Responses from the political parties
With the approaching General Election 2026, we wanted to give the Lived Experience community enough information to know the values of the political parties and be able to vote with confidence. We contacted spokespeople for ACT, Green Party, Labour Party, National, NZ First, Opportunity Party, and Te Pāti Māori via email. At time of publishing, we are yet to hear from ACT, Opportunity Party, and Te Pāti Māori—we will add their responses, as/when they arrive. Below you can read the responses from Green Party, Labour Party, National, and NZ First, via party or via question/answer to compare the various party’s values.
The responses via party
-
1. If elected, how will your government actively support mental health and addiction outcomes, across all policy?
The Green Party recognise that mental wellbeing is strongly shaped by accessible education, healthcare, housing, adequate incomes, and strong communities, and increasingly for young people, climate change and the sense of a precarious future.
Our priorities are investing in prevention and community-based support; expanding kaupapa Māori, Pacific, peer-led, whānau-inclusive, and local services; reducing poverty and housing insecurity; ending punitive welfare settings that harm wellbeing; and shifting funding away from over-reliance on crisis and hospital-based responses toward sustained support that helps people live well in their communities.
2. What does equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership within the health system, and mental health decision-making, look like under your government?
Equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership means people with Lived Experience are not consulted after decisions are made, but hold power in governance, service design, and evaluation – genuinely honouring a “nothing about us, without us” approach.
This means resourcing Lived Experience organisations to participate on equal footing, embedding co-design requirements in mental health and addiction policy, and ensuring Lived Experience organisations are supported with a diverse range of voices heard and listened to at every step of the policy design process.
3. What is your party vision to enable community-led mental health networks, supports, and solutions?
The Green Party’s vision is for a mental health and addiction system where support is available early, close to home, and shaped by the communities who use it. We would invest in youth one-stop-shops, ensure rangatahi voice is involved in policy decisions, and make sure referral pathways are clear for support services to reduce the disconnection between services.
Community organisations need stable, long-term funding rather than short funding cycles that create insecurity and limit innovation. We would support commissioning that values relationships, prevention, cultural safety, and local knowledge, not strict contacts that don’t allow for genuine manaakitanga and wrap-around support.
4. What action will your government take to strengthen the CPSLE workforce and improve people’s experience of mental health in the workplace?
The Green Party recognises the consumer, peer support, and Lived Experience workforce as essential. We are also proud of our advocacy for fair pay and pay equity, safe working conditions, and protection from burnout. We would undo the Government’s changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that psychosocial risks are considered by employers under the Act, particularly for high-risk sectors.
We would also work to improve mental health in all workplaces by strengthening employment protections, supporting flexible and reasonable accommodations, and ensuring public sector agencies model inclusive practice.
5. What action will your government take to improve mental health education across Aotearoa?
The Green Party would support mental health education that starts early, is age-appropriate, culturally responsive, and grounded in prevention and wellbeing rather than crisis alone. Tamariki and rangatahi should have consistent access to learning about help-seeking, relationships, identity, stress, substance harm, grief, and how to support themselves and others.
Mental health education should not be limited to schools: whānau, workplaces, community groups, health services, and local leaders all need accessible, practical information about distress, addiction, recovery, rights, and available supports.
6. How will your government be accountable to the above outcomes, visions, and communities?
Accountability must be public and measurable. The Green Party are supportive of transparent reporting on mental health and addiction outcomes, including access, quality, the use of seclusion and restraint, workforce wellbeing, and people’s own experiences of care. Data must be disaggregated and used to address inequities, not obscure them.
-
1. If elected, how will your government actively support mental health and addiction outcomes, across all policy?
Labour will set out our full mental health and addiction policy in our election manifesto, so there is more detail to come. Good mental health starts well outside the health system. A warm, secure home, a decent income, good work and a fair go at school do more for a person’s mental wellbeing than any service can on its own. So we don’t treat mental health as something that belongs only in the health portfolio. Decisions across housing, education, employment, income support and justice all need to be made with their mental health impact in mind.
Our focus is on prevention and early intervention, so people can get support before they reach crisis, alongside properly resourced specialist and acute services for those who need them.
