Keir Starmer’s fate vs Chippy’s Green Party refusal – a warning to Labour
As the NZ Labour Party struggles to shake off the Incremental Wellington Mandarins, there are lessons for them in Keir Starmer’s demise.
Labour’s immediate writing off of the Greens well thought out Tax policy is all fine and dandy, Labour are trying to win over soft National voters appalled at their party’s weakness in the face of culture war extremes by ACT and NZF, so Labour’s flinch from an actual economic platform that forces the mega wealthy to pay for the infrastructure upgrade we desperately need is understandable when they are trying to woo over centrist voters, but the danger it puts Labour in is getting outplayed by the Greens.
The middle class suburbs of Auckland where Labour have built previous wins on will lean heavily in favour of the Greens after their tax the billionaires policy announcement and the reality is that if TPM and Greens announce a Kākāriki Alliance MMP strategic voting tactics in the Māori Electorates, Labour will be facing John Tamihere and Chloe Swarbrick in the negotiating room post election where Labour will have no option but to consider a far more progressive platform than they are currently selling.
The incrementalism of Starmer and refusal to do anything meaningful in the lives of working people helped fuel Reform Party.
The incrementalism of Labour NZ will help fuel the Greens and Te Pati Māori.
I wrote to to Kieran McAnulty who is widely considered as the replacement when Hipkins is no longer leader and put to him the following points.
Kieran, when will the NZLP ever denounce the polices that are hurting so many Kiwis out here in the real world ?
Will we ever get to vote , donate and support a party that genuinely stands with the people it says it is working for rather than continuing supporting the corporate neoliberal polices that have destroyed the lives and futures of so many in our communities ?
Hipkins addresses Business audiences while conveniently ignoring the people he wants to solicit votes from again to enter government.
” LABOUR’S SWIFT rejection of the Green Party’s new tax policy tells us far more about Labour than it does about the Greens. According to Green co-leader Chloe Swarbrick, the party provided Labour with the full details of its proposal before the public announcement. Yet on the very day the policy was released; Labour leader Chris Hipkins dismissed it almost instantly, as though it had never been seriously considered. That speed of rejection was not the behavior of a party weighing up a potential coalition of partner’s ideas. It was the behaviors of a party determined to signal, loudly and clearly, that it will not deviate from the neoliberal orthodoxy that has governed New Zealand for decades.
In that sense, Labour stands shoulder-to-shoulder not only with the governing parties and the business sector but also with much of the corporate media, which treated the Greens’ proposal as an eccentric outburst rather than a legitimate attempt to rebalance a deeply skewed tax system.
” Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivered her Budget speech with the usual ritualized empathy. She spoke of struggling families, rising hardship, and the pressures facing ordinary New Zealanders. Then, with the next breath, she raised rents for some of the poorest state housing tenants in the country. The crocodile tears dried quickly. For all the rhetoric about compassion, the Budget offered nothing that would materially improve the lives of most New Zealanders. In fact, for many, it will make things worse: higher costs, fewer services, and a government proudly committed to shrinking the very institutions that hold society together.
What is perhaps even more alarming is the near-total inability — or unwillingness — of the Labour opposition to call austerity for what it is. In the Budget debate, Labour MPs danced around the term as if it were radioactive. They criticised the Government’s “choices,” its “priorities,” its “cuts,” but they refused to name the ideology driving those cuts. That silence is not accidental. Austerity is woven into the fabric of the neoliberal orthodoxy that Labour itself embraced decades ago and has never meaningfully abandoned. To condemn austerity outright would require Labour to confront its own record, its own complicity, its own refusal to challenge the economic model that has produced crisis after crisis.
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/06/labour-rejects-green-partys-tax-policy.html
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/05/budget-2026-wheres-opposition-to.html
Kia ora Mat,
Thanks for your email.
We disagree with the Greens’ tax policies, but that doesn’t mean our policies align with the government. In stark contrast to the government, we are proposing a Capital Gains Tax to better fund health, and will be announcing policies that seek to significantly improve wages and conditions for working people.
While we may disagree, I appreciate you sending me this feedback.
Kind regards,
Hon Kieran McAnulty MP
That was it.
Which just shows why we need a new democratic progressive left alternative.
