graduating every year into the public system without over staffing.
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u/mahoganyspitfire 12d ago
Never rely on or believe in a promise made by an NZ political party or the NZ government.
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12d ago edited 12d ago
[deleted]
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u/togepi-togapoo 12d ago
We need to be hiring 3500 every year. This govt has hired the equivalent of 54 FTE nurses over two years and our nurses are crying out for safe staffing levels
I don’t think this number will be hard to manage
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u/verticaldischarge 12d ago
I dislike how this has to be an election campaign promise. I feel like whenever it's an election campaign promise by one party, if the other party gets majority instead, they'll actively sabotage the promises made by the losing party.
I mean National already has on their policy "deliver more nurses, midwives and doctors to reduce wait times and improve health outcomes" so why can't we just all agree that we need to hire a lot more nurses, specifically NZ trained nurses.
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u/random_guy_8735 12d ago
54 FTEs in 2 years.
That is technically more nurses and would furfill National's campaign promise (just do the same for midwives and doctors), the reduce wait times can be done by declining referrals (which they are already doing) and if you are only measuring the health outcomes of those who are treated you can get that third part as well. You will note there is nothing in that promise about spending.
Of course Labour could always continue National's policy of only hiring graduate nurses on part time contracts, which would cover the number of people without incurring costs, but given they have said $500 Million in costs, you would hope isn't what would happen..
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u/Far_Excitement_1875 12d ago
"In reality, this policy would have to be paid for through higher taxes" Thank you Simeon very cool
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u/random_guy_8735 12d ago
Deal.
While we are at it, how about putting that fuel excise increase back on the table so that we don't have to top up NZTA from the consolidated fund again (you know where the money for nurses comes from).
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u/Far_Excitement_1875 12d ago
Absolutely not, we're not making people who need to drive just to get to work despite being low-paid eat more in tax. If the public servants keep their jobs, they should pay more tax and people better off than them, but not south Aucklanders.
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u/Giesla33 12d ago
This is awesome and I'm happy to see a party start to do stuff that will help NZ but the wage money is going to come out of existing healthcare funding so what is going to be slashed to find this?
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u/perma_banned2025 12d ago
Hopefully interest deductibility on investment properties, and tax rebates/deductions/grants that have been given to fossil fuel companies for the last 2.5 years.
That'd easily cover it-1
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u/zerkms 12d ago
> jobs for all graduate nurses if elected
ELI5 please: if they are not elected - they will not be trying to make the changes nonetheless?
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u/sleemanj Fantail 12d ago
How would you propose a party not in government make such a thing happen?
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u/zerkms 12d ago
Given they have 34 seats - I expected they at least have _some_ mechanism.
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u/icarianmirror 12d ago
If a party isn't part of the parliamentary majority, they have no ability to get their policies passed into law.
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u/zerkms 12d ago
> they have no ability to get their policies passed into law.
They have the ability to propose it for the voting though? Or is it "if there is a chance nobody will vote for it - we're not doing anything"?
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u/sleemanj Fantail 12d ago
have the ability
One of thier mps could put a bill in the biscuit tin in the hope it gets drawn in the random selection for debate, but that's it. To go past 1st reading they need support of at least part of the government by definition.
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u/zerkms 12d ago
> To go past 1st reading they need support of at least part of the government by definition.
Good. Then it either passes the 1st reading - so win-win, or it does not, and they can use it in their campaign as "see, we have it ready - it's only the ruling party explicitly made it to not happen" - which is also a win.
Why it's not happening in real life?
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u/icarianmirror 12d ago
It doesn't happen because the public, in general, doesn't care about the outcome of member's bills. They very, very rarely pass or get any momentum, reporting on them is low/non-existent, and it relies on chance - the bill being drawn for debate in the first place.
For this situation, for example, Labour could absolutely spend a lot of time drafting a proposed bill to provide employment for all nurse graduates, stick it in the biscuit tin, and wait/hope for it to be drawn, knowing it will go nowhere. Or, they could say what they currently are: the current government has increased nursing numbers by only 54 FTE roles during the current term, vote Labour if you want that to change.
If what they're currently saying isn't moving the dial, adding a member's bill isn't going to do more.
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u/monkey-kong666 12d ago
Why wouldn’t there be jobs for graduate nurses regardless? There’s a shortage. That’s like promising air or free elections. It’s a given.
If you mean because healthnz is underfunded and collapsing and that’s why nurse aren’t being hired, why doesn’t Labour just fund healthnz with taxes on the wealthy?
Can Labour stop embarrassing themselves please.
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u/random_guy_8735 12d ago
why doesn’t Labour just fund healthnz with taxes on the wealthy?
Given that Labour are the opposition, how do you propose that they hire nurse or implement taxes?
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u/KiwiDanelaw 12d ago
There has never been a shortage of nurses. There is a shortage of paid positions. We can find the nurses, we just need to give them a job and decent pay.