Labour pledges $21m a year for Māori-led trades training at Māori campaign launch
The Labour Party has pledged to spend NZ$21 million per year on Māori-led trades training if elected to government, establishing a contestable, grant-based fund for Māori providers including marae and iwi trusts to deliver training. The announcement was made at Labour's Māori campaign launch at Wainuiomata Marae in Lower Hutt on 29 August 2026. (RNZ)
Labour's Māori development spokesperson Willie Jackson said the programme would be designed and delivered by Māori, for Māori, giving practical skills alongside mentoring and support to complete training and stay in work. He said he expected up to 3000 Māori would benefit from the plan.
The fund would cover a wide variety of trades, from hairdressing to electrical trades and plumbing, with no age limit. Labour's policy page describes the investment as helping more whānau Māori gain skills and move into good, well-paid work. (Labour Party)
Jackson said Labour had run the programme in government but it was cut back under the current coalition government, and Labour would reintroduce it. Labour leader Chris Hipkins said that of those who completed the previous programme, 81 percent went into employment and 76 percent achieved a training outcome. Hipkins said backing Māori trades training would complement Labour's plan to extend Apprenticeship Boost and grow the skilled workforce.
The policy revives a programme Labour clearly regards as a proven performer, and the figures Hipkins cited — 81 percent into employment, 76 percent achieving a training outcome — are the kind of completion and placement numbers that trades training policy in Aotearoa rarely achieves at scale. Māori providers operating from marae and iwi trusts have long argued that culturally grounded delivery models produce better retention and completion rates than mainstream providers, particularly for learners who have disengaged from the formal education system. Labour is effectively betting that the previous programme's results will translate into political capital with Māori voters.
The decision to frame this as a restoration rather than a new initiative is notable. Jackson's framing — that the coalition government cut back a programme Labour had established — positions the pledge as a corrective rather than an experiment, and gives Labour a line of attack against the incumbent government on Māori development spending. Whether the programme can be scaled to reach 3000 Māori at $21 million per year, and whether the fund's contestable structure will widen access or simply re-fund existing providers, are questions that will turn on the detail Labour would need to release if it enters government.
The link Hipkins drew to Apprenticeship Boost is also worth noting. Apprenticeship Boost is an employer-facing subsidy; the Māori-led training fund is provider-facing and learner-centred. Pairing the two suggests Labour is trying to cover both the demand side (employers taking on apprentices) and the supply side (Māori learners entering trades training through culturally grounded pathways). The combined effect, if both policies are implemented, would be a broader trades and apprenticeships pipeline than either policy alone would produce.
The Māori campaign launch at Wainuiomata Marae signals that Labour is making Māori development a visible strand of its election pitch. The policy sits alongside the party's wider skills and workforce agenda, and the choice of a marae setting for the announcement underscores the emphasis on Māori-led delivery.
