Chris Hipkins, leader of the opposition, speaks to media after the Labour Party conference. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Labour knows this economic message has resonance, and it\u2019s relentless in hitting it. A closed-door campaign meeting led by campaign chairman Kieran McAnulty emphasised members needed to be relentlessly disciplined in campaigning on the economy, and not get distracted by the latest outrage. <\/p>\n
In his public speech, Hipkins railed at a \u201cPrime Minister who blames young people for an economic mess they didn\u2019t create, then tells them to move to where the work is. Well, they have: To Australia\u201d.<\/p>\n
Cheer!<\/p>\n
\u201cFor two years, this Government hasn\u2019t been focused on you. It\u2019s put its energy to looking after tobacco companies, tech giants, property speculators and the fossil fuel industry. And it has failed on the two things it promised: Grow the economy and fix the cost of living. National hasn\u2019t [got] the country back on track \u2013 they\u2019ve derailed it!\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheer!<\/p>\n
\u201cTrickle-down economics doesn\u2019t work!\u201d <\/p>\n
CHEER!<\/p>\n
It was heady stuff. Hipkins got personal too, telling the story of seeing his father come home from work in a taxi (an unusual sight, as he never caught taxis) after being laid off in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike so many Kiwis in the 1980s, the promise of a job for life had suddenly disappeared,\u201d Hipkins said. <\/p>\n
Work, in this story, was \u201cmore than just a pay packet. It\u2019s stability. It\u2019s dignity\u201d. <\/p>\n
After a long, grizzly recession full of heartache and embarrassment, as the economy navigates through its \u201cgig\u201d era towards an AI disruption billed to be the biggest economic shake-up since the industrial revolution, this is a deeply powerful message: The economy must materially provide for people and their families, but it must provide meaning too.<\/p>\n
Hipkins personified this amoral economic malaise in the figure of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, singling out Luxon\u2019s decision, revealed in the Herald, to appeal the valuation of his property in an attempt to reduce his rates bill<\/a>, something unthinkable for the two-thirds of New Zealand households, property owners, who have watched their household wealth being fed to the shredder these last few years. Only the very, very rich can afford to make themselves look poorer. <\/p>\n Where things get challenging for Labour is that the party cannot decide what kind of party it wants to be to solve these problems. <\/p>\n The party conference was drenched in nostalgia. <\/p>\n Hipkins mourned of the \u201cpromise of a job for life\u201d and built the conference\u2019s single policy announcement around the quaint notion of reviving the locally owned family GP clinic. <\/p>\n But can Labour really promise to bring these back? The modern party would baulk at the taxes and economic controls necessary to bring back jobs for life. At his post-speech stand-up, Hipkins even seemed uncertain about a union\u2019s calls for automatic union registration, a teeny-tiny step in the direction of compulsory unionisation. <\/p>\n Hipkins attacked the selling-off of state assets, a likely National policy, but unlike Labour\u2019s mid-century predecessors, Hipkins doesn\u2019t seem to want the Nash-era higher-tax, higher-debt fiscal settings required if Labour were to keep the assets while continuing to fund the capital investment their rumoured sale is meant to pay for. <\/p>\n The party peppered the auditorium with sunny coloured signs written in drop-shadow capitals \u2014 a direct nod to the plagiarism quotation of the clever slogans and attractive branding that propelled Democrat Zohran Mamdani to the New York City mayoralty earlier this year. <\/p>\n Mamdani, much like Hipkins, campaigned ruthlessly on the unaffordable status quo, but Mamdani\u2019s statist prescription to that, again a nod to progressive politics of the 1970s, was funded by hefty tax increases on the rich. Hipkins, speaking to media after his stand-up, hinted other tax changes like restoring last term\u2019s digital services tax would be put on the table, but other than those relatively small amendments, Labour\u2019s small capital gains tax is it. <\/p>\n There was also a progressive take on the economic nationalism sweeping the globe \u2014 a desire to have a future made in New Zealand by New Zealanders, using New Zealand money, and a nod to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese\u2019s Australian \u201cMedicard\u201d campaign.<\/p>\n But Labour doesn\u2019t really want this either. The party knows it needs to be open to offshore sources of capital. It took great delight this year in noting new Amazon data centres touted by Luxon as evidence of the coalition\u2019s economic management were actually a legacy of the Ardern government. <\/a><\/p>\n It wants to stem the tide of New Zealanders to Australia and fund Australian-style services, but it is profoundly opposed to policies that would attempt to unlock a sliver of the mineral wealth that has powered Australia\u2019s long economic boom, hosing up several generations of ambitious New Zealanders. A recent Australian paper that tried to pour cold water on the importance of mining to Australia reckoned it contributed just 6% of all federal tax<\/a> revenue. <\/p>\nHipkins surrounded by members and MPs at his party conference. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n
Labour’s campaign collateral had stylistic echoes of New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. Photo \/ Thomas Coughlan<\/p>\n