Original reporting by Newswire.nz Editorial Staff starts below.
One News NZ Leaders’ Debate 2026: Full Transcript — Part 1 of 7
The opening section of the 2026 TVNZ Leaders’ Debate saw National leader Christopher Luxon and Labour leader Chris Hipkins set out competing arguments over the cost of living, wages and the economy. Luxon argued New Zealand was “turning the corner”, pointing to lower inflation and interest rates, economic growth and National’s plans to lift wages through stronger productivity, while Hipkins challenged whether households were actually better off and promoted Labour policies including free GP visits, capped public transport fares, frozen fuel taxes and higher wages for low-paid workers. The leaders clashed over petrol prices, supermarket competition, government spending and pay equity, while moderator Jack Tame also questioned them about their leadership and values, including moments when they had felt proudest of New Zealand and whether they were willing to change their minds.
Transcript Begins:
[00:00] JACK TAME: For 45 years, New Zealand’s leaders have been coming to TVNZ to make their case for the country’s top job. Muldoon, Lange, Palmer, Moore, Bolger, Shipley, Clark, Key, English, Ardern.
And tonight, at a critical moment for our country, the two men who want to lead New Zealand to a brighter future: National’s Christopher Luxon — fixing the basics and building the future; Labour’s Chris Hipkins — the future is possible, and better starts now.
Both have sat in the Prime Minister’s chair. So what have they learned, and what’s their vision? Welcome to the first leaders’ debate. Welcome to Your Vote 2026.
If ever there was a time New Zealand needed leadership: a spluttering economy, a healthcare system under huge strain, climate change, AI, and a world that hasn’t felt as volatile or unpredictable in most of our lifetimes.
Three weeks until the polls open. Whoever forms the next government will encounter some of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing any Prime Minister in the post-war era.
[00:48] JACK TAME: Tēnā koutou katoa. I’m Jack Tame. Let’s bring in the leading parties’ contenders.
Please welcome National’s Christopher Luxon and Labour’s Chris Hipkins.
[00:58] JACK TAME: Gentlemen, there are hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders tuning in this evening. If you want sign language interpreters, you will find them on Kordia Channel 200.
Christopher and Chris, your parties’ combined support is at its lowest point in the MMP era. Who won the coin toss tonight?
[01:10] JACK TAME: That’s not a good start, guys. Paper, scissors, rock right now. Paper, scissors, rock right now.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I won the coin toss.
JACK TAME: You won the coin toss.
[01:16] JACK TAME: Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, prove to us tonight that you deserve to be here without other parties, that you deserve to be here as one of the two leaders. This is your chance to inspire. Give us your vision for New Zealand.
[01:25] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, look, firstly, good evening, Jack, good evening, Chris, and good evening, New Zealand.
There’s no doubt about it, it’s a volatile world, but I have to say I am so excited about New Zealand’s future. In a more volatile world, the good news is we are turning the corner.
Our economy is now growing, the books are back in order, inflation and interest rates are down. 220,000 new jobs are on the way, and more Kiwis are moving back to New Zealand.
Crime is down because criminals face consequences, and kids are back in school, learning the basics without cell phones.
Things haven’t been easy, but the plan is working, and there’s a lot more for us to do together.
National’s plan means growing the economy to lift your wages. It means paying down debt with no new taxes. National’s plan also means a secure retirement with bigger KiwiSaver balances.
It means 5% deposits for more first-home buyers, longer paid parental leave, fairer student loan repayments, a rates cap, and a whole lot more too.
What we have at risk is Labour’s $18 billion of unfunded promises, nine new taxes costing every Kiwi $2,263 per year.
We have so much potential in this awesome country that we have. It’s important we stick with the plan. Party vote National.
[02:32] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon, thank you. Chris Hipkins, you apparently didn’t win the coin toss, but win us over with your message.
[02:36] CHRIS HIPKINS: Three years ago, Christopher Luxon stood right here and promised he was going to fix the cost of living.
But ask yourself, wherever you are in the country: are you better off today than you were three years ago?
Costs are higher, more people are out of work, and our health system is in crisis.
Tonight, he’s going to tell you he just needs more time. But three more years will only make it worse.
As your Prime Minister, I’ll fight every day to get your costs down: free doctors’ visits, a $20-a-week public transport fare cap, a three-year freeze on fuel taxes.
I’ll take on the supermarket giants to bring your grocery prices down, and I’ll create more opportunities for people to get ahead and build their future here in New Zealand: backing small businesses, getting 30,000 apprentices into work, guaranteeing every graduate nurse a job, and cutting student loans for the young people who stay here in New Zealand.
