How Labour Could Win In 2026

Hope Is There, But It Will Require Big Changes In Approach (And Leadership)

When Nikita Khrushchev was forced out as leader of the Soviet Union, he wrote two letters to his successor: 

The first letter was for the first time Brezhnev found himself in a situation he couldn't extract himself from. Any truly hopeless lose-lose scenario. 

That letter explained to Brezhnev that he should blame whatever the problem was on Khrushchev. He'd understand. 

The second letter was for the second time Brezhnev found himself in a truly hopeless situation.

That letter was short, it simply said "write two letters”. 

At Labour’s lower North Island regional conference in Porirua yesterday, former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins told party members (and the media, in an appearance largely directed towards the media itself as it included far more about the failed RNZ/TVNZ merger than would ever be helpful to the general voting public) they had a chance to make this govt the first in the MMP era to last only one term. 

This is something an opposition leader should be saying, but in this case it is also plausible. 

Not likely, but plausible. 

Polling indicates this government, a coalition requiring three parties, may have been a protest vote against the last government rather than a vote of confidence in Luxon's National. 

A vote against you is easier to turn around than a vote for your opponent, it means they just wanted change and if you too can change then maybe the path back to power isn't so long and winding. 

The trouble for Labour is that, according to the same polling, they too would need a three party coalition - and arguably one more volatile than the National/ACT/NZ First triumvirate. More on that later. 

The other issue for Labour is the same one that cost them the last election: they haven't changed. 

The Shannan Halbert Problem

It may seem harsh to label one relatively junior MP as the greatest issue holding back his political party, but he epitomises Labour's deadweight perfectly.  

The ‘Shannan Halbert Gang’ are a non-trivial list of Labour MP's who can't hold their seats, aren't valuable enough contributors to the party's policy machine, Parliamentary performance, or popularity to be worth propping up at the expense of fresh blood who may prove more talented in the long run. 

This group includes Shannan Halbert, Adrian Rurawhe, Dr Deborah Russell, and Jo Luxton. 

These are the seat fillers holding Labour back from entirely regaining the majority of the country's confidence. The party needs to understand that running back the same line-up and game plan that lost them the last election won't be enough. 

Labour needs to tangibly show that lessons have been learnt, and part of that process is replacing candidates who either lost the confidence of their otherwise winnable electorates, or who are there solely based on internal goodwill towards them. 

These people aren't hard to identify, but letting go isn't always easy for politicians. 

It can be challenging for politicians to call time, even when it is clear to everyone else that their time in the spotlight is up. 

The part of a person's psychology that fuels them with enough confidence to run in a public popularity contest can also make it hard for them to accept loss (see: Hillary Clinton), sometimes they can become convinced that they didn't lose (see: Donald Trump), and others never learn the lessons from the loss and instead blame timing or the stupidity of voters for their own missteps (see: Hilary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn). 

Some people can struggle to let go, but Labour won't win anytime soon if they rely on dragging out former Prime Minister's Jacinda Ardern and Helen Clark again and again. And again. And again.  

They are a legacy act - playing the old hits and hoping they win over a new audience. It doesn't work. 

They need to find the NEXT Jacinda or Helen, and give that person the requisite space to build their own brand and connection with the public.  

This leads to the first step Labour needs to take if they truly are serious about winning the next election. 

Replace Chris Hipkins

While his net popularity is not in the negative, he is a constant reminder to swing voters of the last government and why they swung to a less net popular leader in Luxon. 

Hipkins was a key cog in the Ardern Era, he can't escape that, and his own time as PM was not triumphant. 

Hipkins does have some upsides, unlike the Halbert group he does comfortably win his electorate, but he comes with too much baggage. 

Some may argue it is unfair to judge him based on the issues of another leader’s era, so let's look at the Hipkins Era. 

At one point during his reign, Hipkins was losing an MP (including some very high profile ones tipped for big things in the future) every five weeks.

Would this have happened under Arderns's leadership? probably, but they didn't and Hipkins had to front them. 

He didn't destabilise the party, but he wasn't the stabilising force they needed either.

Another issue is that he still hasn't managed to unite the caucus around his leadership. 

When serious allegations around Te Pati Maori's Tāmaki Makaurau campaign came out, Hipkins called them "very serious" and worthy of equally serious investigation by authorities.  

If this was the Labour plan, Willie Jackson either didn't get the memo or chose to ignore it. 

He acknowledged that the accusations need to be investigated, but spent more time than was entirely helpful defending Manurewa Marae. Time he should have spent talking up Peeni Henare - the incumbent, HIS incumbent as leader of the Labour Maori Caucus.  

When your leader is calling the allegations very serious, you need to back him. Willie dithered, he tried to have it both ways by acknowledging them but also praising the mahi of the workers at Manurewa Marae. 

They may do great work during other times at Manurewa Marae, and no doubt his own connection to the Marae was on his mind, but he didn't help his leader or his colleague when they needed him to. 

