Chris Hipkins has ruled out working with New Zealand First in any government he leads, ending months of hedging on the question, writes Henry Oliver in today’s excerpt from The Bulletin.
To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has officially ruled out working with New Zealand First in any government he leads, ending months of hedging on the question, as reported by RNZ. Speaking yesterday afternoon, Hipkins said simply: “Winston Peters has ruled us out. I’m happy to rule him out. It’s clearly not going to happen.”
Asked why he hadn’t said so sooner, Hipkins pointed to what he called an escalating “pattern of behaviour” from Peters and NZ First, saying he wouldn’t tolerate “overt racism” in any government he led and that not a single member of his caucus had disagreed when the rule-out was discussed. Peters was characteristically unimpressed, posting on X that Hipkins had “severe learning difficulties” and pointing out NZ First had ruled Labour out repeatedly over the past year.
Thomas Coughlan and Julia Gabel at the Herald confirmed the rule-out had been discussed at Labour’s caucus meeting the week before, with no dissent, and noted Hipkins framed the decision explicitly around Peters’ conduct rather than any broader policy disagreement. The move formally closes off one of the coalition permutations that had persisted, at least theoretically, as a live question through much of the year – even as both leaders had spent months publicly ruling each other out anyway.
The preceding partial rule-out
The full rule-out builds on Hipkins comments last week, ruling out any Labour-led government letting Peters continue as foreign affairs minister, also reported by RNZ, following Peters telling Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan to “go back to your own country” in parliament. Hipkins said the comments made Peters’ position “completely untenable,” as he could no longer credibly represent New Zealand internationally.
At the time, Hipkins stopped short of ruling out NZ First altogether, saying only that nothing had changed since the party was excluded ahead of the last election. Peters fired back that he’d already ruled out working with Labour twelve months earlier, and mocked the “low IQ media” for treating Hipkins’ comments as news.
‘Minimum viable opposition’
The announcement came during an underwhelming week for Labour. The Post reported the party’s MPs appeared unrattled by a recent bruising poll result, even as Hipkins dismissed the figures as a “rogue” outlier and pointed to what he said was a steadier upward trend across other public polling.
But Joel MacManus, surveying several of the country’s top campaign strategists on The Spinoff this morning, suggested the calm might be harder to sustain than it looks. Despite weeks of bad headlines for the government – Peters’ comments, Luxon’s Rotorua apology, unemployment hitting an 11-year high – Labour’s numbers haven’t moved, with two polls last week showing National still comfortably ahead and the current coalition parties retaining the numbers to govern.
Strategists described Labour’s approach as a “minimum viable opposition” or “small target” strategy, deliberately avoiding controversy and big policy swings to stay credible without becoming the story. Some argued that discipline had genuinely outperformed expectations given where the party started the term. Others felt the strategy had run its course, arguing Labour needed bolder, more distinctive policy to actually convert disaffected voters – particularly those drifting to the surging Opportunity party – rather than simply waiting for the government’s mistakes to do the work.
