Election 2026: The campaign moment Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins says he won’t forget – The Front Page
Chris Hipkins will be eating fish and chips from the local as votes start rolling in on Saturday.
“Generally a fish ... I quite like a crab stick, and the local fish and chip shop does hand-cut chips.
“The quality of the chip is really important,” he said.
The Labour Party leader has spent the past few weeks connecting with Kiwis and making his case for why he should be Prime Minister.
“It’s been great. I’ve really enjoyed it,” he told The Front Page.
“I’ve enjoyed the leaders’ debates, which of course everybody has seen, but I’ve also enjoyed a lot of those moments that haven’t quite got as much attention. Being on a building site talking to apprentices about their hopes for the future, going out and, like yesterday, I got to spread some mulch around some strawberry plants.
“I’ve really enjoyed just being able to chat to people and hear their stories. Hear about what’s going on in their lives. And a lot of that’s been challenging. The cost of living is clearly the number one talking point for just about everybody,” he said.
One person that sticks out to Hipkins is an encounter in Tauranga.
“I was about to get in the car, and a woman came up to me. She was an emergency department nurse in the ED in Tauranga, and she said to me, ‘I heard you on the TV the other day talking about the fact that we’re often in crisis in our emergency department,’ and she said, ‘You’re wrong.’
“And I thought, that wasn’t what I was expecting, and then she said, ‘We’re in crisis all of the time.’
“It stuck with me all the way through the campaign because I think about our health workers, and I think about the amazing job that they do, and I think that’s not what they should be dealing with.
“Yes, emergency departments are challenging, particularly if something major happens and you see it in the TV drama series. They’re prepped for that. But they’re not prepped for that to be a 24/7 experience all day, every day, and we’ve got to do more to fix that,” he said.
There’s very little for politicians to do on Saturday, given the day before is the final day of campaigning and all hoardings must be taken down by midnight.
“I’ll get my first sleep in in six and a half weeks on Saturday,” Hipkins said.
“A continuous night’s sleep would be a good start, because you do find yourself waking up in the middle of the night during the campaign thinking about what you’ve got to do the next day or thinking about what you did the day before and how you could have done it better.
“I’m gonna mow the lawns on Saturday morning, hoping it’s not gonna rain. They’re not looking great,” he said.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
- The Finance Minister question;
- Taxes;
- Election night;
- Highlights of the campaign trail.
The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5pm. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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