Children and young people are a particular priority. This is where some of the greatest long-term gains can be made: intervening early can change the trajectory of a young person’s life, rather than waiting until distress has become entrenched or they reach crisis. That means investing in mental wellbeing and resilience from the earliest years, ensuring support is available in schools and communities, and making sure young people can move quickly into more intensive care when they need it.
Prevention is not only better for people and whānau; intervening earlier also reduces pressure on hospitals, crisis services and other parts of government over the longer term.
2. What does equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership within the health system, and mental health decision-making, look like under your government?
Labour believes it’s important that people with lived experience and whānau are included in the design and implementation of the mental health system.
3. What is your party vision to enable community-led mental health networks, supports, and solutions?
Some of the strongest mental health support happens in communities, often before someone ever reaches a hospital or specialist service. Labour believes in properly funded, evidence-based and culturally grounded community services, including peer support.
Partnership has to be real. Smaller and grassroots organisations are too often shut out by financial and administrative requirements designed around much larger providers. We have challenged funding criteria that required organisations to bring $250,000 in matched funding just to be eligible, a bar that excludes exactly the kind of local, trusted groups that reach people others can’t. Sustainable funding that community providers can actually plan around is part of the answer.
We also need coordination. Funding individual initiatives is not enough if people still fall through gaps between primary care, community providers, addiction services, crisis services and specialist mental health care.
This is especially important for children and young people. A young person in acute distress rarely belongs in an emergency department or adult mental health facilities or services, yet too often it is the only option. We want youth-friendly evidence-based crisis responses that offer a genuine alternative wherever possible, combining clinical expertise with peer and whānau support and strong connections back into community and ongoing care. No young person should be left bouncing between services, or waiting to get worse before they qualify for help.
4. What action will your government take to strengthen the CPSLE workforce and improve people’s experience of mental health in the workplace?
Mental health and addiction issues touch everyone in New Zealand at some stage. We believe it is beneficial for people with lived experience of mental health to share knowledge and support others to develop skills. Shared understanding is so important.
5. What action will your government take to improve mental health education across Aotearoa?
Mental wellbeing promotion and mental health literacy are worthwhile investments. Prevention and early intervention are central to Labour’s approach, because supporting people earlier can stop problems escalating and reduce pressure on families, hospitals and crisis services.
Children and young people should be a particular priority. This is where we have an enormous opportunity to make a difference before patterns of distress become entrenched. Giving children the skills to understand emotions, build resilience, develop healthy relationships and ask for help - and giving parents, teachers and communities the tools to recognise when something is wrong - can have benefits across an entire lifetime.
For young people who are already struggling, mental health education must be connected to somewhere they can actually go for help. There is little point telling a young person to reach out if, when they do, they face long waits, high costs or thresholds that mean they are not considered unwell enough to receive support.
Mental health education has to sit within a full chain of support: wellbeing promotion and prevention; early intervention through schools, primary care and communities; counselling people can actually get to; and youth-appropriate crisis and specialist services when distress becomes acute. Literacy is the first link in that chain, not a substitute for the rest of it.
Affordability must be part of that conversation. Mental health literacy achieves little if someone recognises they need help but cannot afford it. Labour has been clear that high costs and long waits are significant barriers to getting help, and that mental healthcare should not depend on someone’s ability to pay.
6. How will your government be accountable to the above outcomes, visions, and communities?
Labour wants to see better access to mental health and addiction services with properly funded teams, culturally grounded responses, and timely access.
-
1. If elected, how will your government actively support mental health and addiction outcomes, across all policy?
Our mental health plan has been focused on delivering faster access to support, more frontline workers and a better crisis response. We will continue delivering on those three areas.
We continue to support people across the continuum of care through early intervention initiatives such as mental health promotion to encourage people to seek support early, increasing access to primary mental health support and more funding for specialist mental health services.
Exact mental health National Party policy will be announced in due course.
2. What does equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership within the health system, and mental health decision-making, look like under your government?
The lived experience workforce has grown significantly under this Government. There are now more opportunities for peer support workers than ever before. Previously, this workforce was underutilised but has gained real momentum in recent years.
We are committed to continuing to grow this workforce and strengthening lived experience voices across the mental health system.
