National and Labour had their election campaign launches on the weekend. Here is Chris Hipkins pointing out what will happen with another term of National. (Transcript)
That’s what chaos costs you.
Three more years of drift. Three more years of cuts. Three more years of higher costs.
New Zealand can’t afford three more years of National.
There are things about that speech I can critique (and probably will in the comments). But more important, much more important, is changing the government in November.
Whatever our criticisms of Labour or the Greens, we can still vote strategically. Disappointed in Labour? Vote Green, and so on.
We can also work between now and when voting opens, to encourage people to vote Labour, Green or electorate vote Te Pāti Māori. In a tight election, every vote matters.
In an election campaign how we talk about the left parties, at work, with family and friends, socially, influences people’s thinking.
If we slag off the party we are disappointed in, we send the message to not vote for them, or to not vote at all. We can instead say we don’t like a policy or position but it’s still good to vote for this party or that one, for all the reasons Hipkins is talking about. We can still critique, but let’s not make it the only thing we do, nor the dominant voice.
Hipkins goes on to talk about what Labour will do, make a list, tell everyone about it.
I had a discussion about this recently on twitter, with some people loudly defending their right to slag off Labour. I was left with the distinct impression that their lives would not be fundamentally or materially affected if NACTFirst got another term. Mine would be, badly, and so would the lives of many, many other people. Eventually it will affect the middle classes as well as all the systems of New Zealand society come under Trumpian attack. Which at this point appears to be most of them.
Do we care about that? Then we need to talk up voting left.
Totally with you Weka on this.
Hipkins is campaigning very well. When asked, if he was a shoe, who's feet would he choose to be worn by, he said, don't know who's feet but it would be the left foot – or something like that – very quick, very smart, very alert.
Luxon would have said, what I'm saying to you … and every ear would have gone deaf.
Speaking of CEO Luxon, feet and “What I would say to you” brought to mind this Guy Body cartoon.
Hey didn't lux-one say he has more to do and he is just getting started; fuck imagine if he gets another three years in power and his coalition mates are scary, they will destroy our country and its already in a mess.
What excited me most about Hipkins' speech wasn't so much the delivery (solid 8/10), but the fact that it has, finally, revealed Labour's theory of the electorate.
That said, it was also good to see Chippie looking confident, calm and comfortable making the case. Not angry, not defensive, and not apologetic about being Labour.
And there’s a lot to like about the substance. It’s punchy, focused overwhelmingly on material issues, and, most importantly, creates a permission structure for people who switched from Labour to National in 2023 to come back.
The message is pretty simple:
"You voted for change because things weren't working.
National has now had three years.
Are you better off?
If not, here's what we'd do differently."
That's a much stronger argument than telling people they were wrong to vote National in 2023. They don't have to regret that decision, or even decide Labour was right all along. They only have to look at their own circumstances after three years and ask whether the change they voted for actually delivered.
It also gives Labour somewhere to go beyond simply attacking the government. Cost of living, jobs, wages, healthcare, power bills and housing aren't abstractions. They're things people experience directly, and Labour can attach concrete policies to each of them.
That's the bit I've been waiting to see: not just a collection of policies, or another list of things National has done badly, but an actual theory about which voters Labour needs to persuade, why they moved in 2023, and what might persuade them to move back in 2026.
Whether that theory is right is another question. But at least Labour finally appears to have one. And, more importantly, an actual plan for going to those voters and making the case.
Which brings me back to Weka’s point. The wider left needs some discipline about what actually matters between now and November.
There will be plenty in Labour’s programme worth criticising. There always is. But winning arguments with other people on the left about the policy you wish Labour had adopted isn’t the same thing as persuading the people who will actually decide the election.
If Labour has correctly identified the voters it needs to win back, then perhaps the useful question isn’t whether its offer perfectly reflects our own politics.
It’s whether those voters can see something in it that gives them a reason to come back.