Newly-reinstated leader of the Labour Party, Chris Hipkins has set his sights on a fair tax system and holding the new Government to account as he pivots to lead the opposition for the next three years. 

Chris Hipkins was endorsed as the Labour leader by the caucus on Tuesday and will stay on as the party leader, with Kelvin Davis making way for Carmel Sepuloni as deputy leader. 

The leadership vote was a secret ballot so he didn’t know whether there were any dissenting votes in the leadership vote. There were no other candidates for the leadership.

Talking to The Mike Hosking Breakfast following his re-election to the top party position, Hipkins was asked what pushed him to put himself forward for leader once again after losing the 2023 General Election. 

"I think at the time, I indicated we needed to sleep on the election result a few more times before I thought about what the future might look like," he said. 

"We have a really important job ahead of us as the new Government takes office, whatever shape that might be, and then we have a job in opposition over the next three years to hold them accountable to the promises that they made."

Hipkins also noted his sights are already set on the 2026 election, aware when the time comes for the party to run again, it needs some ideas ready to push. 

He said Labour now has the job to find policies to offer to New Zealand when 2026 arrives that were more attractive than the 2023 campaign. 

Hosking asked if wealth tax might be it, to which Hipkins corrected him to say it actually started with a blank piece of paper. 

"That discussion includes tax and a discussion around everything we campaigned on previously," he said. 

"We lost this election so we shouldn't, at this point, be saying 'yes, we'll definitely go ahead with something we previously committed to', but we should also put new ideas on the table as well."

Hipkins said the discussion would include tax, which Hosking rebutted to suggest their tax ideas weren't original but simply "re-hashed". 

The Labour leader argued New Zealand will look very different in 2026 from the state it was when this year's election campaign kicked off. 

"At the moment the most likely tax changes we'll face will be the National Party reducing tax, reducing revenue and spending on public services," said Hipkins. 

"We don't know what we'll be facing in 2026, so I think it would be unwise to be ruling things in or out at this point until we know more about what that will look like."

Hosking asked if Hipkins personally favoured tax, and the party leader confirmed "I want a fair tax system". 

He was then asked if fair meant more when it came to taxing the public. 

"Well, there are inequalities in our tax system where, as a proportion of their income, people on lower incomes are paying more than people on higher incomes. So I think that is something we should be looking at."

Hosking suggested that Hipkins was going to look at making changes to that until he decided he wouldn't, which painted him as an opportunist. 

"Not at all," Hipkins said. 

"Look, New Zealanders deserved to know what we would do in the next three years if we had been re-elected...we weren't elected, so we go back to the drawing board and come up with another one."