We have put peer support workers in a range of different settings including peer support workers in emergency departments, rolling out peer-led Crisis Recovery Cafes across the country, eating disorder services, peer-led acute alternative settings and maternal mental health services and created a fund to support training for the workforce.
3. What is your party vision to enable community-led mental health networks, supports, and solutions?
We are big believers in our NGO community organisations. They know their communities best, and our job is to back them to do that work.
Since coming into Government, we have backed our community organisations with more funding and greater certainty. Just this year we have provided more than $34 million in additional annual funding from 1 July 2026 to help providers continue delivering essential mental health and addiction services in their communities.
When we came into government, around 80 per cent of community mental health providers were operating on one-year contracts. We have changed the way Health New Zealand contracts with providers because we know organisations supporting people in our communities need certainty about what they can deliver in the years ahead.
Now, instead of around 80 per cent being on one-year contracts and 20 per cent on three-year contracts, we are flipping that around. Around 83 per cent of providers will now be on three-year contracts, with only around 17 per cent remaining on 12-month agreements for defined reasons.
We also established the Innovation Fund, which has supported many community organisations to deliver support. We have made changes to the fund to make it more accessible over time and will continue supporting more organisations through the fund.
4. What action will your government take to strengthen the CPSLE workforce and improve people’s experience of mental health in the workplace?
In 2024, National announced an investment of $1 million to support the training of the peer support workforce. We're continuing to invest in growing the peer support lived experience workforce because we know there is a growing need for peer support workers and we recognise the value that lived experience brings.
We are better utilising the peer support workforce in a wide range of settings, including peer support workers in emergency departments, rolling out peer-led Crisis Recovery Cafes across the country, eating disorder services, peer-led acute alternative settings and maternal mental health services.
We are committed to continuing to find ways to better utilise the peer support workforce and put them in a range of settings where appropriate.
We also announced a free mental health toolkit for employers and employees to improve mental health in the workplace. It is free and provides confidential mental health support delivered in a way that best works for both employers and employees.
5. What action will your government take to improve mental health education across Aotearoa?
We launched the Top Up campaign which increases education about mental health. It promotes the Five Ways to Wellbeing—Connect, Give, Take Notice, Keep Learning, and Be Active. These five evidence-based actions have been shown to support better mental health. The campaign has already reached millions through TV, radio, and digital channels.
The free mental health toolkit we launched will also lead to better education on mental health. It shows people what support is available and how to have difficult conversations about mental health.
6. How will your government be accountable to the above outcomes, visions, and communities?
We are the first Government in New Zealand to have mental health and addiction targets. When I introduced the targets, I was clear that their purpose was to improve transparency and accountability. There is nothing that holds me more accountable than publicly reporting how we are tracking for everyone to see.
-
Question 1: If elected, how will your government actively support mental health and addiction outcomes, across all policy?
New Zealand First holds that health must cease to be a mere balance sheet item and must be treated as a critical investment in the nation’s human resources. We recognise the importance of early intervention, prevention, and timely access to support services to improve outcomes and reduce the need for crisis-based responses.
Primary & Community Care: We will review capitation funding so GPs can integrate allied health and mental health services directly into clinics, ensuring people get support early and locally. We will fund Gumboot Friday at $6m per year and deploy mobile health buses to reach rural communities.
A Single, Need-Based Health System: We support one public health system that recognises clinical need, with resources directed to frontline services, early support where appropriate, and reducing regional waiting lists.
Crisis & Justice Response: We will introduce Mental Health Response Units to manage acute distress safely in the community. In corrections, inmates with mental illness will be segregated for treatment, and those with addictions will begin mandatory detox supported by expanded public services.
Welfare & Disability Support: We will restore Workbridge as the main employment agency for disabled New Zealanders, ensuring supported pathways into stable work.
Question 2: What does equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership within the health system, and mental health decision-making, look like under your government?
New Zealand First believes in pragmatic representation, equal citizenship, and the fundamental principle that those affected by policy must have a clear voice in its design.
Independent Advocacy and Oversight: Establish empowered commissioners or ombudsmen with strong input from people with lived experience and legislative authority to monitor performance, protect rights, and provide independent oversight.
Human Rights Compliance: Fully implement UNCRPD Article 12 to guarantee equal legal capacity and supported decision-making.
