Labour Party leader and outgoing Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has said "responsible political parties go back to the drawing board" after election losses, defending his apparent u-turn on capital gains and wealth taxes.
A caucus vote yesterday saw Hipkins keep his job as Labour leader, with Kelvin Davis replaced by Carmel Sepuloni as deputy leader.
Capital gains and wealth taxes are back on the table following Labour's election defeat, Hipkins added – despite saying in July this year "that under a government I lead there will be no wealth or capital gains tax after the election".
"We start the policy process again with a blank piece of paper," Hipkins told Breakfast this morning.
"That does include a debate around tax. At the heart of that, though, are questions around inequality and how we ensure that New Zealanders who are working hard are able to get ahead and reap the benefits from their hard work.
"A debate around tax is one of the components that we need to have in that."
Asked if the party's proposal to remove GST from fruit and vegetable will remain, Hipkins said the country will be in a very different position when the next election rolls around.
"We still don't know the impact of the cuts that the incoming National-ACT-New Zealand First government are going to make yet.
"So we need to start again on our policy process – and we also need to make sure that, when we compete in the 2026 election, that's the election we're fighting. We're not gonna be re-fighting the 2023 election. We lost that one," he said.
Future policies will be "clearly informed by the values of the Labour Party", Hipkins added.
"We lost the election and I think responsible political parties do go back to the drawing board in those situations," he said.
"You do put things back on the table and you do work through them and you do come back at the next election with a refreshed lineup and a refreshed manifesto, that's what we'll be doing."
And Hipkins said he was confident he'd win yesterday's leadership vote.
"I've had really strong support from my Labour colleagues who want me to continue in the job," he said.
"We've got a big job ahead of us as we move from being in government to being in opposition."
In a statement, Mt Albert MP Helen White told 1News she has "great respect for Chris Hipkins as a person and as a leader".
"I support him as Labour leader, as does the Mt Albert electorate committee.
"There are a wide range of reasons Labour lost the election, and things we can do better at both a local and national level to achieve a better result in 2026. That’s what we’re focused on."
Hipkins said he wanted to be part of the party's "rebuild" after the election defeat.
"I think we can be a formidable force in 2026," he said. "I think we can win the 2026 election – but we've got a very important job to do between now and then, which is to hold the incoming government to account for the promises that they've made to the electorate."
National are proposing a "slash and burn" that would be "damaging" to New Zealand, Hipkins added.
The outgoing Prime Minister also defended his party's performance at the polls.
"It's been a very bumpy year and I do think many New Zealanders were looking for something different than the status quo when they went into the election," he said, adding many parties that governed during Covid have struggled around the world.
"Most of them, if they faced an election, have found that they've lost those elections."
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