Labour back on track to win next election

OPINION: Labour walked into its Auckland conference looking like a party that remembered how to breathe again. A year ago the mood was so flat the lanyards could have doubled as grief ribbons. Now MPs are looking at painting the city red. Some looked eager to repaint the whole Head Quarters Viaduct. Before everyone knows it, the whole country will be a glimmering red wave.

This type of shift is not mystical as it sits in behaviour voters can actually see. A tighter economic pitch. A calmer leadership. A coalition government that keeps giving its opponents free material. If this is Labour in recovery it may be feeling the psychic energy Murray Mexted once swore he could sense through a television set.

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Polls now show Labour back on track and ready to win. The caucus looks more restless this time round. A party that endured a historic collapse in 2023 anything shy of despair feels like a festival to celebrate now.

Image: Barbara Edmonds speaks at the Labour Conference 2025 event outlining her focus on disciplined investment and everyday priorities. (Supplied / Labour / Barbara Edmonds)

Barbara Edmonds took the stage with the seriousness of a Finance Minister in waiting and the ice-breaker of a school assembly leader. Her Mili Mili Patia warm-up worked. It set the tone for a speech that tried to charm the public while scolding her own side. Every cent mattered she said. Then she said it again. And again. Labour loyalists could be forgiven for thinking the party was auditioning for a role as the nation’s chief accountant.

A future Labour finance team will not be in a rush to say yes, nor will it fund every beloved programme lost to government cuts, instead wanting voters to hear the words responsible and stable before they hear anything else. The subtext was friendly but pointed, and anyone expecting a return to the easy-spend era should bring snacks because it may be a long wait. If this is control, chaos would be something else entirely.

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Labour’s big gamble is its limited Capital Gains Tax (CGT). The political third rail is looking more like a slightly warm handrail. Edmonds has repeated the exemptions so often the list could be set to music. Family homes exempt. Farms exempt. KiwiSaver exempt. Business assets exempt. Nine out of ten New Zealanders untouched.

The party believes clarity may neutralise panic and early polling suggests voters are split rather than spooked. For a CGT that is almost a minor miracle. It turns out a simple tax built around productive investment lands better than the ghost stories usually told about it.

Edmonds even tried a little rope a dope. If National wants a fight she said bring it on. It was delivered with just enough confidence to sound like strategy not theatre.

Image: Chris Hipkins addresses supporters during the opening session of Labour’s annual Conference. The Labour leader used his remarks to signal the party’s renewed confidence noting the possibility of a one-term coalition government while urging people to focus on unity and steady messaging heading into election year. (Supplied / Labour)

Labour Leader Chris Hipkins opened the conference with the phrase one term government. A year ago that would have felt like a punchline and now it sits within the realm of the plausible.

He is still the same leader who wore the bruises of 2023. He is also the beneficiary of cost-of-living pressure, government friction inside the coalition and an imploding Te Pāti Māori. When your opponent’s waka is splitting in half it is easier to look seaworthy.

Hipkins offered a future made in New Zealand. Not exactly poetry but it has enough shape to count as a theme.

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Labour has quietly tidied its caucus and the leadership remains unchanged. A Hipkins vs Luxon rematch, as long as Luxon is not rolled by then. Voters sometimes prefer familiar actors in a tight plot.

Labour is betting that unity is more valuable than novelty, something the coalition government just cannot fathom. The party is also betting that the public remembers Hipkins inheriting a hospital pass nine months before polling day. That memory may give him the sliver of goodwill needed to reintroduce himself.

There are hazards everywhere and the government hopes economic conditions will improve in time. It hopes Labour’s CGT will trigger the usual fright. It hopes voters will remember the Greens and whatever is left of Te Pāti Māori. But that is noise. Boring.

Two years of frustration with living costs cannot be erased by a few quarters of sunshine. And a CGT that only applies to investment property is not the political monster its ancestors were.

Labour’s path is narrow yet visible. The party needs to keep the fiscal message tight. It needs the CGT dialogue to stay calm. It needs to look stable while the coalition looks busy.

The most striking thing in Auckland was the sense of a party rediscovering momentum. Hope is a cruel political master. For the first time in two years Labour has something sturdier than hope and it has a story about responsibility. It has a tax plan it can explain. It has opponents who cannot seem to catch their breath.

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Labour is not guaranteed to win the next election. No serious observer would claim it. But the party has placed itself back on the track that leads there. And for a team that was left for political compost in 2023 that is no small achievement.

If this is what a rebuild looks like then the coalition might want to keep its helmets on. The race has restarted. Labour is in it. And this time it remembers how to run.

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