Local Joint Ventures: Community-led partnerships (e.g. Matua Whāngai models) will ensure lived experience perspectives help inform regional planning, service design, and governance.
Formal Consultation: Mental health consumer networks and people with lived experience must be formally involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of major national mental health strategies and services.
Question 3: What is your party vision to enable community-led mental health networks, supports, and solutions?
New Zealand First’s vision is to shift the delivery of mental health services away from rigid, hospital-based medicalized crises and toward localized, community-led care.
Devolved Funding: Move resources from central agencies to NGOs and community groups for early intervention.
Long-Term Funding: Provide predictable, ring‑fenced funding so groups can deliver sustainable, whānau‑inclusive support.
Direct Grassroots Delivery: Fund initiatives like Gumboot Friday to deliver immediate counselling without bureaucratic delays.
Mobile & Regional Access: Deploy mobile health buses and establish regional hubs to reach rural and isolated communities.
Question 4: What action will your government take to strengthen the CPSLE workforce and improve people’s experience of mental health in the workplace?
New Zealand First views the underemployment of skilled individuals and rigid workplace hiring practices as an unacceptable waste of human and economic productivity. We recognize that the Consumer, Peer Support, and Whānau Lived Experience (CPSLE) workforce represents a highly resilient, expert, and professional resource.
Peer Workforce Integration: Embed peer workers in GP clinics and community centres with clear training pathways and fair pay.
Supported Employment: Re-establish Workbridge to reduce hiring stigma and support flexible workplace accommodations.
SME & WorkSafe Support: Resource WorkSafe to help small businesses create trauma‑informed, mentally safe workplaces.
Support for Carers: Expand funding, respite, and professional support for unpaid family carers.
ACC Reform: Update occupational disease criteria and remove repetitive documentation requirements for long-term injuries.
Question 5: What action will your government take to improve mental health education across Aotearoa?
New Zealand First treats education as an investment in our nation’s future, not merely an expenditure (Principle 5).
Values & Civics Education: Teach emotional literacy, responsibility, and resilience through values-based curriculum.
Healthy Relationships Programs: Fund voluntary Year 10 participation in structured wellbeing programmes.
Counsellors & LSCs: Complete rollout of Learning Support Coordinators and expand access to qualified school counsellors.
Early Screening: Implement consistent early screening tools for dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism.
HEADSS Screening: Mandate nationwide Year 9 holistic health assessments.
Community Health Literacy: Support national programmes to reduce stigma and help families navigate support systems.
Question 6: How will your government be accountable to the above outcomes, visions, and communities?
New Zealand First stands for open, honest, and accountable government (Principles 2 and 13). We believe that the public has a right to expect that public institutions are working properly.
Public Service Targets: Set measurable targets for access, waiting times, and community funding, with regular public reporting.
Social Impact Analysis: Require social impact assessments for all major Cabinet decisions.
Performance-Based CE Appraisals: Tie Chief Executive performance to co-designed benchmarks with consumer groups.
Public Mandates: Use binding referenda or major select committee processes for significant social policy.
Independent Watchdogs: Protect watchdog roles and establish an anti-corruption commission.
The responses via questions
-
Green Party
The Green Party recognise that mental wellbeing is strongly shaped by accessible education, healthcare, housing, adequate incomes, and strong communities, and increasingly for young people, climate change and the sense of a precarious future.
Our priorities are investing in prevention and community-based support; expanding kaupapa Māori, Pacific, peer-led, whānau-inclusive, and local services; reducing poverty and housing insecurity; ending punitive welfare settings that harm wellbeing; and shifting funding away from over-reliance on crisis and hospital-based responses toward sustained support that helps people live well in their communities.
Labour Party
Labour will set out our full mental health and addiction policy in our election manifesto, so there is more detail to come. Good mental health starts well outside the health system. A warm, secure home, a decent income, good work and a fair go at school do more for a person’s mental wellbeing than any service can on its own. So we don’t treat mental health as something that belongs only in the health portfolio. Decisions across housing, education, employment, income support and justice all need to be made with their mental health impact in mind.
Our focus is on prevention and early intervention, so people can get support before they reach crisis, alongside properly resourced specialist and acute services for those who need them.
