Opposition tears into Luxon’s recovery claim as campaigns ignite
Parliament’s first week back doubled as a 2026 campaign warm-up, with leaders using the debate on the Prime Minister’s Statement to hone their messages and test Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s (pictured) claim that the economic “recovery has now arrived.”
New Zealand will go to the polls on 7 November, after Luxon last week confirmed the election date and again pitched an improving backdrop under the three‑party coalition, saying “the economic recovery is up and running” and reiterating his promise “to deliver on our plan to fix and basics and build the future.”
Luxon ‘more confident than ever’ recovery is here
National’s leader Luxon opened the debate with a familiar message that his coalition has steadied the economy and turned a corner after a turbulent few years.
“But I feel more confident than ever that the recovery has now arrived and that Kiwis can look forward to a year which is brighter than the last few have been, because we have reined in wasteful spending, keeping inflation down, although we'd like to see it fall even further," he said. "Interest rates have dropped considerably, with families saving hundreds of dollars a week as they refix onto lower rates and now, after last year's two-speed recovery, we're seeing real momentum, real momentum.”
That upbeat line – “the recovery has now arrived” – is set to be central to National’s election pitch, as Luxon argues falling mortgage rates and tighter spending are finally flowing through to households.
Labour, Greens paint picture of a smaller, strained economy
Labour leader Chris Hipkins answered with a starkly different story, accusing Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Luxon of turning forecast growth into contraction.
“Before the election, the New Zealand Treasury was forecasting that our economy would grow 1.7% in 2024. After Nicola Willis got hold of it, what happened? The economy shrank by half a percent," Hipkins said. "They were forecasting the economy would grow by 2.3% in 2025. After Nicola Willis and Christopher Luxon got their hands on it, it shrank by a further 0.6%. In fact, the economy today is at least a percent smaller than it was before they decided to fix it.”
For the Greens, co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick argued that whatever recovery the government sees is invisible to communities facing crumbling infrastructure and insecurity.
“For many people living in Christopher Luxon's New Zealand, the power is out, the water doesn't run, the roads are closed, the hospital is overwhelmed, and the jobs are gone because the mills and the factories have been shut down during a vicious recession driven by this government's so-called year of growth," Swarbrick said. "Two hundred New Zealanders leave the country every day in search of a better life. This is the country that the government wants. We are living in it, and the future that they are promising us is more of the same. So when they tell us their plan, we need to listen to them.”
Coalition partners defend reforms as Te Pāti Māori asks: ‘who’ is recovering?
ACT leader David Seymour used his speech to highlight what he cast as pro‑business wins from his party’s ministers.
“We're also systematically dismantling the red tape and the regulation, such as the significant natural areas," Seymour said. "We've got rid of the climate policy that would have driven sheep and beef farmers out of business so production could happen overseas to the benefit of foreign farmers who emit more than hard-working and efficient New Zealand ones. We've also ensured that you're going to be able to work as a contractor and have clarity about how that contract works – again, Brooke van Velden, making it easier to do business.”
New Zealand First leader Winston Peters roamed widely, revisiting COVID-19 decisions and arguing the coalition had made “major achievements” despite “massively serious, inherited problems”.
“It's not been easy because there have been massively serious, inherited problems in so many areas, and we did it on the back of a huge pandemic that we had to get on top of, having paid the price for rash decisions and lockdowns that didn't work," Peters said.
"That's the record analysis of the rest of the world. So, why aren't we saying it at our time in history right now? There have been a number of major achievements, though, that we've made over the past two years and there are many more to come over the next 12 months.”
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa Packer delivered one of the sharpest rebukes to Luxon’s core message, questioning who exactly is experiencing his promised recovery.
“What kind of leader stands in front of a nation that is hurting worse than it has ever hurt before, that stands in front of te iwi Māori, which has pleaded with it to stop doing what it's doing, to the point that we've had record submitters, record protests, unprecedented pleas – a prime minister that declares that recovery has arrived? Well, I don't know who the heck this prime minister and this government are talking to, but it's not the people in our electorates," Packer said. "It is not the people on the ground. It is not those who are choosing between whether they can afford kai on their table or power in their houses.”
As Parliament settles into election year, the dividing line is already clear: Luxon is “more confident than ever” that recovery has landed, while his rivals are just as determined to convince voters they are still waiting to feel it.
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