{"id":18726,"date":"2026-10-16T05:18:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T16:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18726"},"modified":"2026-10-16T05:18:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T16:18:53","slug":"labour-supporters-told-to-harness-hope-and-rage-national-voters-fear-handout-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18726","title":{"rendered":"Labour supporters told to harness ‘hope and rage’; National voters fear ‘handout society’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Labour supporters have been told to harness their “hope and rage” this election while National voters say fear the worst should the left bloc take power<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Labour leader Chris Hipkins joined a number of Labour candidates, including his deputy Carmel Sepuloni, Phil Twyford and newcomer and foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters in the working-class suburb of Kelston in West Auckland, in the auditorium of the local girls’ high school, attracting a few hundred locals and party volunteers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In her speech, Walters said Labour supporters had a mixture of “outrage and hope”<\/a> to the campaign.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Some of you, like me, will remember going on a march not long after the last election when they cancelled the smoke-free generation for our children – if they win, there will be marches for three years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I ask you one thing: bring all that energy, all of that hope and rage that you would put into those three years ahead, bring it now,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hipkins took the stage donning a lei presented to him on stage by Sepuloni, who has been the MP for Kelston for over a decade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Labour<\/div>
Labour supporters cheering on leader Chris Hipkins and local candidates.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Tuwhenuaroa Natanahira<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He used his speech to lay into Christopher Luxon – rolling out his party’s new attack line claiming Luxon had left people $6000 worse off – and laid out his party’s plan to make life cheaper.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jobs, in particular, got the crowd riled up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Those on the other side who currently sit on the treasury benches say it’s not the government’s job to create jobs, well, they’ve certainly demonstrated that they don’t think it’s their job to create jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Under our government, we achieved record low unemployment despite some of the most challenging economic conditions any government in New Zealand has faced … we saved people’s jobs [and] we’ve now got a government that celebrates losing them,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Down south, the National party had their own rally on the West Coast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Leader Christopher Luxon proved a popular figure<\/a> among the estimated hundred supporters in Greymouth, many clad in royal blue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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After speaking for about 20 minutes, he then mingled with patrons and posed for a number of photos.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"About<\/div>
About 100 people gathered in Greymouth on Thursday for the National party’s West Coast rally.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Adam Burns<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Luxon also heard staunch views from the locals as pre-election tension ramped up.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Property developer Geoff Ball endorsed Luxon but admitted he was “seriously concerned” heading into the election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We’ve got a country that’s in trouble,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I’m not 100 percent confident that National and the current coalition is going to get in. I think it’s a big, big problem.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ball’s concerns stemmed from the belief that three years was not long enough for the coalition to boost the economy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“I think they made a bloody good start, but I personally think they’ve got a long way to go,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“To me, the country’s got to be run like a business. It’s not a handout society.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“We used to be a country where we had a reputation of number eight wire, and we get sh*t done. Now we’re a country of red tape, bureaucrats, and b*llshit.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"National<\/div>
National leader Christopher Luxon is flanked by Brett Cummings (L) and Geoff Ball.<\/p>\n

RNZ \/ Adam Burns<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Local man Brett Cummings had a post-speech one-on-one with Luxon, where he said they discussed “a few things that needed to be tidied up” on the West Coast, particularly around the repeal of regional councils and the overhaul of the Resource Management Act.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“There’s a whole lot of changes they’ve been promising, but it’s taking a long time to implement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“All that land use and stuff, it’s a long time ago. Not that long ago in my lifetime, you used to have permitted activities to be gold mining.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“Now you’ve got to get three consents plus a bond and all the rest of it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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RNZ asked both men to rate the past three years under the coalition government.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ball gave the government a six, with Cummings offering up a seven-and-a-half to an eight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Labour supporters have been told to harness their “hope and rage” this election while National voters say fear the worst should the left bloc take power. Labour leader Chris Hipkins joined a number of Labour candidates, including his deputy Carmel Sepuloni, Phil Twyford and newcomer and foreign affairs spokesperson Vanushi Walters in the working-class suburb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18726"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18728,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18726\/revisions\/18728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}