2023 was a messy year for Labour, and it has spread like a wildfire over to 2024.  

Speaking of fire, do you remember 2023's series of much heralded policy bonfires? 

The policy rejuvenations that were meant to clearly delineate between the Ardern era of banal kindness and the Hipkins era of practicality and reinvigorated popularity? 

They failed to cut it with voters and painted Hipkins into a self-inflicted centrist corner. 

What is Hipkins solution to this error of his own making? Denial. 

In March of this year he resurrected the idea of implementing a Capital Gains Tax, something that one of the first things he himself hurled onto the bonfire less than 12 months prior. 

What was his justification for such a radical change in position in such a short amount of time: 

“That was then, this is now.”

Today's Chris Hipkins may now be regretting the positions of last year's Chris Hipkins and hoping to distance himself from this other version of himself, but the rest of us can't tell the difference between the two and remain unconvinced by any version of the same uninspiring guy. 

The sausage roll shtick wore thin, and so has the public's interest in the man himself.

No version of Chris Hipkins wins Labour another election. He might be the metaphorically heaviest piece of their dead weight.  

Build a coherent policy platform

As outlined above, the current Labour policy suite is a confused mix of things that lost them the last election and things that would have made the loss even worse if they weren't intentionally lost to the fire. 

In order to turn around the loss of 2023 quickly, they need to build a new and coherent policy platform that will move the conversation on from what went wrong and towards what can be better. 

The possible, rather than the problems of old. 

I could build an entire policy platform that I think could win, but that feels like too much free content for a party who spends on other consultants and has my contact details - I'm not cheap, but I'm punishingly honest (hence the title of this blog/SubStack, it's a promise to you - my audience) and Labour need some brutal honesty. 

Moving on to their non-policy issues…

Use your resources on swing seats in suburbs, write off student heavy Green seats 

Labour losing strongholds like Rongotai, and barely holding on to Mount Albert, was a surprise. It should require a bit of rethink in strategy. 

The first outcome of this re-think should be conceding a few hard left seats to the Greens.  

It may hurt psychologically losing the likes of Wellington Central to another party, but it provides an opportunity to strengthen their party vote and support their most stable ally. 

Pandering to student heavy seats will lose voters elsewhere, and you only need to look to the local councillors elected by Lambton Ward voters to see that these are the most liberal voters in the entire nation. 

Last week I wrote about prison abolition, an idea so counterintuitive and risky that it will never gain traction anywhere other than amongst current university students. 

These people aren't worth pandering to as a big party, let them help strengthen your ally and give yourself distance between their sometimes quite far left agenda. 

Use the saved resources and energy on winning back suburban voters and more working class ones you barely lost. 

What does that look like? Winning back the Auckland seats lost to National when they won over the political centre.

Seats where Labour lost the party vote by less than six thousand votes. 

Seats like New Lynn, Mount Roskill, Maungakiekie. Northcote is likely too big a stretch, but come up with a plan to chip away at it - one that involves a new candidate and policies which appeal to young families.  

If they can win back enough of those marginal seats and marginally lost voters, they'll have a really strong chance to put together a government. 

Unfortunately, that new Labour-led government would still have one major glowing weakness, one that would make it even more fragile and scary to moderate voters than the current one. 

It would have a pretty toxic third wheel.  

Te Pati Maori - chaos agents 

Even if Labour successfully implements everything I have suggested - they manage to win back some seats lost to National and some supporters in the struggling middle who aren't loving this unending cost of living crisis - others will still be fearful of what Te Pati Maori in Cabinet would mean for the nation. 

Te Pati Maori are not popular, their rhetoric only appeals to 3% of voters (max) and it scares off the voters Labour will need to flip. 

I could give you dozens of pieces of anecdotal evidence about how a butcher/plumber/builder I know in Te Atatu/Ngaio/Whanganui who isn't convinced by Luxon and could be easily talked into flipping back to Labour - they liked Helen, thought the lockdowns were worth it, don't like 'rich pricks’ - if it wasn't for Te Pati Maori and their extreme rhetoric.  

The reality that Labour would likely need Te Pati Maori to form the next government is a massive issue for Labour amongst voters they lost to their most direct rival in 2023. 

Even if they can get just enough voters to ignore these fears and support Labour anyway. They would eventually have to negotiate with Te Pati Maori, and that would not be a smooth or productive exercise.

Te Pati Maori will demand huge concessions - that is part of doing business with the Tamihere's. 

This is what Te Pati Maori is now - an extension of a whanau dynasty, one whose biggest donor (by far) is also the President of the party AND the father-in-law of the co-leader. John will demand the highest price he can come up with and will fight tooth and nail to keep it there. He has no blink in him. 

Their negotiating power will need to be significantly weakened, and this will require both the Greens and Labour to absorb as much of their wasted party vote as they can. 

It also means Labour need to win back as many Maori seats as possible. 

This won't be achievable with the Labour Maori Caucus in the shape it is in currently, which leads me to the final issue they need to tackle.. 

