Hipkins’ Conference speech

E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā iwi, e rau rangatira ma

Tena koutou tēnā koutou tēnā koutou katoa

Mālō e lelei

Kia Orana

Talofa Lava

Fakaalofa lahi atu

Mālō Ni

Ni sa bula

Namaste

As-salamu alaykum

Ni hao

Warm pacific greetings to you all.

Christchurch, Ōtautahi, thank you for having us. It’s great to be here in the South Island.

Note to the current government – that’s the bigger island below the North Island. It’s where the Interislander ferries take you, where Dunedin Hospital is, and where most of your Roads of National Significance aren’t.

Thank you for an amazing conference. I’ve felt your energy. Your ideas. Your challenges.

There are people here who’ve been in the party for a long time, but we’ve also heard from people who have recently joined, or recently come back to the party.

It’s clear to me, and it should be clear to everyone else by now, that we’re fired up and ready to get to work to make this the first one-term National Government in New Zealand’s history.

We’ve now put up with a year of the National, ACT and New Zealand First coalition of chaos.

If you’re a Kiwi household wondering where the cost-of-living relief Christopher Luxon promised you is, you’re not alone.

He talked a big game, now he’s failing to deliver.

I have absolutely no doubt that the cost-of-living crisis was a decisive factor in Kiwis voting for change last year.

People have opted for change in just about every country that has gone to the polls since the end of the pandemic.

Yet day by day, Kiwis are starting to see that the change they were promised isn’t the change they are getting.

The worsening economic forecasts we are now seeing aren’t despite the actions of this government, they are because of it.

This government has made the cost-of-living crisis harder for Kiwis by cutting discounted public transport, free prescriptions, and the expansion of 20 hours free early childhood education.

Their scrapping of affordable water reform is continuing to push rates up across the country, especially in rural areas.

They’ve cut back free and healthy school lunches and reduced funding for apprenticeships.

They’ve cut support for disabled kiwis, for budgeting services, and for those who work with children and victims of family and sexual abuse.

They’ve cancelled almost all action on climate change while stripping back protections for our natural environment.

They’re re-writing our gun laws and have abandoned the victims of the March 15 terrorist attack.

They’ve driven Kiwis out of work by cancelling projects for no other reason than because they were started by the last government.

And they’ve unleashed a divisive debate on the Treaty.

Christopher Luxon is choosing to look after the wrong people.

Choosing the tobacco and gun lobbies over focusing on what people had hoped for – what they voted for – the promise of help with rising costs.

And as a result, too many Kiwis are just giving up and leaving.

A record number of Kiwis left New Zealand in the past year, nearly 80,000 – to put that number into context, one New Zealand Citizen left every six and a half minutes.

I don’t want my kids to grow up thinking the only way they can get ahead is to move to Australia.

We have to get back to basics.

Almost all of our speakers this weekend have talked to why they are Labour – why we are Labour – and it’s to make our country better for our children, working people, and each other.

Labour in Government has always led for all New Zealanders.

We’ve focused on people, jobs, better pay, a place to call home, and safe, welcoming communities.

When we look at our history, we excel when we bring people together rather than drive them apart as this government seems determined to do.

Michael Joseph Savage brought the country together to beat the Depression.

Peter Fraser brought the country together to fight a war.

Norman Kirk brought the country together to reshape our sense of nationhood.

Helen Clark brought the country back together after a decade and a half of divisive economic reforms.

And Jacinda Ardern brought us together to fight a deadly virus.

While there are plenty of people who are experts in hindsight, the tough calls we made during COVID-19 kept people alive and resulted in one of the lowest rates of death in the world. I’m proud of that.

We didn’t get everything right though, and it’s really important to reflect and learn so we can mount an even better response next time, because there will be a next time.

But right now, we need a new Labour government to bring the country together again for our next big fight.

It’s a fight for a fair go for all New Zealanders.

If you work hard, play by the rules, and contribute your fair share you deserve a decent standard of living, security, and opportunities to grow.

The current economy isn’t providing that for too many people.