This should be a place where hard work gets you ahead. That’s what I’ll be fighting for as your Prime Minister. Party vote Labour.
[03:32] JACK TAME: Tonight, we want to tease out the things that distinguish you two as leaders. So your policies, your experience, but also your character, your values.
So let’s get off the talking points.
Christopher Luxon, tell me about the moment in your life you felt proudest of New Zealand.
[03:42] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Oh, look, actually, when I was with Keir Starmer in the south of England, we were training Ukrainian soldiers, 160 of them.
They were bakers, they were electricians, they were accountants. They were thanking me on graduation for some basic soldiering skills that we were doing.
And I was struck that day, as I left that session, that in three days’ time they were entrenched in Ukraine, standing up for values that New Zealand really believes in — you know, international rule of law, sovereignty of nations, democracy.
And so they’re fighting for the things that we often so take for granted.
And so that was probably the most emotional moment I’ve had as Prime Minister, and certainly one that brought home to me the importance of liberal democracy and the things that we take for granted here.
[04:25] JACK TAME: Chris Hipkins, when in your life did you feel proudest of New Zealand?
[04:28] CHRIS HIPKINS: I felt proudest to be a New Zealander after the March 15 terrorist attacks, when New Zealand rose to that with dignity and with grace, wrapped its aroha and support around those who had been affected, and said that we are not going to take that bait.
We are not going to respond to that with anger. We are going to respond to that by coming together and saying that is not who we are as a country.
It made me so proud to see the way New Zealanders rallied together and sent a clear message to the world: that’s not who we are as a people.
[05:00] JACK TAME: As well as our studio audience, tonight we have with us nearly 100 undecided and swayable voters, sourced by data and insight company Kantar. Give us a wave, guys. Come on, there they are.
So last election, about half of them voted for a party in the right block, half of them voted for a left-block party.
At the end of the night, they will decide which of these leaders has won their vote.
But first we asked them what issue matters most to them tonight. Sixty-six percent — two-thirds — said the cost of living.
So we’ll start there, and we’ll pick up on Chris Hipkins’ opening statement.
[05:31] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon, you’ve been leading this country since 2023. Is the average New Zealander watching you tonight better off than they were three years ago?
[05:38] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, look, I think they’re better off than they would have been if Chris had stayed in charge.
The bottom line, very clearly, is that it’s been a very challenging time for New Zealanders over the last three years.
But 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.
[06:04] JACK TAME: Let’s talk about those two components. So lowering costs and growing the economy. We’ll talk about growing the economy in a moment, but I want to start off with affordability.
Both of you have policies to bring prices down.
So, Chris Hipkins, make it clear for the hundreds of thousands of people who are watching you right now: if you are elected next month, when will the average Kiwi actually notice their living costs becoming more affordable?
[06:17] CHRIS HIPKINS: We’ve got a range of things that will kick in at different points.
If you’re voting Labour, if you’re working in aged care, you’ll get an immediate $4-an-hour pay rise from the 1st of January next year, because those women have waited long enough for the pay increase that they deserve.
If you’re using public transport, [unclear], next year you will get the public transport fare cap.
Now, someone using public transport every day here in Auckland will be saving $1,500 a year, pretty much straight off.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: [Interjecting, unclear.]
CHRIS HIPKINS: It is absolutely funded. It is absolutely funded. I didn’t interrupt you. It is absolutely funded.
Free doctors’ visits — a year and a half down the track, you will get free doctors’ visits. Free prescriptions will kick in next year.
I’m focused on doing the things that I can do that can kick in and that Kiwis will notice as a difference.
[07:11] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon, if you are elected next month, when will the average Kiwi actually notice their prices coming down?
[07:18] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I think some Kiwis have already noticed that. I mean, if you think about—
JACK TAME: What Kiwis?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m just thinking about a young woman that came up to me at Balloons Over Waikato, right? She actually had lower interest rates. Her mortgage savings were over $7,000.
CHRIS HIPKINS: Interest rates are going up.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, interest rates, since we came to power, have come down. They went up 12 times under Chris; they’ve come down under us.
So she was very grateful, because that was $7,000, Jack, that she could actually spend on—
[07:55] JACK TAME: When will New Zealanders notice their prices coming down if you’re elected next month?
[08:01] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, you’re actually starting to. As I said, some New Zealanders are feeling it very strongly in their country. Some New Zealanders still are not, and there’s more for us to do.
But the way you have to deal with it is you have to understand the economy.