Kieran might be the next Labour leader but he is still singing from the same failed songbook.
I would encourage everyone to write to these Labour MP’s with similar questions and then watch how they squirm and use condescending reaching out garbage to justify their own complicity and addiction to neoliberal market economics.
The incrementalism of Labour NZ will help fuel the Greens and Te Pati Māori ”
Now recognized as ” Thin Labourism ”
Ok but will the Greens do anything meaningful with that support ? apart from propping up a minority Labour government that excludes them and their polices apart from a couple of minister outside of cabinet positions.
You only have to look at the last twenty years to see that almost no Green economic policy has been adopted when they have been required to support a Labour government.
” The Greens’ ‘crime’ is simple: they dare to contradict the entrenched belief that taxes on wealth must never rise, no matter how grotesque the inequality, no matter how threadbare public services become, and no matter how many working people are pushed into poverty. The political establishment treats this orthodoxy as sacred. Labour, even in opposition, refuses to challenge it.
” This is the heart of the problem. Labour in government has repeatedly shown that it will not contemplate meaningful tax reform. It will not touch wealth. It will not confront the structural imbalance that allows asset-rich New Zealanders to accumulate more and more while wages stagnate and public infrastructure decays. And because Labour refuses to move, the Greens find themselves trapped in an impossible position: they can propose the most progressive policy platform in the country, but by tying their political fortunes to Labour’s, they ensure that most of those policies will never see the light of day ”
Polling support for National and Labour combined may be at a 30-year low, but this year’s election is still most likely to return either Hipkins or National’s Christopher Luxon as prime minister.
Because both major parties compete for the political centre, many feel there isn’t enough to distinguish them. Labour leaves the more radical terrain to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, opting instead for a safer, though politically constrained, position in the middle.
As with its sister parties in the UK and Australia, Labour has retreated to a form of “thin labourism” – an attenuated version of its traditional ideology
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/06/labour-rejects-green-partys-tax-policy.html
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/622608/as-nz-s-chris-hipkins-pursues-power-what-can-he-learn-from-keir-starmer-s-downfall
As a long term Labour voter I will be jumping off the boat this time .I will voter brown and green because I want change .I have also joined the Maori roll because my electorate is colonial for ever so I want my vote to go to a better person than the dodgy woman who is our current MP who has done fuck all in 20 years and will collect a massive pension and perks when she retires some time in the next 20 years .
Chippy needs to wake the fuck up .NZ needs a change of direction and it is not in the direction the river of filth party wants to take us .There is a massive chance to be part of change by getting along side the greens and opportunity parties and make that change .He could be Luxon like and let the greens and op do the heavy lifting and reap the benefits of that .Or he could sit down tomorrow with those parties and come up with a real policy that will take NZ forward to a better future for ALL KIWIS .Luxon lost a lot of votes yesterday after his childish comment about the opportunity party .Now is the time for Labor to wake up and get on board or end up as a minor party which is where NACT are heading .
Hipkins is yet another Blairite – Keir Starmer with a bit more personality. Honestly, we could have had proper policies in favour of working people years ago when labour had an absolute majority and did absolutely fuck all with it. I don’t know why you would expect any more from Hipkins, because you certainly won’t get it. As far as I can see at the moment I’m voting green, because middle-class though they are there at least to the left of labour – mostly.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/thedetail/614313/election-2026-the-disproportionate-staying-power-of-the-rural-vote
” …a warning to Labour . ”
Firstly; labour, or at least as some of you might remember it as, isn’t that. Not anymore and Hipkins is Luxon Lite. When roger douglas, the aged, stunted, pick pocket seen here at TDB recently, deliberately destroyed Labour where it stood, shovel-ready which left us with an ugly collage of ‘just a little bit of sickers and hand wringing half cooked mince patties who stood, fat-arse-ready to sit down, shut up and bank the money as Labour, the re-diseased workers political party withered from its pockets up to excrete a brand new mono-politic called ‘ neo-liberalism’ and that, all of that, hasn’t gone away. We’re still neoliberal and we’re still fucked because of that.
The only non violent way to purge us of the roger and his free loaders guide to easy money multi-billionaires and multi-millionaires is by mandating the vote and lowering the voting age to, say, 16.
