Hipkins risks being overlooked by voters as he drags the small-target game out

Thursday, 26 February 2026

Chris Hipkins promises not to do too much if Labour gets back into Government at the November election.

Janet Wilson is a regular opinion contributor and a freelance journalist who has also worked in communications, including with the National Party.

OPINION: You may have mistaken Chris Hipkins’ state of the nation speech for a policy-free, sloganeering word-salad, but there was a strategy behind it.

His cautious wait-and-see approach in Opposition to a historically unpopular Prime Minister and Government has already reaped him and his party the lead in the latest The Post/Freshwater Strategy poll but it’s also somewhat dangerous.

Waiting until after May’s Budget to release policy will undoubtedly tick Labour’s small-target strategy box, but in the vacuum voters, seeking relief for their household budgetary pain, will simply switch to louder voices for answers.

And for all Hipkins’ attempts to mark himself as not the least bit like the PM, there are remarkable similarities in their respective state of the nation speeches. Instead of policy, what we get is slogans (“a future made in New Zealand” for Hipkins, “fixing the basics, building the future” for Luxon) and vague directions of travel.

For Luxon, that includes KiwiSaver, NCEA and RMA reform, while for Hipkins it’s the already well-worn jobs, health and homes zingers with affordability “at the centre of everything we do”.

Here’s the problem with that kind of messaging. Without telling us how you’re going to achieve that with detailed policy, it sits in a vacuum and becomes meaningless.

And like some post-divorce transitional relationship, Hipkins’ state of the nation spent far too much time indulging in explaining how he and Labour have changed since 2023 “because, frankly, Kiwis have had enough of promises that aren’t kept”.

Which only reminds voters of Labour’s failed KiwiBuild, Three Waters and Lake Onslow projects.

Why define your futile past so comprehensively when your party can’t offer what a future looks like apart from three free doctor visits that a capital gains tax will pay for, and a “future fund” investing in New Zealand start-ups?

In emphasising his “that was then, this is now” message, Hipkins promised not to do everything in Labour’s first term if elected, which again is another double-edged sword. Loyal staff may claim he’s being responsible and carefully costing those promises, but with fewer policies you need to define them more, not less.

Not doing so means “the contest of ideas” – as Nicola Willis succinctly put it on Monday – is no contest at all. All of which threatens to imperil Labour’s polling of 37% in last week’s Post poll, which was consistent across two polls for the first time.

After all, with 55% of voters claiming the country is trucking in the wrong direction, up three points since the end of the year, that cautiousness isn’t exactly a roadmap for getting the country heading in the right direction.

Chris Hipkins on the upper marae at Waitangi earlier this month, flanked by senior Māori MPs Peeni Henare (who is leaving Parliament) and Willie Jackson.

Surprisingly, Hipkins’ wariness was also demonstrated with what wasn’t in the speech. For a party claiming it’s going to “vigorously compete” in all seven Māori seats, there wasn’t a mention of Labour’s long relationship with Māori, or the Treaty. And not one word of te reo spoken either. Not a “tena koutou” or “nga mihi nui” to be seen, let alone describing the country as “Aotearoa”.

Which makes Labour sound less like a natural home for Māori, as it has been in the past, and more caught in the culture wars Hipkins accuses Winston Peters of.

It also provides a possible hint as to why two senior Māori MPs have recently left or are leaving.

If anything, despite all his endless protestations of change, Hipkins’ state of the nation proves the opposite; after two years in Opposition and nine months out from an election, this was an opportunity to show that Labour had completed its promised transformation, to emerge renewed, refreshed, reinvigorated.

What was dished up wasn’t an Opposition leader who knew where to take the country next, but one who is prepared to keep us waiting, hoping Luxon and his Government will falter further; to keep mouse-like while the Government Punch-and-Judy Show bludgeons itself into oblivion.

Hipkins is betting on the fact that the electorate is sourly switched off from politics right now and will pay attention closer to voting day.

But what if it’s not? What if it’s desperate to hear a party boldly defining itself and the vision it stands for?

The longer Hipkins plays the small game, the greater the chance that swing voters hungry for change will see him and Labour as having nothing to offer, and switch off from him when he finally does.

Right now, all Labour is telling the electorate is, “gee, we overpromised and under-delivered last time. Next time we’ll deliver less but we’ll keep our promises.”

Instead of being the agent of change he purports to be, he’s playing the same game Labour has long played: of creeping incrementalism, while ignoring the idealism of the party’s left faction.

Monday’s speech was the chance to take risks and excite voters.

It was a wasted opportunity.

Will those voters now listen to Hipkins when he finally tells them his plans?