You can’t just increase spending, drive up inflation, drive up interest rates, put an economy into a slowdown, because people lose their jobs.
You have to make sure that you control spending, get inflation down, get interest rates down, get growth happening, and that’s what we’re doing.
[08:28] CHRIS HIPKINS: Jack, everywhere I have gone across the country over the last year, people have been saying that life is getting tougher for them, their costs are going up.
When I do my own supermarket shopping, I see people putting things back when they get to the checkout aisle because they have to make choices between whether they’re buying food for their families or putting petrol in their car.
Christopher has just said that life is getting easier for New Zealanders. Not the vast majority of New Zealanders watching this today.
They will be at home shouting at the TV, saying, “Don’t you understand?”
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: You can acknowledge that actually when you [unclear] drove inflation up to a 32-year high, people were worse off. Inflation is lower now. Interest rates are lower now. [Overlapping speech.]
[08:57] JACK TAME: Chris Hipkins, can you guarantee peace in the Middle East?
CHRIS HIPKINS: No.
JACK TAME: Where’s the ambition in politics?
Petrol has just hit an all-time high in New Zealand. 91 is at $3.50 at the moment. What do you say to the family who has no alternative but to drive? What are you offering?
[09:11] CHRIS HIPKINS: Labour is going to freeze your petrol taxes. We’re not going to increase it by 25 cents a litre, which is what Christopher wants to do if his government is re-elected.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: But Chris, it is unfunded. You’ve got $3.1 billion [unclear] in your fiscal plan.
CHRIS HIPKINS: No, it’s not. Christopher Luxon, stop telling people things that aren’t true. This is why people don’t trust you, because they know they can’t believe what you tell them.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: That is completely untrue. [Overlapping speech.] Forty-eight hours ago, and you had your first big error of $100 million four hours ago.
[09:43] JACK TAME: All right. Christopher Luxon, you again. I’m going to talk about this in just a second.
So you’re not going to increase the excise tax, but that’s just keeping it at the very expensive cost of petrol right now. What else are you offering families?
[09:55] CHRIS HIPKINS: Solar panels on your roof so that you can bring your power bill down straight away without the upfront cost. Free doctors’ visits with free prescriptions. Lower-cost public transport. We’re going to take—
JACK TAME: I’m talking about the price of petrol.
CHRIS HIPKINS: [Overlapping] —that you can get a better deal at the supermarket.
[10:12] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon, what will you do for families struggling to fill up their car?
[10:16] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yeah, look, here’s what’s happening. We can’t control the price of fuel. That’s actually driven by Donald Trump and this crazy war in Iran.
But what we can do is make sure we support the most vulnerable and most challenged in New Zealand.
That’s why we’ve kept in place the in-work tax credit, which gives $50 to a number of families in that range each and every week.
Importantly, we’ve kept in place higher mileage rates for support and care workers and also relief teachers.
And we’re also saying, look, we’ve actually funded it as such, unlike Chris, to make sure that we actually freeze the excise tax for another year.
[10:45] JACK TAME: Okay, let’s get a commitment from both of you.
You mentioned that in-work tax credit. Just for anyone who doesn’t understand how it works, low-income working families get $50 a week as a tax credit at the moment to help with the cost of fuel.
At the moment, that’s set to expire in March.
So let’s get a clear commitment from you both tonight. If petrol prices are still high next year, will your government extend that tax credit?
[11:05] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, yes. You’ve seen us continue to make sure that we monitor the situation daily and actually make sure we continue to support these—
[11:15] JACK TAME: Let’s talk supermarkets.
Christopher Luxon, three years ago you said your weekly shop was 60 bucks. What is it now?
[11:21] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yeah, well, I think we want to clarify that one, Jack, because Chris had a lot of fun with that.
I’m living in a rather unique situation where I’m an empty nester. Amanda’s up here in Auckland and I’m down there in Wellington, and I eat pretty badly when I’m in Wellington, frankly.
I eat pretty badly in Wellington, so it’s a box of [unclear cereal name] and a couple of bananas and some kiwifruit.
JACK TAME: Fair enough.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I buy just for snacks while I’m—
JACK TAME: Yeah, quite the feast. So what do you spend now?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry?
JACK TAME: What do you spend now?
[11:51] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Oh, look, I’ve got the same setup. So, I mean, I’m going in there literally just buying a whole bunch of stuff for [unclear] when I’m in Wellington, and then obviously Amanda’s doing a shop up here.
[12:00] JACK TAME: Must be strange since they took the [unclear cereal/product name] off the shelves.
