Tens of thousands of New Zealand teachers walked off the job on Wednesday, a day before the government announced its 'wellbeing' budget, calling for higher pay and shorter hours in the country's largest-ever education strike.
Almost 50,000 secondary and primary school teachers joined the strike, according to their unions, closing schools around the nation.
The strike came a day before Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's government was set to release its first 'wellbeing' budget.
New Zealand teachers, seen at a rally in August, have been protesting low wages for months. Source: AAP
It had been touted globally as a new approach to fiscal decision-making guided by a broader range of indicators to improve New Zealanders' living standards.
Unions working on behalf of teachers have been negotiating with the government for months for pay rises and measures to reduce workloads, but so far have ended in deadlock.
"The offers we have received from the government have not addressed the issues our profession is facing," said Lynda Stuart, the president of teachers' union NZEI Te Riu Roa, in a statement.
"They will not turn around the crisis in education that is looming."
A local school teacher Libby Jamieson told SBS News that she is taking part in the strike because she is worried about the children's future.
"We are really aware that there are virtually no relief teachers. I can not get sick or my overloaded colleagues are forced to take my lessons as well as their own full timetables," Ms Jamieson said.
"People are not attracted to the profession anymore. They see how hard it is."
"This argument that we get amazing holidays is redundant because not enough people are wanting to teach; we must attract the best if we want the best educational experience for our children," she added.
Ms Jamieson said teachers also need higher salaries to make the profession more attractive for graduates.
"Raising the status of the profession through higher salaries is obvious -that will make teaching a viable career choice for our enthusiastic, young graduates."
She said her biggest hope is that there will be more support "for our high behaviour and learning needs children; more time to work with the actual children who need us".
Education Minister Chris Hipkins said earlier this month when the strikes were announced that the extra $NZ1.2 billion ($AU1.13 billion) over four years in pay rises on offer was the "biggest offer teachers have had in a decade".
He told Radio New Zealand there was no more money for teachers' pay in this year's budget.
The strike spotlights the difficulties Ms Ardern's government faces in delivering on its promise to pour money into social services and rein in economic inequality when it took office in 2017.
Jacinda Arden is set to release her so-called "Wellbeing Budget". Source: AAP
The centre-left government's traditional union support base says sluggish wage growth and soaring living costs have left workers struggling, with junior doctors, nurses and court officials taking action in the past year to demand pay hikes.
Hacking attack
New Zealand's Treasury chief said that the Treasury website was attacked 2,000 times in two days by hackers seeking access to budget details, a day after the country's opposition party leaked details of the economic plan.
"We identified multiple and persistent attempts to gain unauthorised access to our systems and specifically budget-related information," Treasury Secretary Gabriel Makhlouf told Radio New Zealand.
He did not say where those attacks came from, but said they were deliberate and occurred "not once, not twice but in fact over 2,000 times."
Police were investigating and the National Party denied involvement in any illegal activity.
