Why the fight for Auckland is already under way - how the city will shape the election

Sunday, 25 January 2026

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A wobble on Auckland housing has exposed just how nervous politicians are about the country’s biggest city. With voters restless and loyalties fraying, Auckland is shaping the election before the campaign has even begun. Amelia Wade reports.

The election campaign started not with a bang but a whisper.

Over summer, Auckland’s political class heard suggestions the Prime Minister had lost his nerve on the city’s housing intensification - reforms driven by his number three, Housing Minister Chris Bishop.

Under Plan Change 120, Auckland was expected to upzone large parts of the city, theoretically enabling up to two million additional homes. That figure was always hypothetical, but the policy was designed to give councils and developers more flexibility and ease long-term housing pressure.

Instead, the plan became a political flashpoint, and Christopher Luxon’s Auckland MPs were feeling the heat.

Luxon blinked - making a unilateral captain’s call that once again upended Auckland’s housing process.

“It’s clear to us that change is needed and we’re prepared to make that change,” Luxon said on Monday.

“I don’t think there’s a problem when you actually say, ‘I’ve listened to feedback and I’m going to do something different about it’.”

Read More:

• Controversial Auckland intensification plans to be watered down

• The end of the city edge: Rural-urban boundaries face the axe

• Chris Bishop's second go at dismantling a NIMBY lightning rod

It is not clear what feedback Luxon is referring to, given Auckland Council is only two months into a Government-mandated 18-month process and council staff have barely begun reviewing public submissions, which closed on December 18.

Minister for Auckland Simeon Brown told the Star-Times the Prime Minister was listening “to voters”.

“We talk to voters every single day.”

A number of Auckland councillors have welcomed the change of heart, but it’s not been universally applauded across the city: the construction sector, already bruised by a prolonged downturn, was stunned.

“Clarity is what everybody wants,” said Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett, “and the only clarity we’ve got is that we don’t have any clarity. It’s a bit of a buggers’ muddle, isn’t it?”

Leggett said Luxon’s intervention had replaced certainty with doubt: .

“Sometimes leadership isn’t about appeasing everyone.”

That uncertainty matters because Auckland matters.

The city is home to a third of the country’s population and accounts for nearly 40 per cent of New Zealand’s GDP. To win November 7’s election, parties need to win Auckland - or at least not lose it badly.

And the city is in play. After Covid, Auckland punished Labour for the extended lockdowns, crime and the cost of living. National unexpectedly flipped safe red seats including Mount Roskill and New Lynn.

But Auckland isn’t feeling the turnaround Luxon promised. A yawning gap in polling between the two major parties narrowed towards the end of last year.

The city has struggled to shake an economic slump. Unemployment has risen faster than elsewhere, homelessness has grown rapidly too, schools are under pressure with overflowing classrooms and clogged roads are costing billions in lost productivity.

Luxon was pressed on Auckland’s discontent during his State of the Nation address at the soon-to-open International Convention Centre, and admitted to interviewer Simon Bridges:

“I actually think that’s a fair cop. We can do a better job of listening to what’s needed here in Auckland.”

The city, he said, had been “smashed around” by construction and property downturns, but business confidence was lifting.

In the audience was Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown - neither acknowledged in Luxon’s speech nor officially invited. It is understood he attended as a guest’s plus-one.

Brown has begun flexing the Super City’s muscle ahead of the election.

Late last year, he clashed with the Government over plans to cap how much councils could raise rates. Despite the war of words, Luxon was invited to be part of Brown’s light-hearted Christmas message video which featured cameos from comedian Leigh Hart and Auckland Central MP and Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick.

But Luxon did not appear - his office said they were unable to find a time in the run up to Christmas.

Brown refused to be interviewed for this article, but in his Star Times column last week he put it bluntly: the city won’t be pushed around, and political parties who wanted to win the election needed to listen to the city.

Labour is acutely aware it failed to hear that message last time.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins admits the party misjudged the city in 2023.

“I didn’t spend enough time in west, south and central Auckland,” he said.

After the defeat, Labour retreated. Hipkins says the party spent much of the past two years listening rather than reacting. The last Auckland-specific press release it issued was almost a year ago - part of a deliberate strategy to avoid “barking at every passing car”.

The party has since established an Auckland working group and developed a year-long election strategy focused on the central isthmus and its south and west flanks. Auckland-specific policy is still to come, and Hipkins will spend more time on the ground.

That reset began with a caucus retreat in Henderson, West Auckland - a place Labour lost support - though concedes there was another reason their MPs gathered at a dated motel off Lincoln Rd.

“It’s cheap,” he told the Star Times.

Hipkins says the mood on the doorsteps has shifted. In 2023, party faithful were met with hostility or disengagement. By late last year, conversations had warmed.

“People felt they’d sent their message with their votes,” he said, but now they were willing to listen again.

Covid no longer comes up, Hipkins says. Crime still does.

“We’ve got work to do to reassure Aucklanders that we understand their anxieties around public safety.”

Hipkins says Luxon’s captain’s call on intensification shows a Prime Minister “panicking”.

“National’s support in Auckland is collapsing - not just because of house prices, but because they’ve failed to deliver.”

Simeon Brown, however, made it clear National intends to run a ‘reminder’ campaign.

“Aucklanders remember how Labour locked this city down and let crime get out of control,” Brown said. “They know returning to those policies would put hard-won progress at risk.”

