Exactly where the Labour Party is four months after the start of the new Government is unclear.
Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall has been one of the more public-facing MPs coming out strongly against big changes in her patch such as smoking laws and the disestablishment of the Māori Health Authority.
More recently Rachel Brooking has found her voice, speaking out on the potential environmental impacts of the fast-track consenting laws and Jan Tinetti has rounded the troops on plans to review the cost-effectiveness of the free school lunch programme with a 40,000-strong petition.
However, other issues it could have picked at, for example the Treaty Principles Bill and policies in the law and order realm, have been largely handled by the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
Using the “how many press releases have been issued” barometer it appears Labour is missing in action, but at the party’s caucus retreat on Thursday in Martinborough, Deborah Russell said it had been a deliberate approach.
“We’ve been taking it pretty calmly and quietly. There’s no point in racing after everything. So we’ve had a bit of time to reflect and I think that’s the responsible thing to do.”
That was backed up by Hipkins who said the Government was quickly losing the confidence of the public all on its own.
“I think given what this current Government are doing to really lose the confidence of the public as fast as they possibly can, I think there is a huge opportunity for us to rebuild quickly and we’re already well on the road to doing that and to make sure that we’re offering New Zealand as a real alternative at the next election.”
The latest monthly Taypayers’ Union-Curia poll saw support for the Prime Minister dip with 39 percent of voters expressing a favourable view of Christopher Luxon but 44 percent with an unfavourable view for a net favourability of -5 percent – down 16 points on the month before.
The period polled included the revelations Luxon was pocketing a $52,000 annual allowance for living in his own apartment in Wellington, and not Premier House. He has since confirmed he would not continue to receive the allowance and would pay back what he had got so far.
The same poll saw support for Labour down as well, however support for Hipkins had lifted.
MPs arriving at Brackenridge on Thursday morning were united in telling media they fully supported him as leader to take the party into 2026, despite him being at the helm during last year’s obliteration.
Rebuilding from such a defeat is no easy task, particularly with the loss of stalwarts like Andrew Little, Kelvin Davis and Grant Robertson.
However, the preservation of talent through tactical list placings ahead of the election for the likes of Willow-Jean Prime and Ginny Andersen for example, does mean Labour has given itself options to present a fresh alternative government ahead of the 2026 election.
Whether that gets the cut-through it needs for the public to take that option seriously after only one term of the current Government is a big ask.
Jan Tinetti admitted during the past year some people got “confused” about the party’s values and saw the retreat as a good pit stop to reflect and figure out a clear way forward.
That vision for Labour is expected to become clearer in the next few weeks.
Hipkins said he would soon set out how the party planned to apply its values in the current context, and then a few weeks after that, give a second speech to articulate his “vision for New Zealand”.
In comments to MPs ahead of the retreat kicking off, he said Labour had three jobs: be prepared for the next election, rebuild the Labour movement by recruiting, fundraising and connecting with local communities, and to offer alternatives to Government policy.
But selling those policies will be difficult – arguably it struggled to sell critical policies including Three Waters and the public media merger when it was in government with a large platform, so in opposition will be even trickier.
If its plan to be an effective opposition is to have viable and credible alternatives to what the Government is doing, and have this translate into votes at the election, the public has to be onboard.
One of those critical policies is tax, where there are more ways it can go wrong than right.
Labour lost both the 2011 and 2014 election, where a capital gains tax was a campaign policy.
In 2017 the party campaigned on it and were elected due to the coalition with New Zealand First, however the tax was a casualty of that coalition and led to Ardern confirming there would never be one while she was leader.
Hipkins followed her lead confirming both a capital gains and wealth tax were out for the 2023 election, but post election has said that tax policy is now a blank slate.
Where Labour will go on tax is one the party will consider carefully. New finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds has yet to confirm where she stands on the issue, telling media at the retreat it wasn’t on the agenda but may come up as a discussion “organically”.
David Parker, the former revenue minister, and keen supporter of a wealth tax said it was certainly a “proper” discussion for the Labour Party and the country to have.
Labour has time, but a Parliamentary term is fast. There’s already been a caucus refresh and now a retreat, two more speeches to come to lay out the vision as well as a promise from Hipkins to attend every regional conference ahead of the party’s annual conference and after all this we might start to get a hint of policy.
It needs to decide exactly which cars it will bark at.