For too long, New Zealanders have been told that if we just grow the economy everyone will be better off. It’s not true.

We now have plenty of evidence that trickle-down economics is nothing but a hoax. The rich simply get richer and everyone else works harder just to stand still.

Those who know me know that my musical tastes are stuck in the 1980s, but I can assure you unlike this current government, my views on the economy aren’t.

The idea that you can get ahead through your own hard work feels like an illusion to more and more people.

Too many families have been going backwards for far too long.

The divide between generations is growing too. Younger Kiwis are giving up on the dream of home ownership and the idea that their lives could be even better than the lives of their parents.

There are more big challenges ahead and they’re coming fast. Climate change and AI will redefine our world and we need a Government that is prepared to meet those challenges head on.

I got into politics because I think we can be better, because I think government can be a force for good.

I’m not here to make myself richer, I’m here to make New Zealand better.

You could say I’m the no-frills, affordable Chris.

And call me old fashioned, but I reckon Kiwis deserve straight up answers from their political leaders. “What I would say to you” isn’t an answer.

In fact, the current PM is so averse to answering a question he’d probably respond to “how are you” with “it’s Labour’s fault.”

I think Kiwis deserve better than that.

I believe that economic progress means creating the conditions for everyone to have more choices and more empowerment.

Good economic policy has to recognise that we all have equal worth and all our people are entitled to live with dignity and security.

Healthy people and a healthy environment are the heart and lungs of a healthy economy.

New Zealand can be so much better than this. I’m so excited about the future potential of this amazing country.

Our next Labour government will be focussed on getting back to basics.

A place for everyone to call home.

A world-class public health system.

Education that gives everyone the opportunity to fulfil their potential.

Support for those that need it.

And good guardianship of our natural environment.

At the heart of our next government, we will focus on jobs jobs jobs.

We are a country of innovators.

We can complement our world-leading status as a food producing country by also becoming world-leading in processing and adding value to our food.

We won’t ignore hundreds of jobs being lost in major sectors like manufacturing and pretend nothing can be done. We had a transition plan, this Government scrapped it and now seems willing to turn the other way. Those workers and communities deserve better.

We can boost our world-class eco-tourism offering by offering a premium wellness experience.

We can build on our clean green reputation to back our innovators to take their ideas to the world.

I think of companies like Novolabs in Palmerston North and the world-leading portable water UV water treatment plants they have developed.

I think of Envico technologies in Tauranga and their predator eradication innovations and aerial tree planting technology.

I think of Forest Lodge orchard in Central Otago, the world’s first fully electric cherry orchard.

I think of Kara technologies in Auckland who have developed the world’s first AI-powered digital sign-language dictionary.

These are just a handful of the innovators and entrepreneurs I’ve seen in action recently, that have left me feeling inspired about our future.

More established companies like Xero, Wētā Workshop, and Animation Research have already shown how we can take Kiwi ingenuity to the world, and we need to back the next generation of those companies.

These innovators create jobs and they create the opportunities New Zealanders deserve.

They deserve a government that’s going to back them, and be proud of New Zealand, not one that goes around the world calling them c-listers and talking our country down.

Labour will bring together government, business, unions, innovators and researchers, and the social sector to tackle the complex problems of today and tomorrow.

We’ve already got some great examples of how this can work. Smokefree 2025, Predator-free NZ, our goal for 100% renewable electricity generation, and even parts of our pandemic response show what we can achieve when we set big goals and work together to achieve them.

This government promised a laser like focus on economic growth, but so far all they have proven is that you don’t grow the economy by just talking about it.

We need a vision and a plan and this current government has neither.

People started asking about our alternative plan literally months after the last election. They know better is possible too.

We can change the Government in 2026 if we work for it.

That’s why we have started planning already, and today I can confirm that Kieran McAnulty has been selected our Campaign Chair.

When we head back onto the campaign trail in 2026, we won’t make promises we can’t deliver.

We will stand behind our promises because every single one of them will have been properly researched, fully costed, and we will have a plan to deliver on it.

