Chris Hipkins speaks after Labour releases ‘In it for you’ election slogan

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has announced Labour’s 2023 election slogan is ‘In it for you’.

“While I’ve only been in the job six months, I hope New Zealanders know I’m in it for them and I understand the challenges they’re facing,” Hipkins said.

Hipkins said his “upbringing in the Hutt grounded me in the reality of working families with big aspirations and it’s those values that drive me every day”.

“In this election I’ll be asking New Zealanders for a full term and my own mandate to deliver the change they want to see.”

He promised a “positive, forward-looking campaign that’s focused on cutting inflation, bringing down the cost of living, keeping people and communities safe and investing in education, health and housing”.

Asked what he thought of the slogan, National leader Christopher Luxon said he did not think New Zealand “needs slogans, what New Zealand needs is real, substantive answers to its challenges and its problems”.

Luxon later said National’s slogan would be ‘Get our country back on track’.

“And that’s really what we’ve been talking about for some time now… But the slogans are not what New Zealanders need right now, what they need a substance.”

On Hipkins’ comment that his upbringing in the Hutt had grounded him in the realities of working families, Luxon said: “Well, that’s very nice of him”.

“The bottom line is we all have different experiences. I’ve grown up with parents who left school at 15/16, young parents, the oldest of three boys, the first ever in my family to go to university, and I had a great New Zealand education that actually set me off to do well in the world. That’s my motivation for being in politics… I want every Kiwi kid to have their shot.”

Labour’s election slogan in 2020 was ‘Let’s keep moving’, following the 2017 – ‘Let’s do this’.

The new slogan comes the same week that Labour faced tax attacks from all sides, after it emerged the party had tested the waters on significant tax changes, ultimately backing off from a sizeable tax switch.

National called Hipkins’ move cynical, putting it down to Labour attempting to arrest declining support, while the Greens say Labour has shown it intends running a “safe and conservative” campaign.

Also, this week, another political poll had Labour taking a hit, following the party falling to a four-year low in a different poll released Tuesday, where it dropped to 31%.

The Taxpayers’ Union – Curia Poll, released on Wednesday, had Labour on 31.1%, after it fell 1.8 percentage points.

National also dropped in Wednesday’s poll, down 2.4 percentage points to 33.3%.