{"id":343518,"date":"2026-03-23T09:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T09:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343518\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T09:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T09:41:08","slug":"labour-leader-chris-hipkins-not-offering-policy-ideas-to-help-kiwis-amid-fuel-price-rises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/343518\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour leader Chris Hipkins not offering policy ideas to help Kiwis amid fuel price rises"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Herald has previously reported<\/a>, two potential levers that could be pulled would be making adjustments to the In-Work Tax Credit and the Independent Earner Tax Credit. <\/p>\n

Speaking after the Government\u2019s press conference, Hipkins began his opening remarks by saying the world was \u201cweeks into the war in Iran and the Government is still all at sea when it comes to providing New Zealanders with answers about how we can respond\u201d. <\/p>\n

Yet he was unable to offer any alternative policy ideas of his own to highlight how Labour would address the issue if it was in power currently. <\/p>\n

Asked by the Herald what actions should be taken to help households, Hipkins responded, \u201cthe Government needs to come up with a plan\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going to play out over the next six months. The next election is not until the end of the year. New Zealanders today are relying on this Government to come up with solutions. They are the ones sitting in the hot seat.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hipkins said he refused to come up with \u201cpolicy on the fly\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not the Government,\u201d he said, before noting that during the Covid-19 pandemic the then-Labour Government didn\u2019t wait to hear National\u2019s ideas before acting. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Labour leader said the onus was on the Government to offer ideas. Photo \/ Michael Craig<\/p>\n

Asked again to provide an alternative or any ideas, Hipkins said: \u201cWe will have plenty of ideas and we will be talking about them on the election campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe onus rests on the current Government.\u201d <\/p>\n

Generally, Hipkins said his principle for support was that it should help anyone on a low, fixed income. <\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see what the Government is offering before I pass judgment on it.\u201d <\/p>\n

When it was put to Hipkins that the Green Party had provided several policy suggestions, including making public transport free, expanding school bus eligibility and a windfall tax to stop price gouging, the Labour leader said minor parties can offer lots of things. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey get a lot more luxury to promise whatever they want compared to the bigger parties.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hipkins said the circumstances later this year would be different from the current situation and repeated it was up to the current Government to present ideas. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we can absolutely agree we need to be transitioning to more renewable energy, that supporting people with public transport would be a good thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pushed again for Labour\u2019s ideas, Hipkins said the \u201cemphasis right now should be on the current Government\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Labour nor the Greens will be in Government at least until the end of the year, and hopefully we will be then. At the moment, between now and then, this current Government are the people in the hot seat.\u201d <\/p>\n

When quizzed on whether there were any measures being taken overseas to curb demand or help fuel supply that he was interested in, Hipkins said the Government should look at \u201cevery option\u201d. <\/p>\n

Last week, Willis told the Herald she believed the Government was \u201cmoving very quickly\u201d to bring targeted support to Kiwis. On Monday, she said the details couldn\u2019t be announced until Tuesday as implementation details were still being worked through.<\/p>\n

Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald\u2019s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the Herald has previously reported, two potential levers that could be pulled would be making adjustments to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343519,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[432,4911,534,3276,52000,9881,2678,5838,13480,6044,56387,807,6721,13489,111,43,139,5006,69,19276,2850,2170,7254,3333,12937,133688,32257,10042,801,666,1555,61,24750],"class_list":["post-343518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-action","tag-alternative","tag-amid","tag-chris","tag-elsewhere","tag-facing","tag-fuel","tag-help","tag-hipkins","tag-ideas","tag-isnt","tag-kiwis","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-offering","tag-pain","tag-plan","tag-policy","tag-price","tag-prices","tag-providing","tag-pump","tag-rises","tag-rising","tag-struggling","tag-threat","tag-to","tag-zealanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343518"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343518\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}