I know many New Zealanders had grown sceptical of big political promises by the time the last election rolled around.

COVID-19 turned everything upside down and as a government we weren’t able to meet all the commitments we had made. And in some areas like Kiwibuild, while the ambition was right, the implementation missed the mark.

We won’t repeat those mistakes again. This time we will be ready.

We will reject the backwards looking, cold and visionless politics of austerity that has been so clearly shown to fail elsewhere.

We’ll focus on investment in our future.

We’ll invest in our health system, with a much greater focus on keeping people healthy rather than treating them for illness that could have been avoided in the first place.

The way you save money in the health system isn’t by cutting doctors, nurses and the people who help them to do their jobs.

It’s by investing in policies like free prescriptions and keeping people out of hospital in the first place.

We’ll reinstate Smokefree Aotearoa to keep reducing smoking and improving people’s health, and cancel the tax breaks this government gave tobacco companies.

We’ll invest in rebuilding our hospitals so our regions get the new health facilities they have been promised, and yes, I can announce today that means we will deliver the full rebuild of Dunedin Hospital as we committed to do before the election.

We will build state and social houses. One in six of our current state houses were built by our last government, but this government is killing off the build programme. We will start it up again.

We will invest in a publicly owned Interislander ferry service so that the North and South Island has a world-class, reliable passenger, road and rail connection.

We’ll invest in public transport, sensible roading projects and a robust, reliable, national rail network.

We’ll invest in our schools and classrooms. I’m proud of the work we did during our last government to rebuild and expand schools and fix up the damage caused by four decades of underinvestment.

We’ll continue to back our apprentices and support on-the-job training so young people can earn and learn at the same time. I’m proud that as Minister of Education I achieved a record number of apprentices in areas like building and construction.

We’ll have an unrelenting focus on lifting children out of poverty, and we won’t just change the targets when that gets hard.

We’ll improve the pay and conditions for working New Zealanders and focus on creating jobs and getting Kiwis back to work.

The Labour Party has always believed that Kiwis should be able to get ahead through their own hard work, earning a fair days pay for a fair days work.

We see increasing people’s incomes as a sign of success, not something to moan about.

Can you believe Nicola Willis recently complained that under Labour teachers, doctors, nurses, police, firefighters, and other workers had been getting too much pay?

Our next Labour government will deliver a fairer deal for working people, with the reinstatement of fair pay agreements, pay equity, and better protection for workers at the top of the list.

And let’s never forget that some of the strongest opposition to a better deal for working people during our first term in government came from New Zealand First.

Before the last election I ruled out working with Winston Peters and NZ First and I’ve not once regretted it.

We will take urgent and decisive action to tackle climate change and make sure we meet our obligations to reduce our emissions.

We cannot waste another day. The future of our kids and our grandkids depends on us doing the right thing now.

We will fix our economy so that we encourage productive, rather than speculative, investment, and yes, that means we will make the tax system fairer for working Kiwis.

A productive economy creates new resources and assets that didn’t exist before – and Prime Minister, buying and selling rental properties for capital gain is not wealth creation.

We will restore New Zealand’s proudly independent foreign policy.

Decisions about New Zealand’s best interests should be made here at home, not in Washington, Canberra or Beijing.

So today I can announce that under Labour, New Zealand will not be part of AUKUS.

We are proudly nuclear-free and want our region to stay that way.

New Zealand is a unique, strong, independent nation with so much to offer the world.

Under Labour we will continue to punch above our weight.

New Zealand is a better country than Christopher Luxon and his Coalition of Chaos take us for.

Where they offer chaos, we will offer stability.

Where they indulge conspiracy theories, we will follow evidence.

Tin foil sales will go down, but that’s a hit I’m willing to take.

Where they offer soundbites, we will offer solutions.

Where they flaunt entitlement, we will offer humility and service.

Where they play on fear, we will offer hope.

Where they cut, we will invest

Where they seek to divide, we will bring people together.

In 2026 Labour will be ready. This will be a one-term National government.

Let’s make it happen together.

Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa.