Labour's Hipkins calls the PM 'incompetent' and won't rule out new taxes

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has called Prime Minister Christopher Luxon incompetent and said National's attacks on Labour's tax plans are "hysterical desperation" RNZ.

Hipkins made the comments to media on 17 August 2026, shortly after the prime minister and transport minister announced a detailed plan for a second Auckland harbour crossing RNZ. National's campaign chair Simeon Brown released a statement during the Waitematā announcement saying Hipkins had been "silent" on the streaming tax and ute tax RNZ.

Asked whether he could rule out a new tax on streaming companies such as Netflix, or bringing back the ute tax, Hipkins answered "No" to both RNZ.

The exchange follows National finance spokesperson Nicola Willis's call on Sunday for Hipkins to clarify his position on both levies RNZ. Willis said Labour broadcasting and media spokesperson Reuben Davidson was proposing a levy on streaming services that would raise the price New Zealanders pay for Netflix and other platforms. She pointed to an NZ Herald report showing former minister Michael Wood had been talking up the Clean Car Discount scheme, labelled by National as the "ute tax", as a policy win he achieved RNZ.

The Clean Car Discount was a scheme that charged extra fees on high-emission vehicles like utes and used that money to discount cleaner vehicles like electric cars. National scrapped it. The "streaming tax" would be a charge on companies like Netflix, which could mean higher subscription prices for viewers.

Hipkins rejected the framing. He described National's statements as "just desperation" and said Brown was getting "more and more hysterical by the day" RNZ.

On the wider tax front, Hipkins sought to draw a line under recent confusion within his own team. He said Labour MP Willie Jackson "could have been clearer" in an interview about a land tax, and noted Jackson later said he was not open to a land tax. Hipkins said he has repeatedly ruled out implementing tax policies from other parties RNZ.

That position is consistent with comments Hipkins made on 28 July 2026, when he told 1News there was "No way" Labour would support the Opportunity Party's tax policy 1News. In the same report, Luxon appeared to rule out working with the Opportunity Party, saying National did not want to "do business" with anyone seeking to impose the tax policy 1News.

The leadership backdrop adds weight to the exchange. In the wake of a week of gaffes around 11 August 2026, Luxon's hold on the National Party leadership again looked shaky and he called a meeting about his leadership The Spinoff. Luxon survived a confidence vote in the National Party caucus, his second within five months, and remained prime minister The Conversation.

A confidence vote is when MPs in a party vote on whether they still support their leader. Luxon has now faced two of these votes in five months and survived both.

The broader context here is that Hipkins's refusal to rule out either a streaming levy or the Clean Car Discount leaves two policy areas deliberately open. For a leader who has been firm in ruling out other parties' tax policies, the distinction he is drawing is between what Labour might itself choose to do and what it would take on from coalition partners. That is a hard line to hold when members of his own team are publicly discussing the same policies National is attacking.

Willis's framing of Davidson's streaming levy proposal as a cost to consumers, and her linking of Wood's comments on the Clean Car Discount to a potential revival, are designed to put a price tag on Labour's openness. Hipkins's "No" to ruling them out is not an announcement, but it is a decision not to close the door. In the current environment, where both major parties have had leadership wobbles inside the same year, every unruled-out policy becomes leverage in the exchange of attacks between parties.

Luxon's survival of two confidence votes inside five months means the National caucus has twice formally affirmed his leadership. Hipkins's decision to label Luxon incompetent is the sharpest personal charge he has landed and comes at a moment when the prime minister's own colleagues have just re-endorsed him. Whether that charge sticks is a separate question from the tax specifics, but the two threads are now running in parallel.