Fix the Labour Maori Caucus 

In the past I have been unkind to Peeni Henare and I want to take a quick moment to apologise - he has shown some real class around his questionable loss to Tarsh Kemp. 

Class I simply don't have. 

If I was him I would have erupted at the news that my rival, one who beat me by less than 50 votes, may have used confidential census data to target voters in my electorate and who may have given voters illegal inducements.   

When others would have lost their cool and reacted with righteous fury, he has waited calmly for investigations to continue to unfold. 

It isn't just troubling outside issues that he's had to bite his tongue and persevere through, he's also had a Maori Caucus leader in Willie Jackson who has not stood up for him. 

As with Kiri Allan, Willie has failed to show up for a member of his caucus when they needed him most. 

Peeni's played the long game, Willie has played John's game. 

Is Willie a Te Pati Maori double agent, sinking Labour from the inside? No, well not intentionally.  

The reality of Willie is he's genuinely more connected to Te Pati Maori, Tamihere and Tarsh Kemp, than his own caucus colleagues. He is a begrudging leader who presided over the loss of almost every Maori electorate. 

The Labour Maori Caucus needs a new leader, it doesn't take a genius to see that, but I believe Peeni has shown a level of discipline required to take on the role. 

Willie is the past, Peeni is the present. 

Even with a new leader, the present isn't great for Labour's Maori contingent. They have Cushla Tangaere-Manuel, who looks promising… and that's about it.

They need fresh blood if they hope to win back the majority of the Maori seats - something they'll need to accomplish in order to avoid the brutal and protracted negotiation with Te Pati Maori I warned about.  

At least a half dozen new candidates are needed, and they can't keep picking them the old Labour way.

For too long Labour have relied on a racist belief that Maori only vote for last names, for people from the chief caste who led their ancestors. 

To make a really dodgy analogy that will inflame some people, but one I as a Maori with no fear in my heart or obligation to play nice feel completely justified in making, this is the continuance of the old trope adopted from slavery era America - that some Maori are born for the field, some for the house. 

Labour pick their Maori from the house. The rest of us Field Maori are on our own. 

If I was going to be less offensive about it, I would call this the Rino Tiraketene approach. 

Rino Tiraketene was an MP for 13 years, a minister for nine months, and achieved absolutely nothing (other than winning his seat) during this time.

He has a mighty name, one with decades of history and mana, but he never sought to raise that name to new heights. He only wanted to coast off it, and he did.  

Labour cannot afford any more benchwarmers and people who provide nothing other than a famous last name or a reminder of simpler times. 

They need to actively identify and nurture new and aspiring talent, actual talent too, not just more handpicking amongst the elite.

They need to dare to pick actual working class Maori, someone without a trust fund or an inherited title. 

Kiri Allan was a good start, but it was clear she was not supported and her ego got the better of her. 

Labour can't revert back to the idle children of the Maori upper class because of one misstep, Allan was proof that the premise is sound, but the execution was poor. It will work if given time and committed to.   

The mistake would be to think evolution isn't ever needed, that running back 2023 - or selecting the last names of 1932 - would get a different response. 

So can Labour win the next election?

If they can achieve all of what I recommended, and pay my sizable retainer, Labour will win not only the next election but the next three. This would be a party ready for the next ten years. 

It would inevitably face changes in the tastes of the public - politics is an ever-changing and evolving  battle for hearts and minds - but if they can recruit a strong new generation of future leaders they will be well set to tackle these challenges. 

Polling shows the Coalition has weaknesses, but what it also shows is that Labour (as it is currently put together) isn't ready to take full advantage of them just yet. 

Luxon's National are also advancing in their own process, and will continue to strengthen. 

They have already undergone their own refresh and have already identified new candidates and future leaders. 

They have also isolated a big wedge issue they are seeking to own - Law and Order. 

Labour will need to be more convincing here, they need to distance themselves from the Ardern/Hipkins era policy of artificially reducing the prison population. 

While the Greens and Te Pati Maori don't get the media scrutiny NZ First and ACT do, they've arguably shown themselves to be the more unreliable partners. This needs to change. 

Labour needs the Greens to pull it together and become the stable junior party they used to be, it's likely they will - this has been an unprecedented era of turmoil for them and it's hard to see it continuing on this disastrous pace, at some point the worst will be over and they can return to their normal stability. 

They also need to hope NZ First or ACT start falling apart, this is outside Labour’s control but that only highlights further shows the dangers and volatility of MMP. 

Politics is moving by the day, trusting any poll this far out would be a mistake. They are misleading as they don't show how voters could be swayed by fear of a toxic coalition partner. 

Will Labour win the next election? This version if the Labour Party won't. 

A Labour Party could. A re-energised Labour Party would. But right now the party is still stuck in its own dark shadow. 

If it doesn't get back into the sun, its hopes will die. Some not entirely terrible polling two years away from an election would have meant nothing, almost like it didn't matter. 

Evolve or die, there is no hope for Labour in stasis.