Outgoing Labour MP Michael Wood said his party was "particularly pulverised" in Auckland in the 2023 General Election, including in his now former Mt Roskill seat that had previously been deemed safe.
Multiple electorates held by Labour in the city were lost, and plenty of vote went National's way as well.
Reflecting upon the election, Wood, whose ministerial career came to an end before the campaign amid his failure to divest shares in Auckland Airport, told Breakfast this morning that Labour suffered a "devastating result".
"We've obviously been doing a lot of reflection on that... we saw swings of around 20% in many [Auckland] seats, which is almost unprecedented in the MMP era, so we all take that really hard," he said.
"It was clearly a bad result... in my seat, we saw a National Party party vote of 43%. We've never seen that, even in some of our bad defeats going back 30 years or so."
Wood said Labour had a "hard set of circumstances" to deal with building up to the election that they ultimately could not overcome.
"Cost of living was a huge issue for us and people were really looking for some firm things to grip on to in terms of us offering direction and a sense of mission and purpose, and I don't think we quite got that right.
"I think everyone worked as hard as they could, but we've gotta now review that and make sure that we do offer people what they wanna see in a Labour Party in terms of the changes we're there to make."
On Tuesday, newly-affirmed Labour Leader Chris Hipkins announced a clean slate approach from Labour, indicating that wealth or capital gains taxes ruled out before the election were now back on the table.
Wood reaffirmed his belief that those tax changes were "a really good idea".
"I thought it was a good idea at the time, but when your part of a team not every individual gets their way. You have to make a decision and stick with it... I do think we need to address the inequities in our tax system."
After years of "80 to 90-hour weeks", Wood said he will be taking time away from the political spotlight to spend more time with family, though he has not ruled out another run in 2026.
"You take these things one step at a time, I haven't ruled out having another go at getting back into politics, but I'll just take my time with that."
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