CHRIS HIPKINS: MORE OF THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT

Labour leader Chris Hipkins thinks his party had a good year in 2024 and is optimistic about Labour's election chances in 2026. But his optimism is unfounded. Despite the fact that the centre is not only not holding but disintegrating, Hipkins seems uninterested in doing anything other than tweaking a failed and unpopular status quo. That won't win Labour the 2026 election.

 

THE CHEERY optimism of Labour leader Chris Hipkins can only be depressing for the small and declining number of Labour Party supporters who still hold out hope that Labour might abandon centrism for a more progressive platform. According to Hipkins, 2024 was a good year for Labour. Now, apparently, it's all steam ahead to an achievable election victory in 2026. Hipkins obviously doesn't think Labour has been doing much wrong. He told Newsroom:

'Labour’s doing better than I anticipated, and I’m personally doing better. I sort of expected, becoming Leader of the Opposition, you’d move from positive territory into negative territory just by the nature of the job. You’re basically complaining about things all the time. But I haven’t, I still have a net favourable rating, and I wasn’t expecting that by the end of the first year; I was expecting that to have shifted quite a lot'.

Having failed to excite the electorate with its steady 'business as usual' election message last time round, Hipkins seems intent on delivering the same uninspiring message in 2026. While the desire for real change is widespread in the community, Hipkins doesn't appear interested in tapping into that enthusiasm. But Labour presenting itself as a defender of a neoliberal status quo that continues to disadvantage the working class is not a winning strategy. Simply promising to tweak the system a bit is not a recipe for election success.

Chris Hipkins might point to Labour doing OK in the polls, but banking on the unpopularity of National and its party allies is a gamble that Labour is likely to lose. Hipkins might like to reflect on how a centrist Kamala Harris was soundly defeated by Donald Trump. He might like to reflect on the fall of Canada's Justin Trudeau, once the poster boy for centrism, but who resigned before he was pushed. He also might like to reflect on how Keir Stamer's centrist UK Labour Party has plunged in the opinion polls in the space of just six months. The centre is not holding, but disintegrating. Why should it be any different in New Zealand?

Its worth noting that Labour will be relying on the support of Te Pati Maori and the Green Party to regain office. This is problematic, especially in the case of the Green Party. Chloe Swarbrick is running the show now, and she has made it clear that the Green's won't be seeking accommodation with the neoliberal status quo. That strategy exited with former co-leader James Shaw. And it would be political suicide for the Green Party to be seen as making deals with a political party that remains an obstacle in the way of real change.

According to Newsroom, Labour's question to the electorate in 2026 will be: Are you better off? Since the present government has enriched the few at the expense of the many, most will answer in the negative. But it doesn't stop here. The electorate will be asking what Labour is offering as an alternative. If it proves to be just more of the same, but different, that won't be enough to convince an already cynical and disillusioned electorate that it would be any better off under Labour.

The greatest things are achieved by political parties that have a radical and ambitious vision of change. That vision is sorely absent from the Labour Party.