launch its own 2026 campaign just hours later<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe ’23 edition included lower inflation and economic growth, tax cuts, infrastructure, law and order restored, higher school achievement, shorter health waiting times, support for seniors and “deliver Net Zero Carbon by 2050”.<\/p>\n
Entering to a standing ovation, Luxon gave the standard party plaudits before talking about his past, choking up when speaking about his mother.<\/p>\n
“She went to university the same year I did… she taught me to walk across the room, find someone different from myself, and seek to understand before I’m understood.”<\/p>\n
But soon he was speaking about the elephant in the room: Labour.<\/p>\n
“Labour lost the plot, and they borrowed more, and they taxed more, and they spent more, and through it all, they lost sight of what really matters: your business, your community, your family, and your safety.”<\/p>\n
He had taken the stage following a flashy television advert beginning with quotes from former Labour PM Jacinda Ardern against a backdrop of police sirens, and current leader Chris Hipkins over sad piano music.<\/p>\n
That contrasted with a humanising pastiche of Luxon talking about letters sent by children, “Kiwi mums and dads”, the “squeezed middle”, tax relief and the party’s already-announced election policies.<\/p>\n
“National is the party of delivery, but friends, the job isn’t done.”<\/p>\n
Earlier speeches all devoted significant time to attacking Labour and other left-leaning parties.<\/p>\n
Campaign chair Simeon Brown spent four minutes on thanks and greetings, four-and-a-half minutes talking about Labour and Chris Hipkins, and 60 seconds in call-and-response for “no new taxes” and “party vote National”.<\/p>\n
Finance spokesperson Nicola Willis also spent about as much time talking about Labour as everything else, taking less than two minutes to switch from talking up farmers, mums and dads to lambasting the “mess left to us by Labour and its mates”.<\/p>\n
“The last thing this country needs is nine new taxes.”<\/p>\n
The party’s most popular leader in the modern era – Sir John Key – remains a prominent figure at National Party events and his speech highlighted the desire to see Luxon re-elected “unequivocally”.<\/p>\n
“We’re here for one simple reason: to extend Chris Hipkins, Labour, and their band of lefty fellow travellers time in opposition, because even if we all had the net worth of Elon Musk, we can’t afford those policies.”<\/p>\n
He also warned specifically against strategic voting.<\/p>\n
“Don’t try and do something that you think is clever or try some form of so-called strategic voting … that is the opposite of clever.”<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters later, Luxon was adamant National had more policy to unveil, and pushed back on multiple questions about the heavy focus on Labour.<\/p>\n
“I’m really focused on making sure I make the choice really clear to all New Zealanders, and we have a positive plan. You know, we have a plan, not just a slogan; we have been executing our plan of fix the basics, build the future the last three years.<\/p>\n
“We know there’s a lot more for us to do. We want to continue that work.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"National’s Auckland campaign launch has featured a significant focus on Labour, another pledge card rather than any new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":613237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-613236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613236","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=613236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=613236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=613236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=613236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}