But you and I know that won’t happen because it hasn’t happened yet. So, what is going to happen? Well, the cleaners are already here to prep our AO/NZ for our new owners. Trump? Heard of? As our only planet begins to sizzle AO/NZ will look pretty good to a sweaty orange psychopathic narcissist.
Stuff
‘Safe haven’: Wealthy Americans flock to buy their way into NZ
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360810545/safe-haven-wealthy-americans-flock-buy-their-way-nz
Here’s wee Pete.
RNZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/334094/us-billionaire-spent-12-days-in-nz-before-citizenship
And here’s sneaky petes power-shake.
https://qz.com/863518/a-body-language-analysis-of-donald-trump-and-peter-thiels-strange-power-handshake-at-tech-summit-with-jeff-bezos-of-amazon-satya-nadella-of-microsoft-elon-musk-of-tesla-timothy-d-cook-of-apple
The Guardian
Why Silicon Valley billionaires are prepping for the apocalypse in New Zealand
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/15/why-silicon-valley-billionaires-are-prepping-for-the-apocalypse-in-new-zealand
Now here’s a great wee Korean film for you.
Parasite .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_(2019_film)
Kakariki alliance won’t happen. TPM might get two seats, Labour will take out the others. Their candidates are strong and voters are likely to opt for them on preference to TPM.
At least there MPs will have been elected by the voters unlike the NZF current lot that could not get elected because the voters thought they were shit .They got in on the hate based party vote only and now have become the party of trash mopping up all other party rejects that were kicked out of government because they were dodgy .
Today, I believe I can see where Hipkins is coming from with his rejection of Greens’ wealth and inheritance taxes. Yes, he wants to pick up the ‘soft National voters’ who are disenfranchised with National et al. This CoC have not been kind to these voters either – their interest is purely with the top-feeders with their large donations/bribes! Why doesn’t Hipkins just go with the flow and he can use the exact same excuse Luxon used, that he didn’t have much of a choice in the negotiations!? However, my family and I have always been Labour voters but this time, if Hipkins doesn’t come to the party, we will vote Greens! It’s way past time the top-feeders / parasites paid their fair share of taxation. Asking for anything less is letting every worker down. They can no longer bear the huge weight of our taxation while others blatantly fill their greedy pockets. Surely every voter, with even half a brain, can see how bad it has become for all those who have lost jobs/homes etc. Time for a huge, but FAIR, change so “everyone pays their way”! If you don’t like it, go and live in another country. Stop bludging of our working people; they’ve carried more than their load!
The Greens remind me of the old Labour that was betrayed by Douglas and co, I am going to be voting for Greens.
Regardless of your electorate vote, if we ALL party vote GREEN, they’ll have enough clout in parliament to drag Labour leftwards!
Labour has already set out its tax policy to voters. Suggesting they change at the request of a third and smaller party would be highly risky. How could voters rely on them. It is the same with National in their approach to voters.
Tax policy is at the very core of a major party’s credibility to voters. Leaving that open to the whim of post election negotiations means voters can’t rely on anything.
Coalition negotiations have to be on other issues, not on the fundamental core of the major party’s credibility to voters.
Risky? lol. Maybe to Hipkins dedication to not actually doing anything that would benefit New Zealanders.
Labour’s poll result shows that they only have a bit more credibility than National and the increase in the Greens shows that people want change. I suspect that both major parties are around their base level of support from the true believers of each side who only ever vote for them so it’s the undecided and swing voters who will make the result and you don’t attract them by promising to be as bland as the other team.
You may be right about the position of the two major parties. However, they each poll more than double their next closest ally. Therefore they get to keep their fundamental policies, of which tax is one. If left leaning voters want a wealth tax, then they have to vote for the Green Party to get a minimum of 20%.
I do think wealth taxes will become an OECD norm sometime in the early 2030’s, focused on the most wealthy. Not the 1%, but the 0.1%.
The problem with a wealth tax imposed in NZ, but not in Australia, is that a significant percentage of the most wealthy will go to Australia. Hence the reason why such a policy should be OECD wide.
I can agree with your comment although my question regarding the Greens is the quality of their list candidates. The selection process they use seems to encourage the most unsuitable people to be selected so while I like their tax policy I am not certain how I will vote yet.