Brown said National would run on its record in Auckland - axing the regional fuel tax, cancelling light rail and focusing on public safety.

Asked whether National’s goal was to retain all the territory it gained in 2023, Brown said the focus was the party vote. “It’s the party vote that determines the shape of Parliament,” he said.

Other parties have already begun their election-year plays in the city.

New Zealand First deputy leader Shane Jones has been working to improve his party’s fortunes. He started the year by walking back controversial rules on Marlin fishing which upset swathes of recreational fishers and The Star Times understands there could also be changes made to the Hauraki Gulf protections to benefit spear fishers.

Last week, he seized on protests in Whangaparāoa, where residents demanded protections for sea life amid claims of over-harvesting, blaming immigration and suggested bans could be urgently considered.

Swarbrick said the play was transparent.

“There are parties in our parliament who are absolutely fiending for a culture war, because it means that we get to have a debate about the humanity of other human beings, as opposed to the real issues.”

Swarbrick claimed the Auckland Central seat in an historic 2020 upset powered by a grass-roots campaign.

The success encouraged the Greens to run four “two-tick campaigns” in 2023 (where candidates vie for both the electorate and party vote) including in Auckland Central, which they held, and Mount Albert, which they lost.

Swarbrick wouldn’t say whether more were planned this year, but said the party had recruited a “serious slate” of candidates after a turbulent term marked by resignations, tragedy and one high-profile ousting.

In Auckland, she expects housing and homelessness to be a frontline issue — particularly in her electorate, where rough sleeping has surged. The rising frustrations about the city’s intensification process were also sharpening.

“They're chopping and changing even within their own term. So the question really is, who is losing in that? And it is Auckland.”

As well, Swarbrick predicts the struggles of small businesses to feature, with liquidations hitting a 15-year-high last year, and with Auckland being surrounded by harbours, she says the state of the oceans is often raised with her.

No politician could take their seat or support for granted, she said.

“Aucklanders don't like Wellington telling us what to do.”

Act leader David Seymour also runs a two-tick campaign in his Epsom constituency. In 2023, the party successfully targeted Tāmaki, with deputy leader Brooke van Velden capturing it from National.

Seymour says ACT’s focus is on holding those two seats.

“I never say I'm confident… but I think there's a lot of good reasons to think we will actually win.”

Those reasons, says Seymour, are mostly to do with hard work.

“It's hard to beat literally thousands of people, one by one, helped with various issues. And that's, certainly as a local MP, the record I stand on - no problem too big or too small.”

Crime and housing intensification, he said, would remain flashpoints - even as Cabinet, of which he is part, signed off on the very reforms he now opposes publicly.

“I've seen a few people making commentary that there should be the same rule for everywhere. I'm sure it should, but I'm not the local MP for everywhere. I'm only speaking on behalf of the people I represent.”

Once again, Auckland is shaping up as the place where national ambition collides with local resistance - and where the election will be won or lost.

Five Auckland fights to watch

Auckland Central

Auckland Central, spanning Waiheke’s vineyards and seaside mansions to CBD high-rise apartments and the leafy city fringe, is one of the country’s most diverse electorates in the country. Historically a Labour seat, it was flipped by National’s Nikki Kaye in 2008, but in 2020, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick secured an historic win and then consolidated her hold in 2023 with a strong majority. Who the major parties nominate against her will signal how seriously they rate their chances.

Northcote

Across the harbour, Northcote, which mixes bridge-side heritage villas with new state housing and now the industry of Wairau Valley, has traditionally leaned National but has shown it can swing. Labour’s Shanan Halbert captured the seat in 2020 but lost it back to National’s Dan Bidois in 2023.

Halbert, yet to be confirmed as the Labour candidate, says people approach him at his local New World to complain about the Government. But beating Bidois will be an uphill battle for Halbert who’s lost to him twice before.

Tāmaki

Tāmaki is home to some of Auckland’s wealthiest streets. Held by National since Robert Muldoon, the seat fell in 2023 when ACT deputy leader Brooke van Velden defeated National’s Simon O’Connor.

Act hopes to keep the seat, and leader David Seymour is unconcerned that van Velden’s swift execution of a number of pay equity claims will be held against her. Whether National mounts a serious challenge will determine how hard-fought this contest becomes.

Tāmaki Makaurau

Tāmaki Makaurau, the Māori electorate covering much of urban Auckland, is one of the most politically dynamic seats in the country. Created in 2002, it has swung ever since between Labour and kaupapa Māori representation. Labour’s Peeni Henare won it from Te Pati Maori in 2014 and retained it through three elections, but was overturned by TPM’s Takutai Tarsh Kemp in 2023 by just 42 votes. Following Kemp’s death, the 2025 by-election delivered a clearer mandate for her successor Oriini Kaipara.

Henare is still deciding whether he will contest the seat again - but has confirmed he will run again, regardless of whether he’s a candidate or list-only.

Mount Roskill

Once a Labour stronghold, senior Cabinet minister Michael Wood lost the multi-ethnic seat narrowly to National first-termer Carlos Cheung in 2023.

Wood’s defeat followed his sacking over Auckland Airport shareholdings while Transport Minister. He has since worked as a union negotiator and is confirmed to recontest the seat. Cheung has advocated for migrants and this week he took aim at Jones blaming rock pools being raided on immigrants.

'It's not fair or accurate to single out any one group, as individual behaviour never represents an entire community.”

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