You’ve got a plan to bring down grocery prices. You’ve got a plan to bring down prices by breaking up Foodstuffs, right? That’s your plan.
But it depends on the Commerce Commission saying yes. So what if they don’t?
[12:14] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, look, here’s two parts to it.
One is, first and foremost, you’ve got to get inflation down. Food price inflation has gone from 12.3 under Chris to 1.9 under me. That’s one part of the problem, right? Get inflation under control.
The second part, exactly as you’ve talked about — I know Chris feels the same as well — is that the industry is just not fundamentally competitive enough.
And, you know, I worked in the sector for 18 years. I cannot think of a country that has two operators at 82% share that has a 4% margin.
So we’ve looked at all the analysis that Chris’s government had, as well as my government had, and we’ve come to the conclusion the benefits outweigh the costs by doing structural banner separation.
[13:02] JACK TAME: So my question is: why the Commerce Commission exactly? So you’re going to outsource that decision to the Commerce Commission?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I’m not going to outsource it, but it’s an important decision. It’s a high bar to make an intervention in the market.
JACK TAME: And what if they say no?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: What if they say no? If they say no, we don’t do it. If they say yes, we do do it.
And they’ll either voluntarily demerge, or we’ll actually mandate them to do that.
And the benefit will be three competitors in the second half of our term actually competing on price and offer and location and service and all of those good things.
[13:49] JACK TAME: But what’s the benefit for consumers if they don’t recommend it?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I think they will. I mean, the bottom line is we’ve done all the analytics that have come into the Government.
But what’s not right is actually politicians sitting there trying to make an intervention without using our economists, our competition experts, and deep econometric analysis.
[14:04] JACK TAME: All right, we’ve got heaps to get through tonight—
CHRIS HIPKINS: None of that’s going to happen if this government gets re-elected, because David Seymour’s already said he’s going to veto—
JACK TAME: So much to get through.
CHRIS HIPKINS: He’s already said the National Party backbenchers— [overlapping, unclear].
JACK TAME: Here we go. We have so much to get through tonight.
[14:13] JACK TAME: So I’m going to fire at you guys some yes-or-no questions so we can get through things quickly.
Question number one for you, Christopher Luxon: do you understand the concept of yes-or-no questions?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes, I do.
JACK TAME: That’s a good start. Chris Hipkins, you’re on board as well?
CHRIS HIPKINS: Indeed.
[14:21] JACK TAME: Okay. Christopher Luxon, should New Zealand be a high-wage economy?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Yes.
JACK TAME: Chris Hipkins?
CHRIS HIPKINS: [Affirmative response.]
[14:29] JACK TAME: All right. The reason I ask is that half of New Zealand kids at the moment living in poverty have a parent who is working.
So both their parents aren’t beneficiaries; at least one of them is working.
And have a look at this. Turn around and face the wall. To the wall.
Okay. So there is New Zealand on the right-hand side. On the left-hand side, that red line is the OECD average when it comes to wages.
So all those countries we like to compare ourselves with — the UK, Ireland, Australia, the US — doing much better than us.
[14:54] JACK TAME: Chris Hipkins, tell working New Zealanders how you’re going to put more pay in their pockets.
CHRIS HIPKINS: We’re going to make sure the minimum wage goes up each year to compensate for inflation, unlike these guys who want to freeze it for three years.
JACK TAME: The living wage or the minimum wage?
CHRIS HIPKINS: The minimum wage.
We’re going to make sure we pay the living wage to those who are employed by the state.
We’re going to make sure we give pay equity to Kiwi women who are on low wages who have had that denied by this government.
All of those things are going to help to lift wages in New Zealand, because I do want New Zealand to be a high-wage economy.
And unlike these guys, I’ve got a plan to deliver it.
They’ve seen wages go backwards in New Zealand. Seventy percent of Kiwi workers under this government have had a pay rise that’s less than the rate of inflation.
They’ve been going backwards.
[15:41] JACK TAME: I want to hear Christopher Luxon’s plan. How are you going to put more pay in Kiwis’ pockets?
[15:45] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’m sorry we’re having this conversation, because this is the reason I came to politics.
Australia is 30% wealthier per person than New Zealand. Ireland’s twice as wealthy per person than New Zealand. Singapore is three times as wealthy per person than New Zealanders on average.
What does that mean? You get twice as many doctors, twice as many nurses, twice as many teachers in Singapore, on a per-capita basis.
So we have had a problem over 30 years, under successive governments, where we’ve actually failed to create a high-wage economy.
