Chris Hipkins says Nats walked away from cross-party talks on consent law
Tuesday, 21 July 2026
Labour says the National Party walked away from cross-party talks on consent law changes about a month ago to campaign on the issue themselves.
Leader Chris Hipkins called the move “cynical politics at its absolute worst” and said the changes could be progressing right now.
But Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the only reason the Government had not got under way on such a law change was “traffic management” given its busy agenda.
The proposed law change, announced as a campaign policy by National on Sunday, would see affirmative consent before sexual intercourse defined in law. Currently only a lack of consent is defined in law, meaning defendants can argue that someone not saying “no” to sex implies consent.
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Labour said it had been working alongside other parties in Parliament on getting a cross-party bill ready on the matter, but National walked away from this deal recently.
“The National Party blocking a law change that could be progressed right now, so that they can go out there and campaign on it during the general election campaign, is cynical politics at its absolute worst,” Hipkins said.
He said Labour was working to bypass the ballot by bringing on other parties to support the members’ bill. If more than 61 non-executive MPs back a bill, it can bypass the biscuit tin and be drawn from the members’ ballot immediately.
“If we can get that by getting the other parties to support it, we'll certainly give that a crack.”
Luxon said the only reason the Government had not delivered on the bill already was how busy its legislative agenda had been.
“We're a Government that's been passing a huge amount of legislation, as you know. You know, and so that's just purely a traffic management issue. It's not a commitment issue,” Luxon said.
Labour Justice spokesperson Camilla Belich said bypassing the ballot would mean the Government agenda would not be disrupted and the bill could still be progressed on members’ nights.
Luxon said it was “wonderful that other parties want to come on board” and noted Labour had not enacted a change through six years of Government.
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said the House would struggle to see the bill through before the House rose for the election campaign, with justice legislation such as move on orders already before the House.
He said the Government had already done a “huge amount” in the sexual violence space, including passing stalking legislation, changing name suppression laws and sorting out the sentencing framework.
It would be “the appropriate thing” to wait until next term, he said.
Belich said deciding not to bring the issue to the House as soon as possible “undermined the seriousness” of the issue.
Belich said the Ministry of Justice could still be asked to help develop the law once it had passed first reading.
She said the consent law changes had been raised at the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Committee, where the committee decided it would look into a bill that would address the issue.
Around a month ago, National MPs backed out and said they were going to carry out the work themselves, Belich said.
She noted that the English Language Bill had made it to the order paper ahead of the consent law.