Children and young people are a particular priority. This is where some of the greatest long-term gains can be made: intervening early can change the trajectory of a young person’s life, rather than waiting until distress has become entrenched or they reach crisis. That means investing in mental wellbeing and resilience from the earliest years, ensuring support is available in schools and communities, and making sure young people can move quickly into more intensive care when they need it.
Prevention is not only better for people and whānau; intervening earlier also reduces pressure on hospitals, crisis services and other parts of government over the longer term.
National Party
Our mental health plan has been focused on delivering faster access to support, more frontline workers and a better crisis response. We will continue delivering on those three areas.
We continue to support people across the continuum of care through early intervention initiatives such as mental health promotion to encourage people to seek support early, increasing access to primary mental health support and more funding for specialist mental health services.
Exact mental health National Party policy will be announced in due course.
NZ First
New Zealand First holds that health must cease to be a mere balance sheet item and must be treated as a critical investment in the nation’s human resources. We recognise the importance of early intervention, prevention, and timely access to support services to improve outcomes and reduce the need for crisis-based responses.
Primary & Community Care: We will review capitation funding so GPs can integrate allied health and mental health services directly into clinics, ensuring people get support early and locally. We will fund Gumboot Friday at $6m per year and deploy mobile health buses to reach rural communities.
A Single, Need-Based Health System: We support one public health system that recognises clinical need, with resources directed to frontline services, early support where appropriate, and reducing regional waiting lists.
Crisis & Justice Response: We will introduce Mental Health Response Units to manage acute distress safely in the community. In corrections, inmates with mental illness will be segregated for treatment, and those with addictions will begin mandatory detox supported by expanded public services.
Welfare & Disability Support: We will restore Workbridge as the main employment agency for disabled New Zealanders, ensuring supported pathways into stable work.
-
Green Party
Equitable and visible Lived Experience leadership means people with Lived Experience are not consulted after decisions are made, but hold power in governance, service design, and evaluation – genuinely honouring a “nothing about us, without us” approach.
This means resourcing Lived Experience organisations to participate on equal footing, embedding co-design requirements in mental health and addiction policy, and ensuring Lived Experience organisations are supported with a diverse range of voices heard and listened to at every step of the policy design process.
Labour Party
Labour believes it’s important that people with lived experience and whānau are included in the design and implementation of the mental health system.
National Party
The lived experience workforce has grown significantly under this Government. There are now more opportunities for peer support workers than ever before. Previously, this workforce was underutilised but has gained real momentum in recent years.
We are committed to continuing to grow this workforce and strengthening lived experience voices across the mental health system.
We have put peer support workers in a range of different settings including peer support workers in emergency departments, rolling out peer-led Crisis Recovery Cafes across the country, eating disorder services, peer-led acute alternative settings and maternal mental health services and created a fund to support training for the workforce.
NZ First
New Zealand First believes in pragmatic representation, equal citizenship, and the fundamental principle that those affected by policy must have a clear voice in its design.
Independent Advocacy and Oversight: Establish empowered commissioners or ombudsmen with strong input from people with lived experience and legislative authority to monitor performance, protect rights, and provide independent oversight.
Human Rights Compliance: Fully implement UNCRPD Article 12 to guarantee equal legal capacity and supported decision-making.
Local Joint Ventures: Community-led partnerships (e.g. Matua Whāngai models) will ensure lived experience perspectives help inform regional planning, service design, and governance.
Formal Consultation: Mental health consumer networks and people with lived experience must be formally involved in the development, implementation, and evaluation of major national mental health strategies and services.
-
Green Party
The Green Party’s vision is for a mental health and addiction system where support is available early, close to home, and shaped by the communities who use it. We would invest in youth one-stop-shops, ensure rangatahi voice is involved in policy decisions, and make sure referral pathways are clear for support services to reduce the disconnection between services.
Community organisations need stable, long-term funding rather than short funding cycles that create insecurity and limit innovation. We would support commissioning that values relationships, prevention, cultural safety, and local knowledge, not strict contacts that don’t allow for genuine manaakitanga and wrap-around support.
Labour Party
Some of the strongest mental health support happens in communities, often before someone ever reaches a hospital or specialist service. Labour believes in properly funded, evidence-based and culturally grounded community services, including peer support.