We’re working hard, but we’re not getting ourselves wealthier.
What do we have to do? World-class education, more technology, get rid of the red tape, more infrastructure, more trade and investment.
If we can do those things, we lift the floor, raise our collective living standards, and have more choice.
[16:28] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon, there are tens of thousands of low-paid workers, mostly women, who were on the path to having more money in their pocket.
But your government scrapped pay equity with no warning. There was no select committee. You never campaigned on it. You just changed the rules overnight, didn’t tell anyone you were doing so.
What is your message to those workers tonight?
[16:47] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, my message is that we have equal pay. We actually have collective bargaining, and we have a pay equity scheme in New Zealand that is actually comparable to what we see internationally.
But what was not workable or sustainable were the changes that Chris made to the scheme.
And hear me out — it wasn’t workable or sustainable.
And we actually have a scheme in place. We have people who can — unions or individuals — that can make claims on that.
We’ve put money aside for that. Chris is saying he wants to [unclear].
[17:19] JACK TAME: How much money have you put aside?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, we’ve put money aside for it. As you know, we don’t reveal that amount for negotiation.
CHRIS HIPKINS: But you’re demanding that I reveal it.
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: No, so why don’t you reveal it? Let me explain why. Because the Treasury have said it’s $11 billion. Fleur Fitzsimons, your union friend, has said it’s $13 billion—
[17:49] JACK TAME: You’ve criticised the previous scheme. Did National vote for it?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We did initially, yes. That’s exactly the scheme that we have—
JACK TAME: But—
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: But what happened was then, in government, under Chris, in the last years — in 2022, 2023 — he changed it, and so you ended up having fisheries officers being compared with librarians.
That’s where it became unworkable and not sustainable.
[18:02] CHRIS HIPKINS: This government changed the law so that if you work in care and support and aged care, you cannot lodge a pay equity claim under the law that they have made.
These are some of the lowest-paid people who fought the hardest to get pay equity. They’ve seen that eroded, and they are prohibited under his law from raising another pay equity claim.
[18:10] JACK TAME: As Christopher Luxon has pointed out, Treasury expects these pay deals — these pay equity deals — to be extremely expensive, to the tune of many billions of dollars.
You want to bring them back, but you’ve left very little space in your budgets as they stand for all of the other stuff that comes up when you’re in government.
Last time Labour was in government, it consistently spent much more than it initially promised, even after Covid.
So why should Kiwis believe that you’re not going to overspend this time?
[18:38] CHRIS HIPKINS: We have set out a fiscal plan. We set it out just a few days ago—
JACK TAME: Just as you did when you were last in government.
CHRIS HIPKINS: Very clear—
JACK TAME: Just as you did when you were last in government. Why is this different?
CHRIS HIPKINS: Well, if you listen to the answer, I’ll tell you.
For the first two years we were in government, we stuck to that plan, and then a global pandemic arrived and things changed, and we needed to change with that.
For the first two years that we were in government, we stuck exactly to the plan, and we will stick to the plan that we announced on the weekend.
[19:05] JACK TAME: All right, I want to finish this break—
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Sorry, sorry, Jack, that’s really important. He actually increased spending 70%. He drove inflation up to a 32-year high. He put interest rates up 13 times, and our economy tanked and people lost their jobs.
CHRIS HIPKINS: Spending is higher now than it was when we—
JACK TAME: We have to look forward.
CHRIS HIPKINS: —than it was when—
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: We are telling the truth.
[19:27] JACK TAME: Almost time to take a break, but tonight we want to know more about your leadership and the things that inform your leadership.
I’m sure you’ll agree the best leaders are open-minded.
Chris Hipkins, when did you last change your mind about something that matters?
[19:39] CHRIS HIPKINS: Quite regularly, because I think, you know, when you get new [unclear], you should be willing to.
I changed my mind about a capital gains tax. I absolutely did, and I’m happy to own that.
[19:51] JACK TAME: Christopher Luxon?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, actually, I think we’ve trucked on through with the things that we committed to doing.
JACK TAME: So you’ll never change your mind?
CHRISTOPHER LUXON: Well, I’ve changed — I mean, I’ve changed my mind when I get good counsel, good advice.
JACK TAME: Yeah, so give us an example.
[20:04] CHRISTOPHER LUXON: I can’t think of a policy example where I’ve done that.
[20:06] JACK TAME: That’s it for this section. Coming up: how long these men think you’ll need to wait to see the doctor, and we will test our panel of undecided voters on which leader they think is performing best.