This bill provides women who have just given birth with access to their choice of post-natal care for a minimum of 72 hours if desired.
This bill has been accorded urgency in the House. First detected 11 July 2026, 9:20am UTC.
The avenues that remain: petitions to Parliament (including seeking amendment or repeal); consultation on the regulations that often follow an Act, which do carry public submission windows; and the member in charge or your electorate MP on implementation problems — post-passage corrections ride in later amendment bills.
| Stage | Sitting day | Record |
|---|---|---|
| Second reading | 30 Jun 2026 | The Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill was read a second time. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
| Third reading | 22 Sep 2026 | The Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) (3-Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill was read a third time. source · debate & vote (Hansard) |
Dates are sitting days as recorded by the Office of the Clerk; a sitting extended under urgency continues under its original day. Readings are decided by party vote: each party casts its members’ votes en bloc (proxies included), so the whole House needn’t be present and individual attendance isn’t recorded — the party-by-party tally for each reading is in that day’s Hansard, linked per stage above.
Members who took a call in this bill’s debates, from our Hansard corpus. Under urgency several bills are often debated together (a “cognate” debate), so speakers may be addressing the group of bills.
AI-assisted analysis · every claim links to primary source ·
corrections
Published 13 Jul 2026, 7:21pm UTC (separate from, and later than, the alert timestamp above)
· model: claude-opus-4-8
In short: Every woman and newborn becomes entitled to a minimum of 72 hours of publicly-funded inpatient postnatal care following birth.
“Every woman and newborn is entitled to be provided with publicly-funded inpatient postnatal care for a minimum period of 72 hours following birth.”
“This Part applies despite anything to the contrary in any funding agreement or other instrument.”
“A woman’s lead maternity care provider must inform the woman that she is entitled to a minimum period of 72 hours of inpatient postnatal care.”
“Health New Zealand must ensure that sufficient maternity facilities are available in each locality that can provide 72 hours of inpatient postnatal care in accordance with section 93B.”
“The Director-General may prescribe the form and content of the information that must be provided under subsection (1).”
“inpatient postnatal care means inpatient care provided to a woman and baby immediately after labour and birth for the purposes of post-birth recovery”
Taken under urgency; the compressed timetable limited scrutiny even where a committee stage existed.
Method: the model reads the bill as published (claude-opus-4-8); every claim above carries a verbatim span of that text, checked mechanically — claims that fail the check are dropped, not softened. Text analysed from an archived copy of the official text. Full methodology →
A motion to accord urgency to the following business was agreed to: - the remaining stages of: - the Antisocial Road Use Legislation Amendment Bill; - the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Bill; - the Offshore Renewable Energy Bill; - the Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill; and - the Regulatory Systems (Primary Industries) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Building Amendment Bill; and - the Climate Change Response (Tort Liability) Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill; - the Crimes Amendment Bill; - the Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill; - the Infrastructure Funding and Financing Amendment Bill; and - the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill; - the first reading and referral to a select committee of: - the Community Magistrates Legislation Amendment Bill; and - the Environmental Reporting Amendment Bill; - the second reading of: - the Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill; and - the Emergency Management Bill (No 2); - the first reading and referral to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Social Security) Amendment Bill (No 2); - the discharge and re-committal to a select committee of the Regulatory Systems (Courts) Amendment Bill; and - the remaining stages of: - the Regulatory Systems (Tribunals) Amendment Bill and the Regulatory Systems (Occupational Regulation) Amendment Bill; - the Mental Health Bill; - the Plain Language Act Repeal Bill; and - the Constitution Amendment Bill.
A motion to accord urgency to the following business was agreed to: - the remaining stages of the: - India Free Trade Agreement Legislation Amendment Bill; - Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill; - Oranga Tamariki (Responding to Serious Youth Offending) Amendment Bill; and - Summary Offences (Move-on Orders) Amendment Bill - the first reading, and referral to select committee of the: - References to Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi (Repeals) Amendment Bill; - References to Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi (Strength of Legislative Obligations) Amendment Bill; and - References to Tiriti o Waitangi/Treaty of Waitangi (Standardisation) Amendment Bill - the second reading and committee stage of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Amendment Bill; - the remaining stages of the Public Works Amendment Bill; - the committee stage of the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) (3 Day Postnatal Stay) Amendment Bill; - the remaining stages of the: - Building (Earthquake-prone Buildings) Amendment Bill; - Policing Amendment Bill; - Corrections (Management of Prisoners, and Prisoners’ Property) Amendment Bill; - Immigration (Enhanced Risk Management) Amendment Bill; - Land Transport (Revenue) Amendment Bill; - Financial Markets Conduct Amendment Bill; and - Commerce (Promoting Competition and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.