Partnership has to be real. Smaller and grassroots organisations are too often shut out by financial and administrative requirements designed around much larger providers. We have challenged funding criteria that required organisations to bring $250,000 in matched funding just to be eligible, a bar that excludes exactly the kind of local, trusted groups that reach people others can’t. Sustainable funding that community providers can actually plan around is part of the answer.
We also need coordination. Funding individual initiatives is not enough if people still fall through gaps between primary care, community providers, addiction services, crisis services and specialist mental health care.
This is especially important for children and young people. A young person in acute distress rarely belongs in an emergency department or adult mental health facilities or services, yet too often it is the only option. We want youth-friendly evidence-based crisis responses that offer a genuine alternative wherever possible, combining clinical expertise with peer and whānau support and strong connections back into community and ongoing care. No young person should be left bouncing between services, or waiting to get worse before they qualify for help.
National Party
We are big believers in our NGO community organisations. They know their communities best, and our job is to back them to do that work.
Since coming into Government, we have backed our community organisations with more funding and greater certainty. Just this year we have provided more than $34 million in additional annual funding from 1 July 2026 to help providers continue delivering essential mental health and addiction services in their communities.
When we came into government, around 80 per cent of community mental health providers were operating on one-year contracts. We have changed the way Health New Zealand contracts with providers because we know organisations supporting people in our communities need certainty about what they can deliver in the years ahead.
Now, instead of around 80 per cent being on one-year contracts and 20 per cent on three-year contracts, we are flipping that around. Around 83 per cent of providers will now be on three-year contracts, with only around 17 per cent remaining on 12-month agreements for defined reasons.
We also established the Innovation Fund, which has supported many community organisations to deliver support. We have made changes to the fund to make it more accessible over time and will continue supporting more organisations through the fund.
NZ First
New Zealand First’s vision is to shift the delivery of mental health services away from rigid, hospital-based medicalized crises and toward localized, community-led care.
Devolved Funding: Move resources from central agencies to NGOs and community groups for early intervention.
Long-Term Funding: Provide predictable, ring‑fenced funding so groups can deliver sustainable, whānau‑inclusive support.
Direct Grassroots Delivery: Fund initiatives like Gumboot Friday to deliver immediate counselling without bureaucratic delays.
Mobile & Regional Access: Deploy mobile health buses and establish regional hubs to reach rural and isolated communities.
-
Green Party
The Green Party recognises the consumer, peer support, and Lived Experience workforce as essential. We are also proud of our advocacy for fair pay and pay equity, safe working conditions, and protection from burnout. We would undo the Government’s changes to the Health and Safety at Work Act to ensure that psychosocial risks are considered by employers under the Act, particularly for high-risk sectors.
We would also work to improve mental health in all workplaces by strengthening employment protections, supporting flexible and reasonable accommodations, and ensuring public sector agencies model inclusive practice.
Labour Party
Mental health and addiction issues touch everyone in New Zealand at some stage. We believe it is beneficial for people with lived experience of mental health to share knowledge and support others to develop skills. Shared understanding is so important.
National Party
In 2024, National announced an investment of $1 million to support the training of the peer support workforce. We're continuing to invest in growing the peer support lived experience workforce because we know there is a growing need for peer support workers and we recognise the value that lived experience brings.
We are better utilising the peer support workforce in a wide range of settings, including peer support workers in emergency departments, rolling out peer-led Crisis Recovery Cafes across the country, eating disorder services, peer-led acute alternative settings and maternal mental health services.
We are committed to continuing to find ways to better utilise the peer support workforce and put them in a range of settings where appropriate.
We also announced a free mental health toolkit for employers and employees to improve mental health in the workplace. It is free and provides confidential mental health support delivered in a way that best works for both employers and employees.
NZ First
New Zealand First views the underemployment of skilled individuals and rigid workplace hiring practices as an unacceptable waste of human and economic productivity. We recognize that the Consumer, Peer Support, and Whānau Lived Experience (CPSLE) workforce represents a highly resilient, expert, and professional resource.
Peer Workforce Integration: Embed peer workers in GP clinics and community centres with clear training pathways and fair pay.
Supported Employment: Re-establish Workbridge to reduce hiring stigma and support flexible workplace accommodations.
