Follow our election live updates here<\/a><\/p>\nHipkins said Labour would quickly reverse pay equity law changes if elected.<\/p>\n
“I think probably the most reprehensible thing I have seen in my time as a member of Parliament was the government’s decision last year with no notice, with no warning, with no consultation, to pass under urgency a law that cancelled pay equity for tens of thousands of women,” Hipkins said.<\/p>\n
“I want to give you a reassurance that within the first 100 days we are back in government we will reverse that change.<\/p>\n
“When we have reversed that change, care and support workers will be the first in the queue to sit down with to get a settlement because you’ve waited long enough.”<\/p>\n
Hipkins was asked by a 13-year-old girl what was the most important thing his government would do to support women and girls in New Zealand, to which he said “restoring pay equity”.<\/p>\n
Hipkins said this election was a cost-of-living election and repeated the line to the crowd that the country “cannot afford three more years of this government”.<\/p>\n
He promoted Labour’s policies including the SolarSaver programme, the apprenticeship boost and cutting student loan debt.<\/p>\n
For about an hour the crowd asked a gamut of questions, touching on healthcare, housing, pay equity, AI and local government.<\/p>\n
Attendees RNZ spoke to after the meeting were impressed by Hipkins.<\/p>\n
A nurse at Christchurch Hospital, who did not wish to be named, said Hipkins had given him hope.<\/p>\n
“It’s nice to have a future prime minister who is human. We’ve got a prime minister at the moment where the two tails are wagging the dog. We’ve got a leader here,” he said.<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including the Greens riding high off our latest poll, and Nathan Cleary’s response to a horror injury. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
One woman said there was not a single thing said she disagreed with.<\/p>\n
“This is the first time I’ve felt hope for a long time. I think his integrity and what the Labour Party is trying to do for every Kiwi came through,” she said.<\/p>\n
Hipkins has promised to explain how Labour’s promises will be paid for after the government opens its books on Tuesday, after which the party will need to crunch the numbers.<\/p>\n
TVNZ has extensive coverage of the election campaign. (Source: TVNZ)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Hipkins has made a campaign commitment to reverse pay equity changes in the first 100 days of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[44152,8028,111,43,139,69,135,270122],"class_list":["post-614686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-chris-hipkins","tag-labour-party","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614686","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=614686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Chris](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/chris-hipkins-on-breakfast-27SFVDYS5RE6TBJBGW43WAMEQE.jpg\")
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