Chris Hipkins speaks to Herald NOW's Ryan Bridge after Winston Peters ruled out working with him after the next election.
Video / Herald NOW
NZ First leader Winston Peters last week “permanently” ruled out working with Labour leader Chris Hipkins in any future Government coalition.
Hipkins told Herald NOW with Ryan Bridge this morning he had ruled out working with Peters before the last election and that was “highly unlikely” to change before next year’s election.
Hipkins also rejected Te Pāti Māori’s proposals for a Māori Parliament and justice authority, and called the Green Party’s $88 billion revenue plan “unrealistic”.
Chris Hipkins has hit back at Winston Peters after the NZ First leader said he had ruled out working with the Labour leader “permanently”.
Peters last week told the Herald that “when I ruled out Hipkins in 2023, I ruled him out permanently” (the veteran politician actually ruled out Labourin November 2022, three months before Hipkins became leader).
Hipkins told Herald NOW with Ryan Bridge this morning he’d ruled out working with Peters before the last election “and I said it’s highly unlikely that’s [going to] change before the next election”.
“I think New Zealanders have had enough of being held to ransom by Winston Peters and David Seymour. I think they want to get back to the idea that the Government is there to serve people, rather than serve themselves, which Winston Peters, frankly, is a master at.
Pushed by Bridge to definitively rule out working with Peters after next year’s election, Hipkins said he was “saying exactly the same thing I’ve been saying all along”.
“We’ll set that out before the next election. I’m not going to get into the specifics of individual parties, because then you’ll ask me about others ... we’ll set out before the election who we can and can’t work with.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins speaking with Ryan Bridge on Herald NOW this morning. Photo / Michael Craig
The difference between himself and Luxon was he respected the voters and wouldn’t allow smaller parties to “basically hold the country to ransom in the way he does”, Hipkins told Herald NOW.
Peters, meanwhile, had accused Labour of running a “borrow-and-hope” fiscal strategy during its second term, after NZ First was no longer part of the Government (NZ First was still part of the Government in 2020, when it passed the first post-Covid Budget, but the party was no longer in Parliament after that year’s election).
The current Labour Party’s “abandonment of their fundamental roots as a party” means “they’re in deep trouble”, Peters said.
Winston Peters in the debating chamber at Parliament last month. Peters' NZ First party was part of a coalition Government with Labour in 2017 but ruled out a repeat at the last election – and the next election under Chris Hipkins' leadership. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Hipkins was also grilled on various Te Pāti Māori and Green Party policies while speaking to Bridge this morning.
Asked if he’d allow Te Pāti Māori to establish a Māori Parliament under any future coalition agreement, Hipkins said: “Absolutely not.”
He also ruled out a Māori justice authority that would take up 59% of the Corrections budget and 50% of the police budget.
On the Greens’ proposed $88 billion in new revenue over four years, comprised mainly of wealth and inheritance taxes, Hipkins told Herald NOW the overall package of Labour’s former coalition partner was “unrealistic”.
“I think they’re trying to do too much too quickly.”
He wouldn’t give details but said Labour’s own tax policy would be out before the end of the year.
“[I’ve previously said] I don’t think you should be imposing either a capital gains or a wealth tax on someone’s family home.”
