Labour leader Chris Hipkins says the 2026 general election cannot come soon enough as the date of polling day is announced.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon revealed this afternoon that the election would be held on November 7.
Hipkins says Luxon choosing a November election date indicated “he was desperate to hold on as long as he can”.
But Luxon said it was a “logical time” when you “look at the international events beforehand, when you look at the national events, sporting events” also around that time.
Earlier today, Hipkins made his first official speech of the year at the party’s caucus retreat, after slamming Luxon’s State of the Nation address on Monday as “management-speak mumbo jumbo”.
National MPs are also attending their own caucus retreat today in Christchurch. Political parties go on caucus retreats at the start of each year, allowing MPs to come together for the first time after the summer to strategise for the year ahead.
“I’m feeling enthusiastic about election year. I think like a lot of New Zealanders, I’m feeling like the election cannot come soon enough,” Hipkins said.
The Labour leader said he thought Luxon was ”going to drag it out as long as possible ... but we will fight this campaign energetically from start to finish whenever the election day may be”.
Hipkins said New Zealanders were feeling “real doom and gloom” from the coalition Government and “what they want is a sense of hope”.
Labour’s campaign will include a focus on winning back Auckland after a dismal 2023 election result that included several of the city’s electorates turning blue.
“We want to win back to the country’s biggest city,” Hipkins said.
“We’re having our first meeting for the year in West Auckland. That’s a clear signal to Auckland that we do recognise that we needed to win back support in Auckland and we’ve been working hard on that over the last two years.”
Although support in Auckland was “continuing to increase”, Hipkins said, “we’ve still got more work to do”.
The selection process for who will contest the Auckland electorates for Labour is underway.
“We’ve certainly got more up our sleeves that you’ll hear about more in the coming months but ... there will be a dedicated strategy around Auckland.”
Hipkins warned there will be no major policy announcements or reshuffling of MPs’ positions at Labour’s retreat (or any revealing of the party’s stance on the Government’s India free trade agreement – this is being saved for next week’s caucus meeting).
Earlier today, Labour announced the retirement of former Speaker of the House and long-serving politician Adrian Rurawhe. The four-term MP will step down at the start of next month.
The Government requires Labour’s support for its trade deal with India, after coalition partner NZ First said it would vote against it.
Hipkins said the party had “tried hard not to play politics around trade agreements in the past”.
“There’s certainly some things we’ve asked for a more detailed briefing on ... I think we do want to, as much as we can, try and keep this ... a bipartisan issue.”
But he said he wanted to make sure the party knew what it was signing up for first.
Instead of policy announcements or reshuffles, Hipkins said the retreat’s agenda would be focused on election-year campaign plans.
He said his MPs are feeling bullish and upbeat after ending 2025 on a high with some positive polling and the unveiling of several campaign policies. If elected, the party is promising all New Zealanders three free GP visits, funded by a capital gains tax.
“We made some pretty big policy announcements at the end of last year, and that really is kicking off our process of setting out how we’ll do things differently to the current Government.
“And you’ll see a lot more policies from Labour this year. It’s election year.”
Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism.