If their recent State of the Nation speeches are anything to go by, Luxon and Hipkins have no idea how to reverse that trajectory. Luxon and Hipkins are reliable only because their State of the Nation speeches showed no interest in seriously engaging the middle class with that reality. Hipkins did slightly better with Bridges, showing at least some ability to move beyond his prepared script generated by focus groups, his staff or perhaps AI. Hipkins understands the scale of the problem but has no real answer, putting him in roughly the same position as Luxon. The hope – probably forlorn – is that Hipkins is trying to preserve that same sort of policy and political space for manoeuvre.

Source: Stuff February 26, 2026 20:30 UTC