Labour leader Chris Hipkins insists he will still be in charge of the party on election day despite it taking a big hit in a recent poll.
Labour dropped 1.9 points to 25.9% in the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia poll – its lowest result since July 2024. National also took a tumble, down two points to 29%.
In an interview with Breakfast's Tova O'Brien this morning, Hipkins was grilled on the recent result.
"I'm certainly not happy with it," he said. "It is only one poll, and we're getting to that point in the electoral cycle where there will be polls every couple of days, and I want to see higher numbers in those polls."
He then shifted away from the numbers, saying his focus was "talking about the cost of living, talking about the crisis in our health system, and reminding New Zealanders what three more years of a National government will do, which would be a disaster for New Zealand".
Hipkins acknowledged the recent result was "by far the lowest" Labour had recorded, but said he was focused on improving with new policies.
He was then asked about the rollout of policy. National, ACT, NZ First and the Greens all made policy announcements over the weekend. It's been over a week since Labour's last policy reveal.
"The election campaign, I think, is sort of getting underway now, and there's certainly plenty of policy to come for us."
More specifically, O'Brien pressed Hipkins on policy to reduce child poverty – a central focus of the previous Labour Government under Jacinda Ardern.
Hipkins replied: "It's unacceptable in a country like New Zealand that we have kids living in poverty, and we will have plenty to say on child poverty as we get into the election campaign."
There would also be a Labour announcement on climate change today and another policy coming tomorrow, Hipkins said.
The minor parties were the biggest winners of the poll – with the Greens up 3.8% to 13.9% and ACT up 3.2% to 10.5%. NZ First was down 0.7% to 8.4%, and Opportunity fell from 6.1% to 4.5%. Te Pāti Māori gained 0.5 points to 2%. The current coalition Government would retain power with 64 seats compared to the opposition's 56.
Hipkins insisted Labour was "still in a position where we could form a government after the election", as other previous polls suggested it could.
"We've got a lot of work to do during the election campaign, but this is a very close election. We are still in a position where we could form a government after the election, and that's what I'm focused on."
Asked if he was worried about getting rolled, Hipkis said "absolutely not" and insisted he would still be the leader heading into the election.
"The main poll that we're focused on is the poll on election day, and I'm aiming to win that."
He then accused National of being "desperate" and using "lies" to smear Labour on tax.
A key policy for Labour is the introduction of a capital gains tax, which has faced opposition from the National Party via billboards and social media advertisements.
"They want to desperately talk about tax rather than talking about the cost of living, which they fail to fix," Hipkins said.
"They don't want to talk about the mess they're making of everything. They don't want to talk about what Winston Peters and Shane Jones and David Seymour are up to, so they're busy talking about tax, which, you know, we've got one simple targeted tax policy.
"That is the only new tax that we're campaigning on. The National Party are proving that, you know, advertising standards in New Zealand don't apply to political advertisements because their billboards are just lies."
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