Craig Renney says he isn’t worried about low Labour list placing
Monday, 8 June 2026
Labour’s Craig Renney says he is too focused on winning the Wellington Bays seat to worry about his low list placing.
The high-profile candidate was ranked at 51 in the list released on Monday, which would require a Labour result substantially higher than current polls to mean an entry from the list.
But the Council of Trade Unions economist and Grant Robertson staffer told The Post he was not particularly worried about the list as he was going all-in on winning the new seat of Wellington Bays, where he is the Labour candidate.
“To be frank the list placing is not something I’ve ever really worried about, or spent a great deal of time thinking about. My job has always been to win Wellington Bays and to be the MP for Wellington Bays.”
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“It’s a bit of a lottery on the day right? You get, you know a number. That’s fine.”
He noted that the predecessor seat, Rongotai, had been “Labour for a really long time” with Annette King winning it from 1996 until her retirement in 2017, saying he was focused on making it Labour again in 2026.
But Labour lost the seat to the Greens’ Julie Anne Genter in 2023, who is now running for Wellington Bays against Renney.
Hipkins said he “absolutely expected” Renney to win Wellington Bays.
“Craig's running an outstanding campaign. It's a seat that Labour's held for a very, very long time bar the last election, and he's running a very strong campaign to win it back, and I'm confident that he's going to do that.”
Genter said it was up to the voters to decide who would represent them.
“I don’t think any seat belongs to any party. That’s why we have the campaign and the election,” Genter said.
“The Greens have a lot of support in this area, we won the party vote in ‘23. But my personal vote was higher than the party vote. I think that people will vote the person they want to represent them.”
Asked if she was worried about voters deciding they could simply vote for Renney and trust that Genter would get in on the list - she is ranked at five meaning her entry to Parliament is extremely likely even if she loses Wellington Bays - Genter noted that she had been highly-ranked in 2023 too and still won the seat.
Renney rejected the notion that his low list placing was due to some kind of tension between him and Hipkins.
“That’s absolutely nuts. Chippy [Chris Hipkins] and I have a great relationship. That is people talking who clearly don’t have any insight as to how Chippy and I get on.”
Asked why he hadn’t considered going off the list completely, as Michael Wood has in his bid to win Mt Roskill, Renney said he hadn’t considered it.