New Labour candidate 'a little ahead of the process' in revealing 'tax relief' - Hipkins

20 minutes ago

Chris Hipkins says new candidate Kingi Kiriona is learning the wonders of taking media questions after speaking about an upcoming policy announcement before his leader could.

Kingi Kiriona (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Rauru, Ngāti Apa, Ngāti Kahungunu) is the founder of Māori education provider, TupuOra, a former journalist and the tutor of Waikato-based kapa haka, Te Iti Kahurangi. He has been named as Labour's candidate for the Hauraki-Waikato seat in this year's general election.

He has been ranked relatively high for a newcomer - 22nd - and appeared with Hipkins on Monday morning at the announcement of the party's new list.

"I gather there will be some tax relief policies to be announced," he said, turning to Hipkins behind him. "I'll leave that to the leadership to comment on."

"We'll just wait and see," Hipkins replied.

Kingi Kiriona and Chris Hipkins, June 2026.

Photo: RNZ

Labour has been particularly cagey about what economic policies it would take into the election campaign, previously saying it wanted to see the state of the country's finances in last month's Budget first. Some ideas it had would not even be detailed unless the party made it back into government.

Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds promised some would be released in June.

Speaking to Midday Report soon after the list announcement on Monday, Hipkins said Kiriona had gotten "a little ahead of the process there", but did not say the comment was wrong.

"We've announced our tax policy around the introduction of a capital gains tax. We are going to have policies around small business, around economic development and so on. We'll be revealing those in due course."

The capital gains tax policy was announced in October last year.

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