One of the party’s most promising candidates faces an uphill battle to claim an electorate split between the centre-left and left of left.

Labour Party president Jill Day reckoned the 150 people gathered for a campaign launch at Miramar’s Oriental Rongotai Football Club must’ve been blown in by Sunday’s wild winds. The “Ories” are the sporting pride of the newly formed Wellington Bays seat and home club of All Blacks captain Ardie Savea and Black Ferns player Ayesha Leti-I’iga. Another potential winner, Labour’s Craig Renney, was front and centre at Sunday’s event as a hopeful local MP – shit, he’s even been touted as a future finance minister, but he still needs to win this race first.

If he does win, it would technically be a return to parliament for Renney, who served as an advisor to former finance minister Grant Robertson from 2017 to 2020. He then stayed on the sidelines of politics as an economist for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions before joining Labour’s policy team after the 2023 election. Renney’s economic nous has made him a new candidate to watch; as he signed a copy of his 2025 book The Good Economy, the accountant who asked for his signature told him he’s got all the right ideas.

It was a sea of red at Ories, but not everyone was totally swayed by the red wave. One longtime Labour supporter told The Spinoff she likes Green policy, but she plans to back Renney with her candidate vote. Another attendee told The Spinoff he had never voted Labour, and he still wasn’t sure if he would try it this time. He’s still considering his options, and in this seat they include Rongotai incumbent Julie Anne Genter from the Greens, Opportunity’s Kayla Kingdon-Bebb, National’s Karuna Muthu, New Zealand First’s Gerald Warner and Act minister Nicole McKee.

It’s not just Sunday’s Miramar locals that Renney has to impress. Wellington Bays is the new and improved Rongotai electorate, with bits of the former Wellington Central seat tacked onto the side. Rongotai was a longtime Labour stronghold, until Genter took the seat in 2023 with a 2,717 lead over Labour candidate Fleur Fitzsimmons. It was the first time since the electorate’s creation at the 1996 election that Labour had lost the seat.

One needs only to look at Labour’s last Rongotai MP, Paul Eagle, to see why voters changed stripes. Eagle’s going ghost on the electorate to unsuccessfully run in the 2022 mayoral campaign burnt some serious good will, especially as it was a move he promised constituents he wouldn’t make. Rongotai, like its sister-suburb Wellington Central, was among a number of Labour safe seats lost in the 2023 election – but instead of catching the blue wave, both went Green.

What makes the electorate an even harder battleground for Labour to reclaim now is the inclusion of Mount Cook and Brooklyn, two strongly Green-supporting suburbs. On Sunday, the party’s finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, was the first to acknowledge the “big Green elephant in the room”. The party’s direct competition in this seat may be its own “friends”, but Edmonds assured volunteers there was a clear way to sell Renney over “the other Green person” – refer to the party’s “receipts”.

“We are the party of state housing, we are the party of Working For Families, we are the party of Kiwisaver,” Edmonds said. “We are the party with the history of helping our country get forward.”

Dame Annette King, who served a term in the Miramar seat before it morphed into the Rongotai electorate, also spoke to endorse Renney. She had represented the seat – colloquially known by some as “Annette King country” – across three decades before handing the reins to Eagle.

Her big advice to Renney was to focus his efforts on his electoral office and the local issues his constituents will bring through those doors. While King admitted she probably didn’t solve “not even half” of the problems she heard from locals, it was important to establish a community presence and have goals for the area. “They want [a local MP] to be at the centre of what’s happening in the community,” King said. “They don’t want a flash Harry who turns up in an election year and isn’t seen the rest of the time.”

But most of all, “people want hope”, said King. She gave Renney a rosette worn by the first MP for Miramar, Labour’s Bob Semple – “I have this thing that if he doesn’t wear it, he’s not going to win,” she told the crowd.

Finally, the room heard from the candidate. At this point in the game, Renney estimated he and his volunteers have knocked on nearly 6,000 doors in the electorate. The overwhelming message the team had heard was that “we should be better than this”. Public sector cuts had “decimated” the city and its sense of security, Renney said, “simply because Nicola Willis can’t count.” The current government “stole pay equity” from 180,000 workers, and the government “tightening the belt” had only “shifted income and wealth up”: “Nobody here is getting any better off.”

“It’s the Labour Party that builds Wellington,” Renney said, as the party that considered society prosperity alongside economic growth in its past “wellbeing budgets”. On local issues, Renney said he was committed to protecting public assets, improving the city’s new water service Tiaki Wai, restarting social housing developments like Mount Cook’s infamous Arlington Apartments, and pressing central government to pay for local infrastructure.

Ranked 51 on the party’s list, Renney needs to win this seat to make it into parliament. And yet, the area’s never looked more Green. Labour leader Chris Hipkins told The Post following the list release he was “confident” in, and “absolutely expected” Renney’s win. Following the launch, Renney told The Spinoff he had never considered the party’s list in his decision to run. “My job here is to win this seat, and create a base so that Wellington is back to being a Labour town,” Renney said.

With Mount Cook in the mix, is Renney concerned it may be more of an uphill battle for Labour than last time? “No,” was his response, because every door at every election can differ. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s Mount Cook, Hataitai, Newtown… it’s the same thing: what are the things you want addressing, and how can I do that?” He acknowledged that Labour and the Greens “share values” and an “optimistic view” for Wellington, but suggested he may be the more effective advocate.

Renney had even more reasons why the government deserved to lose the election. “When we knock on doors people tell us life’s tougher, life’s not getting better,” Renney said. Locals needed to hear more “practical” solutions from candidates to feel like the government’s got their back. “That’s our job: How do we make their lives easier?”