Giles
Dexter Political reporter
Well, we learned Chris
Hipkins would rather the Warriors win the NRL Premiership
than the All Blacks win the Rugby World Cup next year, we
learned Christopher Luxon has never pulled a sickie, and we
learned both leaders want to learn more te reo
Māori.
But in terms of the more substantial scraps,
commitments, common ground, and policy outcomes from the
TVNZ leaders’ debate, RNZ has put together this handy
recap.
A cost of living election
Both parties
have talked about this being a cost of living election, and
its place as the first main debate topic confirmed
that.
Luxon started by talking up National’s plan to
lift the economy, with an obligatory “no new taxes”, while
Hipkins said Luxon had stood on the same spot three years
ago and promised to fix the cost of living.
“Are you
better off than you were three years ago?”
Asked
whether the average New Zealander was better off under
National, Luxon said it would be worse under
Labour.
“What we have to do is not band-aid solutions,
and we actually have to tackle the fundamental economic
challenges we have. That means lowering costs for New
Zealanders, and it also means growing this economy, and
that’s how we set it up for people to do
well.”
Hipkins said Labour’s policies in aged care and
public transport would help, and were
fully-funded.
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“Christopher has just said that life is
getting easier for New Zealanders. The vast majority of New
Zealanders watching this today, they will be at home
shouting at the TV, saying, ‘Don’t you
understand?'”
Hipkins said Labour would also freeze
petrol taxes for a whole term, with Luxon saying it was not
funded (a criticism he levelled at Hipkins many times during
the debate).
“Stop telling things that aren’t true.
This is why people don’t trust you,” Hipkins
responded.
Both leaders agreed New Zealand should be a
high-wage economy, with Luxon afterwards ruling out a freeze
to the minimum wage (an ACT policy).
“We’re going to
increase minimum wage each and every year in line with
inflation, more or less,” he said after the
debate.
The health of our health system
Both
leaders guaranteed more nurses, with Luxon saying 2200 would
be hired in the coming year, while Hipkins pointed to
Labour’s guarantee to give every nursing graduate a
job.
Luxon said health was “incredibly challenging”
but the government had put in record investment, and was
hiring more nurses and making progress on its health
targets, particularly on wait times in emergency
departments.
Asked what difference Labour’s three free
GP visits would make when it’s difficult to see a GP now,
Hipkins said Labour would provide low-interest loans to new
GPs.
The two also argued how many nurses were hired,
with Luxon insisting 2100 had been hired under this
government, while Hipkins said it was 54 in the last two
years, with the rest funded by the previous Labour-led
government.
Hipkins also committed to re-instating the
smokefree generation legislation, and while he expressed
concern over the number of young New Zealanders getting
addicted to vaping, he did not offer a
solution.
Education, education,
education
Education was where the two really started
to fire up, with Luxon calling Hipkins the “worst education
minister New Zealand has ever had”, and jeering “oh, great
flip flop” when Hipkins expressed his support for the ban on
cellphones in schools.
After Hipkins confirmed Labour
would bring back the old school lunch scheme, Luxon repeated
his criticism that it was unfunded, to which Hipkins
responded it was in Labour’s fiscal plan.
“You would
be able to make the same claim if you actually had a fiscal
plan,” he said.
Hipkins also committed to again
scrapping charter schools, as Labour had done when taking
office last time.
“But they’re working. They’re
getting great results for those kids,” Luxon
responded.
What appeared to be a new commitment, that
Labour would scrap the required hour of reading, writing,
and maths, was later clarified.
“Give schools the
discretion,” was Hipkins’ response during the
debate.
“We still want kids to be learning reading,
writing, and maths, but I want to give the teachers the
flexibility to do that in a way that engages kids,” was his
response afterwards.
Taxes and
billionaires
Both leaders agreed New Zealand’s tax
system was not fair, with Luxon putting an emphasis on less
tax, while Hipkins said the system put too much emphasis on
salary and wage earners.
They were asked to commit to
not increasing any existing taxes next term, with both
saying yes.
“He’s putting up fuel tax by 25 cents a
litre, so that’s simply not true,” Hipkins said, referencing
the planned deferral, and then incremental increases, to
fuel excise duty, which Labour would scrap.
After
Luxon guaranteed GST would not go up, Hipkins said John Key
had promised the same and then raised it.
“You’re not
debating John Key, you’re debating Chris Luxon,” the
National leader responded.
Luxon later said he
misheard the original question, telling media afterwards he
thought he was being asked about no new taxes.
“We’re
not lifting GST, we’re not lifting income tax. Any increase
in fees and levies we’ll do very efficiently, but that was
the point where I got a bit overexcited.”
Where the
two were able to find common ground is that neither were
able to give a straight answer on whether it was morally
acceptable for any one person to be a billionaire.
An
opportunity for Opportunity
With Luxon being reminded
of polling that showed National needing to pick up its
support, he was again pressed on his decision to rule out
the Opportunity Party.
Asked if he was unable to form
a government without Opportunity come 8 November, and if he
would pick up the phone, he again confirmed National had
ruled Opportunity out.
“I have been crystal clear with
who we could or couldn’t work with. I’ve laid that out from
the very beginning of the year. I’ve been clear about
Opportunity.”
He was quizzed by media afterwards, but
batted questions away.
Hipkins targeted National’s
existing coalition partners, lumping in ACT’s policy to
freeze the minimum wage as National’s, and attacking Luxon
for not taking stronger action against Winston Peters and
Shane Jones.
“You did nothing about it. You did not
stand up for migrant communities when Winston Peters and
Shane Jones said absolutely racist things about
them.”
Luxon insisted he had called out “comments from
Winston Peters and other political leaders that are racist”,
and said it was incumbent on all political leaders to watch
their rhetoric.
“If any minister in a government I led
expressed the sort of racist sentiment that he’s put up
with, I would sack them immediately,” Hipkins
responded.
How did they rate their
performance?
The undecided voters in TVNZ’s audience
gave Hipkins the win, on 49 percent versus Luxon’s 24
percent (a further 27 percent remain undecided).
Both
Luxon and Hipkins emerged from their first leaders’ debate
of 2026 pleased with their respective
performances.
“It’s the first time we’ve done it in a
wee while, so I was pretty happy with it overall,” said
Hipkins.
“That was fun,” Luxon said.
When it was
put to him the audience had sided with Hipkins, Luxon was
unbothered.
“There’ll be a number of other people with
a number of other views. Frankly, I don’t
care.”
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