Chris Hipkins at the annual Labour Party conference in Christchurch. Photo: RNZ / Lillian Hanly
The government wants to divide New Zealand along ethnic and economic lines, Chris Hipkins says, and he wants to be the leader who brings it together.
The Labour Party voted this weekend to investigate a capital gains tax and a wealth tax, as well as deciding not to be involved in AUKUS - what Hipkins called a "principled position".
The Labour leader closed the party's annual conference in Christchurch on Sunday by promising to get "back to basics" - jobs, healthcare and education.
He said a "new Labour government" was needed to "bring the country together again for our next big fight, and that's a fight for a fair go for all New Zealanders".
But he acknowledged Labour's working class roots, saying "working New Zealanders have always been integral to Labour's purpose."
"If you look at why Labour was established, it was to make sure that those who are working actually get their fair share of the rewards from that work.
"But we are also a party for all New Zealanders."
Hipkins said the coalition government was "taking us backwards in a very big way - socially, economically, culturally and environmentally".
National was happy to "divide the country in order to rule", he said.
"If you look at some of the worst legacies of the Muldoon era, we're still grappling with those today. That was a government much like this current one, who is more interested in creating division than creating unity."
The Treaty Principles Bill was decried by multiple Labour MPs over the weekend as being one of the causes of that division.
In an interview with Q+A on Sunday, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said there was "more division" nowadays than when the coalition came to power and the relationship between the Crown and Māori was "probably worse".
However, he laid the blame on the previous Labour government, saying it had made some "pretty horrendous decisions" affecting Māori - including the Māori Health Authority and Three Waters reforms.
The division had "been building for some time", he said.
"It's a challenging time at the moment ... there's strong feeling on all sides of that debate."
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