Labour MPs gather to lick wounds and manage expectations, dogged by talk of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, wealth tax

It’s been a long time since Labour MPs gathered at Brackenridge, the Martinborough retreat where the party’s MPs once held their annual meetings.

It was here in 2019, that then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unwisely uttered the words “year of delivery”, and also here, in January 2020, that Ardern took her first questions on something called coronavirus, with her then-Health Minister David Clark.

That was actually the last time Labour gathered here. Quaint Brackenridge was unable to accommodate the party’s landslide-swollen caucus and so Labour spent the next three years on a travelling roadshow of retreats, ending in Napier, where Ardern announced she would call it quits.

The not-so-subtle subtext to the party’s 2024 return to Brackenridge is the fact the party was so wiped out in 2023, that they can actually fit in the room.

The caucus came over the hill from Wellington on Wednesday afternoon, and spent the night gossiping over wine, according to Ayesha Verrall. The former health minister, and doctor, was also blamed for the lack of pudding on offer.

Leader Chris Hipkins is doing his best to keep spirits up. In his opening remarks to MPs gathered in the ominously titled “Lincoln Room” (hardy the most propitious name when it comes to political longevity) touted an early morning 7km run as evidence of his stamina. He was slightly more honest in his remarks to media, confessing the 7km was comprised of two 3km runs and a single kilometre walk.

“I did a bit of a run-walk,” Hipkins said, perhaps a reference to former Prime Minister Bill English’s well-known passion for the “walk-run”.

He wasn’t promising much in the way of scene-setting. This will come over the next few weeks, when he plans to make two speeches. The first, will be about how the party would “apply Labour’s values in the current context”, and the second will be “articulating the vision of what we think New Zealand will be like in the future”.

Labour feels very much like an Opposition, dogged by silly mistakes that are getting in the way of that discussion on “vision”.

Hipkins compared the Government to a “dictatorship”, for its fetish for Parliamentary urgency this term.

MP Greg O’Connor did not help things today, when discussing those remarks, by appearing to compare the Government to Donald Trump’s America or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, before walking those comments back.

“We watched a guy do that [ignore democratic norms] in the United States. We sort of watched on bemused,” O’Connor said.

“I’m just saying that New Zealanders can look around the world and see what happens when you ignore the processes of democracy. There will always be a price to pay,” O’Connor said.

“I’m not comparing the current Government to Trump, I’m saying that New Zealanders who watch politics around the world, whether it be the Ukraine, whether it be China, the US, or anywhere, we make our comparisons. Certainly, maybe in Russia would another good comparison, where if you ignore your processes of government, processes of democracy, then there will be a price to pay in the long term,” O’Connor said.

“I am not saying that New Zealand is becoming like Russia or the US and I would be disappointed if any media said that I had said that, because I am not saying that,” O’Connor said.

Both the dictator remark and O’Connor’s rambling response to it show the mantle of poor message discipline that parties seem so keen to bestow upon themselves when they go into opposition. It echoes very clearly the sort of silly, wasteful controversies National tripped up on on an almost monthly basis during its six-year exile form the Beehive.

The policy talk, especially after last year, was all about tax and what Labour might choose to run on next election.

Finance spokeswoman Barbara Edmonds was not looking to start a conversation on that today, but conceded that the topic might come up naturally.

“Today is just a really good day to look to 2026. The tax part of that conversation might come up organically, but it is not one on our scheduled agenda,” Edmonds said.

Labour also faces a potential challenge from its left. The Green Party has elected Chlöe Swarbrick as its co-leader. Swarbrick, a veteran of Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee, has made no secret of her support for transformational tax reform.

Edmonds said the party was in no hurry.

“I think it is something that we will firm up, but we need to do it in our time and bring New Zealand along with us,” she said.

One person who has a clear view of where Labour should go is former Revenue Minister, now foreign affairs spokesman David Parker.

Parker hauled himself into the retreat on one crutch, having injured himself in a serious DIY accident last year. He carried his suitcase in his spare hand.

When asked whether he planned on taking advantage of the Government’s relaxing of a building supplies levy, which will cut the cost of some DIY projects, Parker said: “I don’t think I will be auditioning for another ACC ad soon”.

Parker said he had “well-known views” about tax.

Parker said a debate between a wealth tax, which he tried to get over the line as Revenue Minister, or a capital gains tax, which he helped to draft when the party was last in Opposition, was a “very proper debate to have”.

“You will know that I favour a wealth tax, but there are also arguments in favour of a capital gains tax and that is a debate that the country and the Labour Party need to have,” he said.

Parker said Labour did not mind questions being asked of its current ambiguous tax policy.

“It shows our relevance,” he said.

Hipkins will say more about the party’s changing direction after lunch, which includes sausage rolls.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.