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Labor will make the 12th Matariki New Zealand public holiday starting in 2022 if re-elected, Labor leader Jacinda Ardern announced.
The new winter holiday would fall sometime during the Matariki period, with the expectation that it would always occur on a Monday or Friday.
The announcement of the policy follows a series of public campaigns for Matariki, which acts as the Maori New Year, to be recognized.
The exact timing of Matariki changes every year when it comes to the reappearance of a star cluster and has traditionally varied between Iwi.
STEPHEN CHADWICK / Things
There have been increasing requests for Matariki to be celebrated as a public holiday.
READ MORE:
* What must happen for Matariki to become an official holiday?
* Government considering additional holidays to promote national tourism
* If we don’t have a day off for Matariki next year, I’ll be angry.
It would be the first new public holiday since the Third Labor Government made Waitangi Day a public holiday in 1973, although then-Prime Minister Norman Kirk called it “New Zealand Day.”
“Matariki will be a distinctive New Zealand holiday and a time for reflection, celebration and looking to the future as we take more and more pride in our unique national identity,” Ardern said.
He said the struggling tourism sector might need the help of another holiday, pointing to the “long term” without public holidays that currently occurs between the queen’s birthday in early June and Labor Day in late October.
“We don’t have a lot of legal holidays compared to other OECD countries and it would be nice to break in the long term over the winter,” Ardern said.
Stuff
Jacinda Ardern joined by Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis in Rotorua for a tourism industry meeting.
Labor would postpone the rollout until 2022 to give companies time to overcome the Covid-19 hit and prepare for another holiday.
He’s also interested in consulting a team of experts to get the exact date, said Labor Deputy Leader Kelvin Davis.
“We will work with the Matariki experts to design and determine the appropriate dates for the holiday, but we hope it will always fall on Monday or Friday,” Davis said.
Matariki would be the first new public holiday since Waitangi Day and the first direct expansion of paid holidays for all New Zealanders since the last Labor government added another annual week of holidays in the early 2000s.
A bill by Labor Party members “Monday” on both Waitangi Day and Anzac Day in 2013.
The Aotearoa tourism industry has called for a new “one-time” public holiday to help them overcome Covid-19, while the Association of Employers and Manufacturers has opposed such a call. NZ First has also made clear its opposition to a new holiday.
National leader Judith Collins was asked about support for making Matariki a public holiday on Monday, before Labor’s announcement.
She was not directly opposed to the idea, saying that many on her “team” thought it was a good idea, but said companies would be wary of any additional costs at this time.
“The problem is that it’s another public holiday that companies have to pay for,” Collins said.
“We see that large companies have to get rid of a lot of staff. We are going to have many vacations for people who weren’t looking for ”.
The Green Party, which previously announced its support for the policy, welcomed the announcement.
“We are very happy to see Labor come to the party and recognize the great desire of all Aotearoa, including the Greens, to make Matariki a holiday,” said co-leader Marama Davidson.
ACT leader David Seymour said Ardern was in “la la land” proposing a new holiday during a recession.
“If Jacinda Ardern thinks this is the kind of policy we need during a recession, she is not in a position to govern,” Seymour said.
“If Labor wants Matariki to be a public holiday, they should abolish Labor Day so companies don’t bear more costs.”
New Zealand currently has 11 public holidays, including regional anniversary days as a single public holiday. Four of them sit within the Christmas / New Years period.
This is fewer paid holidays than 18 other OECD countries, but more than 12 others.
In July, Stuff launched a campaign to make Matariki a holiday, arguing that we were behind in creating a unifying holiday that honors Aotearoa’s past and celebrates New Zealand’s future.
