Labour leader Chris Hipkins says Aucklanders have largely moved on from raising questions about the Covid-19 lockdowns he oversaw, but some government ministers say the pain is still felt by many in the country’s largest city.
Hipkins, the former Covid-19 Response Minister, said “not one person outside of Newstalk ZB is continuing to raise that with us” after a question from a reporter, not from Newstalk ZB, about Aucklanders’ feelings about Labour and the lockdowns.
But ministers say Aucklanders haven’t forgotten and won’t appreciate Hipkins’ remarks.
NZ First’s Winston Peters said voters are still feeling the impacts of business closures, while National deputy leader Nicola Willis said many people “bear the scars” of the lockdowns.
Hipkins made the comment after delivering a speech on the “State of Auckland” in which he said “too much is holding Auckland back”. The Labour leader mentioned housing and workforce shortages, as well as infrastructure delivery “not keeping pace with growth”.
Labour is trying to strengthen its position in Auckland after its drop in support there in the 2023 election, including the loss of long-held electorates such as Mt Roskill and New Lynn.
Some commentators have argued Covid-19 lockdowns may have contributed to the decline in support for Labour in the region. Hipkins has previously said that with the benefit of hindsight, he believed the Government could have scaled back restrictions there in late 2021 more quickly.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry report this year said that on the whole ministers and officials at the time “made strenuous efforts to make the right decisions as the pandemic relentlessly progressed”.
Asked on Tuesday whether he believed Aucklanders had forgiven him for the length of the restrictions, which some in the city had expressed anger over, Hipkins said no one other than one media outlet had asked him about it.
“Aucklanders by and large are focused on the future. They want to know what we’re going to do in the future,” he said.
“Covid was a difficult time for Auckland, more so than the rest of the country, and I’m the first to openly acknowledge that Auckland took one for the team, far more than many other parts of the country, but Aucklanders are now focused on the future.”
Hipkins acknowledged that winning back Auckland was crucial to victory at the November 7 election.
“We’ve seen a real change in Auckland over the last three years; 2024, post-election, was a tough year for Labour.”
He said his interactions with Aucklanders had improved recently, sensing a “real mood shift”.
His comments about lockdown questions were echoed by Kieran McAnulty, a Wairarapa-based Labour MP, who said he visited Auckland every week but “no one’s raised it with me”.
“On the whole, at the moment, cost of living is the main issue for most people. That’s what I keep hearing about.”
But Hipkins’ view wasn’t fully supported by government ministers, his political opponents, including Auckland-based National campaign chair Simeon Brown.
“I’m not sure many Aucklanders really appreciated getting a lecture from the failed previous Prime Minister,” Brown said.
People still spoke to him about the Covid-19 lockdowns, he said.
“It’s all a bit ironic this guy comes up to Auckland and starts saying to us he wants to unlock our city when he’s the man who locked us all down.”
Paul Goldsmith, another National Auckland MP, said he thought “most people” in the city had “moved on” but there were still some “working through the consequences of that period”.
“I think that was a very significant time in our history, which has got a long follow-through in terms of education and people’s impact in terms of their well-being.”
NZ First leader Peters said Hipkins was in “utter denial”.
“He goes to Auckland to try to seduce them to vote for him in 2026. When in 2023 everybody in Auckland had a full gutsful of him and his party, and we’re gonna make sure we remind Aucklanders of what they were like when they were last in power.”
Willis, National’s deputy leader, said she knew of Aucklanders who still “bear those scars”. She mentioned people who weren’t able to go to work, funerals or school during the lockdowns.
“It’s one thing for Chris Hipkins to have made a mistake at the time. It’s another thing to now be in complete denial about that,” she said.
“He should be clear with Aucklanders, he made mistakes that led to them suffering, and to dismiss that as something that’s only the concern of the fringe shows a complete lack of understanding in what everyday Aucklanders think and have experienced.”
In 2022, Hipkins said the Auckland lockdowns were something he would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight.
“There were probably some areas we could have moved more quickly to step down some restrictions. That lockdown in Auckland at the end of 2021, I think nerves were pretty frayed by the end of that.
“We should acknowledge that. Aucklanders paid a big price for our ongoing suppression of Delta while we got our vaccination rates up and so on.”
The intention of the lockdown in late 2021 was to stop Delta getting out of Auckland while also providing time to raise vaccination levels across New Zealand.
Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.