In her first major speech as Prime Minister-elect Jacinda Ardern has reaffirmed a series of progressive promises to her left-wing base.

With the announcement of coalition policies over and done with, Ardern's speech to the biennial conference of the Council of Trade Unions in Wellington on Wednesday focused more on red-meat Labour Party policy.

Higher wages, more paid parental leave, protections for union activities, and a planned re-entry into Pike River all made an appearance.

"We are going to hit the ground running, and we're starting with a suite of issues that really matter to working New Zealanders," Ardern said.

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"It is in everyone's interest for families to have higher incomes, for working people's lives to be better, for our economy to be more efficient and productive."

Supplied James Shaw promised transformative, not incremental change.

While the speech emphasised union-friendly policies, like the restoration of tea breaks, protections for collective bargaining, and a higher minimum wage, Ardern said working together with business would be key.

"I know most businesses want a fair set of employment policies," Ardern said.

"They know that we need decent wages if they are going to have customers for their products. They know that we need to boost our productivity, and low wages are a barrier to that because they discourage investment in training and capital.

"Unions, NGOs, businesses, councils, iwi, and other community groups all have their role to play, with our government, to build a better New Zealand."

Ardern spoke glowingly of two former unionists who will become ministers - Andrew Little and Iain Lees-Galloway - to applause from the crowd.

Notably absent from the speech was much mention of Labour's first free year of tertiary education, set to kick in by 2018, but Labour sources have promised the policy is on track.

SHAW: 'TRANSFORMATIVE CHANGE'

Green Party leader and incoming Minister for Climate Change James Shaw spoke after Ardern at the conference, promising the crowd serious change from the status quo.

The Green Party are in a confidence and supply agreement with Labour, with three ministers outside of cabinet.

"We have spent the better part of 30 years working towards being in Government, to be in a position to deliver transformative change - and it will be transformative, not incremental - for our people and for our planet," Shaw said.

Shaw's speech focused on precarious work, climate change, and pay equity.

He talked up new green jobs in the regions - "lots of them" - that he said a clear direction on climate change would bring.

"Our whole intent will be to flip climate policy from being seen as a threat and a cost, to being seen as an opportunity and an investment in the future," Shaw said.

"That means we'll be creating tens-of-thousands of new jobs, paying decent wages for workers and families all over New Zealand. Not just high-tech city jobs, but out in the regions as well.

"It would be worth doing even if we weren't saving the world. "

Shaw confirmed that Labour and the Greens intended to overhaul the benefit system within the next three years, removing excessive sanctions and possibly stand-down periods.

"Having a 13 week stand-down period to access a benefit seems unnecessarily cruel and counter-productive when you're trying to lift people out of poverty," Shaw said.

On gender pay equity, Shaw's argument was rather simple: "C'mon, it's 2017."

"There has been a calculated decision to pay some people less than others, and women deserve to be paid more than they currently get," Shaw said.

The government should lead by example, especially as the State Services Commission paid men 33 per cent more than women, he said.

National leader Bill English is yet to make a major speech as leader of the opposition, but on Tuesday criticised the governing coalition's policy as too expensive.

On Wednesday English criticised the size of the 31-minister executive as bloated and costly.

"Even the big-spending Helen Clark government never had more than a 28-member executive," Mr English says.

"If the new government takes the same approach with other areas of government spending, it will not be long before Deputy Prime Minister-elect Winston Peters' gloomy prophecy of an economic decline becomes true."

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