SME & WorkSafe Support: Resource WorkSafe to help small businesses create trauma‑informed, mentally safe workplaces.
Support for Carers: Expand funding, respite, and professional support for unpaid family carers.
ACC Reform: Update occupational disease criteria and remove repetitive documentation requirements for long-term injuries.
-
Green Party
The Green Party would support mental health education that starts early, is age-appropriate, culturally responsive, and grounded in prevention and wellbeing rather than crisis alone. Tamariki and rangatahi should have consistent access to learning about help-seeking, relationships, identity, stress, substance harm, grief, and how to support themselves and others.
Mental health education should not be limited to schools: whānau, workplaces, community groups, health services, and local leaders all need accessible, practical information about distress, addiction, recovery, rights, and available supports.
Labour Party
Mental wellbeing promotion and mental health literacy are worthwhile investments. Prevention and early intervention are central to Labour’s approach, because supporting people earlier can stop problems escalating and reduce pressure on families, hospitals and crisis services.
Children and young people should be a particular priority. This is where we have an enormous opportunity to make a difference before patterns of distress become entrenched. Giving children the skills to understand emotions, build resilience, develop healthy relationships and ask for help - and giving parents, teachers and communities the tools to recognise when something is wrong - can have benefits across an entire lifetime.
For young people who are already struggling, mental health education must be connected to somewhere they can actually go for help. There is little point telling a young person to reach out if, when they do, they face long waits, high costs or thresholds that mean they are not considered unwell enough to receive support.
Mental health education has to sit within a full chain of support: wellbeing promotion and prevention; early intervention through schools, primary care and communities; counselling people can actually get to; and youth-appropriate crisis and specialist services when distress becomes acute. Literacy is the first link in that chain, not a substitute for the rest of it.
Affordability must be part of that conversation. Mental health literacy achieves little if someone recognises they need help but cannot afford it. Labour has been clear that high costs and long waits are significant barriers to getting help, and that mental healthcare should not depend on someone’s ability to pay.
National Party
We launched the Top Up campaign which increases education about mental health. It promotes the Five Ways to Wellbeing—Connect, Give, Take Notice, Keep Learning, and Be Active. These five evidence-based actions have been shown to support better mental health. The campaign has already reached millions through TV, radio, and digital channels.
The free mental health toolkit we launched will also lead to better education on mental health. It shows people what support is available and how to have difficult conversations about mental health.
NZ First
New Zealand First treats education as an investment in our nation’s future, not merely an expenditure (Principle 5).
Values & Civics Education: Teach emotional literacy, responsibility, and resilience through values-based curriculum.
Healthy Relationships Programs: Fund voluntary Year 10 participation in structured wellbeing programmes.
Counsellors & LSCs: Complete rollout of Learning Support Coordinators and expand access to qualified school counsellors.
Early Screening: Implement consistent early screening tools for dyslexia, dyspraxia, autism.
HEADSS Screening: Mandate nationwide Year 9 holistic health assessments.
Community Health Literacy: Support national programmes to reduce stigma and help families navigate support systems.
-
Green Party
Accountability must be public and measurable. The Green Party are supportive of transparent reporting on mental health and addiction outcomes, including access, quality, the use of seclusion and restraint, workforce wellbeing, and people’s own experiences of care. Data must be disaggregated and used to address inequities, not obscure them.
Labour Party
Labour wants to see better access to mental health and addiction services with properly funded teams, culturally grounded responses, and timely access.
National Party
We are the first Government in New Zealand to have mental health and addiction targets. When I introduced the targets, I was clear that their purpose was to improve transparency and accountability. There is nothing that holds me more accountable than publicly reporting how we are tracking for everyone to see.
NZ First
New Zealand First stands for open, honest, and accountable government (Principles 2 and 13). We believe that the public has a right to expect that public institutions are working properly.
Public Service Targets: Set measurable targets for access, waiting times, and community funding, with regular public reporting.
Social Impact Analysis: Require social impact assessments for all major Cabinet decisions.
Performance-Based CE Appraisals: Tie Chief Executive performance to co-designed benchmarks with consumer groups.
Public Mandates: Use binding referenda or major select committee processes for significant social policy.
Independent Watchdogs: Protect watchdog roles and establish an anti-corruption commission.