Winston Peters announces Ron Mark’s return to New Zealand First as a candidate for Wairarapa, introduces ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ to get New Zealanders to have more children

It’s a busy Sunday for New Zealand First as it unveiled its latest candidate, former Defence Minister Ron Mark, and announced its latest policy which aims to tackle what the party calls “New Zealand’s birthrate crisis”.

These announcements were made in Masterton, with NZ First leader Winston Peters saying: “As a country we have been blind to this issue and now have found ourselves at the eleventh hour with a disaster coming, if we don’t do something about it now.”

“That problem is our massively declining birthrate,” he said.

Peters said NZ First would campaign on introducing a ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ which will support New Zealand citizens to raise their first three children through the first three years of their lives.

“The ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ will encourage Kiwis to have more kids, and remove the barrier of the increasing costs of having children,” Peters said.

“The ‘Kiwi Kids Grant’ is a universal, non-means tested grant of $5000 annually for the first three years, and for each of the first, second, and third child.

“This regular payment will be facilitated through IRD (Inland Revenue), with an option of the first-year grant for the first child being taken as a lump sum to help with the costs for a first child,” Peters said.

The $5000 will be tax free and will be in addition to all other existing support that parents are currently eligible for. One parent has to be a NZ citizen in order to be eligible for this grant.

New Zealand First estimates this will cost $400 million by the third year once the full cycle is established.

“This is an essential investment in our country’s future demography, culture, and sustainable economic future," Peters said.

"New Zealand needs to get our birthrate increasing before it’s too late.”

Ron Mark’s return

On Mark, Peters said he brought "proven leadership and a deep commitment to serving the people of New Zealand".

“When Ron was the Minister of Defence, he had a huge impact on the Defence Force, was well respected within the ranks, and delivered massive changes and upgrades to our forces.

“No modern Minister of Defence can match his record in terms of procurement of essential military equipment.”

Peters said Mark “seriously delivered" as a minister and an MP.

“Others might talk about the Wairarapa interests, Ron does something about it.”

Mark was a former New Zealand First list MP and Defence Minister between 2017 and 2020. More recently he was Mayor of Carterton and is currently a member of the Waitangi Tribunal.

In the lead up to Sunday’s announcement, there was speculation that Mark would be running for New Zealand First again. Asked about this by reporters on Tuesday, Labour MP Kieran McAnulty said there were rumours that Mark might be coming back, “but [we] have to wait and see, I suppose”.

Asked about the potential of Mark being the Wairarapa electorate candidate for NZ First before the announcement, McAnulty said “whoever other parties pick is not going to change our approach in Wairarapa”.

McAnulty is currently a list MP but was the MP for Wairarapa between 2020 and 2023, and is standing for Labour in the Wairarapa electorate this year.

The current MP for Wairarapa is National’s Mike Butterick, who in the Prime Minister’s ministerial reshuffle in April, became Minister for Land Information and Associate Minister of Agriculture.

Speaking to the NZ Herald on Wednesday, Mark said he was “still thinking”, sharing he had gotten a good job offer in Europe.

“My selfish side says, ‘Sayonara, Luxembourg here I come’, but I’ve always been a simple soldier, put my country first,” he said.