Labour leader Chris Hipkins will shortly close the Labour Party’s 2025 conference with a speech and policy announcement.

Labour members gathered in Auckland this weekend for their party conference.

Hipkins will speak at about 2.15pm. His speech will be livestreamed at the top of this article. It is expected to include a health policy announcement to compliment the health policies Labour has unveiled off the back of its capital gains tax announcement.

Labour members have been meeting in Auckland since Friday.

On Saturday, two members of the caucus, Cushla Tangaere-Manuel and Barbara Edmonds, addressed the conference.

Tangaere-Manuel laid out an ambitious platform for retaking all seven Māori electorates at the next election. Te Pāti Māori won six of the seven in 2023, although two of those MPs have subsequently left the party.

One of those expelled MPs, Tākuta Ferris, put out a press statement last week suggesting Labour voters should split their votes, creating an overhang that would make it easier to topple the coalition from office.

Labour does not appear particularly moved by that strategy and has continued to talk up its chances of retaking all the seats next year.

Edmonds’ speech contained a dose of realism, warning Labour could not afford to say “yes” to everything its supporters may want.

She also put some distance between herself and the last Labour Government, in which she briefly served as a minister.

“We’ve heard the lesson of last term: too much, too fast, and not enough finished,” Edmonds said.

“People heard the promises – and often supported the intent – but didn’t always see the change in their lives,” she said.

Edmonds promised “fiscal responsibility” if Labour is elected next year.

Act Leader David Seymour pre-emptively questioned that commitment, rushing out a press release as the conference got going questioning how Labour would fund its commitment to reverse the coalition’s pay equity reforms, which saved $12.8 billion.

“Even just reinstating Labour’s pay‑equity regime will leave a $13b hole in the books, so you can practically hear Hipkins’ new taxes rolling into the station. His capital gains tax doesn’t save him, it will take years to raise a single billion and Hipkins needs 13," Seymour said.