Hipkins signals 'reset moment' for Labour

A year on from Labour's humbling in the election, leader Chris Hipkins is ready to concede a few points.

Under his leadership, Labour lost the economic argument in last year's election and were out-campaigned, particularly on social media.

However, the Labour leader - energised after visiting the UK, where Labour has returned to power - holds hope of making Christopher Luxon's coalition a one-term government.

October 14 marks a year since Mr Luxon's National party trounced Mr Hipkins' Labour, ending their six-year stay in office.

Like many parties returned to the political wilderness, Labour has spent it listening, with a major party address next month to reveal the party's new direction.

"It will be the reset moment," he told AAP.

"We've spent a year not really talking about what we would do differently because we wanted to hear from people.

"We've now heard from people. And here's the direction of travel that we're going in."

It's clear Labour needs that refresh.

By his own admission, Labour was beaten by National on its plan for economic growth during last year's campaign.

Mr Luxon - the career corporate high-flyer - sold a vision of doubling exports over a decade, tax cuts and deregulation, which Kiwis opted for.

Mr Hipkins acknowledges "I don't think we told enough of a story" on the economy and it would return to prominence in Labour's next campaign.

"We do need to be focused more on productivity, on value-adding," he said.

"We can only farm so many cows. We can only grow so much fruit.

"Electricity and climate change are such critical debates for New Zealand because if we do this right we could be such an attractive place to do business.

"Tech is just going to consume more and more energy, and New Zealand could be really well placed if we get our renewable energy right ... to create some well-paying jobs, much richer jobs than what the economy is currently producing."

Mr Hipkins was speaking to AAP after visiting the UK for the Labour party's annual conference, and is clearly fizzing with ideas.

He met Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Deputy Angela Rayner - who he described as "almost kindred spirits" - and campaign chiefs including Morgan McSweeney to learn from their election success.

He also sat down with big-government championing economist Mariana Mazzucato, which offers hints to his future plans.

"If we actually want to grow the economy, government does have a role," he said.

"Government investment on missions with a clear purpose can actually generate huge spin-off benefits.

"And we shouldn't be focused on growth for growth's sake ... we should be saying our goal is to ensure that everybody has a good well-paying job.

"The economy has been growing - for the last 40 years - but the vast majority of the people who are generating the growth aren't feeling the benefit."

To implement that economic strategy, Labour needs to win in 2026.

Its odds are poor - no Kiwi government has been turfed after a single term in half a century - and Mr Hipkins concedes Labour was "out-campaigned" last time out.

"Social media we massively underestimated," he said.

"We were dominant on social media in 2020 with Facebook and so on, but the audiences had moved. They'd moved to Instagram and to TikTok and we hadn't moved with them.

"We just didn't figure it out soon enough."

National's contracted social media gurus Topham Guerin told The New Zealand Herald they reached 17 million people alone through TikTok in the last three months.

Much of that content was meme-of-the moment material which Mr Luxon embraced and has maintained as prime minister: much to Mr Hipkins' distaste.

"Some of it I think he's demeaning himself and demeaning the job," Mr Hipkins says.

Labour has belatedly joined the party, creating videos lambasting Mr Luxon and ministers in the hope of a viral moment - including a Titanic-themed piece on the government's ferry woes.

"I have some boundaries. Humour's good, but you still need some dignity in it as well," Mr Hipkins says.

Mr Hipkins has criticism for the mainstream media too, believing he isn't getting a fair crack from Newstalk ZB, New Zealand's most popular commercial radio station.

He appears dumbfounded that Mike Hosking, the openly right-leaning ratings-dominant breakfast host, has lost his number.

"Mike Hosking doesn't have me on any more. I don't think I've been invited on to Hosking's show since the election, maybe once or twice," he said.

While Mr Luxon enjoys a twice-weekly outing on Newstalk ZB, Mr Hipkins is plainly estranged from the station, as made clear from an introduction this week when he went on Jamie Mackay's much-loved rurally-focused The Country show.

"Haven't caught up with this bloke for a while. His name is Chris Hipkins, he's the leader of the opposition," Mr Mackay said.

"Chris, this is on Newstalk ZB. It's a centre-right audience. Are we both wasting our time having this conversation?"

To be fair to Mr Mackay, many Kiwis have wondered the relevance of Mr Hipkins to the 2026 contest.

The dominant school of thought following his election loss was that Mr Hipkins would re-assess his future over summer and hand over the reins to the next generation.

Instead, he found energy for "another decade" in politics.

"And when I look at what this government are doing, taking the country backwards, it makes me more committed to stay on and fight," he said.

Mr Hipkins hopes another factor in his 2023 defeat won't be present come 2026: Covid-19.

While Labour won a history-making majority in 2020 for its initial pandemic response, the resentment of the electorate was plainly evident come 2023, especially in Auckland, which felt the toughest restrictions.

Mr Hipkins hopes two forthcoming Royal Commissions will offer a reminder to Kiwis they got plenty right when fighting the pandemic.

"We did actually achieve a pretty good outcome from our Covid response," he said.

"We had one of the lowest death rates from Covid per capita in the world (and) one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.

"And as much as I know - particularly in Auckland this is still a sensitive issue around lockdowns - we actually had some of the fewest restrictions in the world.

"Talking to people in the UK, they were like,'oh yeah I spent a year and a-half working from home'.

"There was, that was all they were doing for a year and a-half. We didn't have that in New Zealand, even in Auckland.

"On balance, I hope that there will be a bit more positive reflection on our Covid response in the future."