National accuses Hipkins of spreading 'conspiracy theories' with election allegation

Labour leader Chris Hipkins is being accused of spreading “conspiracy theories” with his allegation that National was “manipulating the electoral system”.

Christopher Luxon, the National leader, told the Herald the allegation was a “load of rubbish”, while National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown says the Labour leader’s office is spreading “absolute conspiracy theories” after the public had spoken.

When asked this afternoon whether he stood by saying National was “manipulating the electoral system”, Hipkins told the Herald: “That’s not what I said.”

But speaking to reporters ahead of Labour’s first post-election caucus meeting on Tuesday, Hipkins said “National has lost the party vote” and “they’re only holding on to the prospect of power because they’ve manipulated the electoral system”.

“In a position where they weren’t manipulating the electoral system, they would be gone at this point,” Hipkins said, adding that this was being done via the overhang strategy.

National’s path to power currently rests on an overhang created by winning more electorates than the number of seats the party vote would entitle it to.

While there was a campaign by some on the right of politics to create a large National overhang – by suggesting people split their votes between National in electorates and Act or NZ First on the party vote – this was dismissed repeatedly by Luxon.

Luxon, in numerous press conferences throughout the election campaign, asked voters to give two ticks blue, as Hipkins himself called on people to give two ticks red.

When the Herald put to Hipkins that National didn’t deliberately seek an overhang and had dismissed the vote-splitting strategy, he responded: “Oh for goodness’ sake.”

“I saw Chris Bishop in the electorate right next to mine standing next to Winston Peters, asking New Zealand First voters to vote National on their electorate vote,” he said.

It’s unclear where Hipkins saw Bishop standing beside Peters. Bishop wasn’t at the public meeting where Peters made his endorsement of National’s Hutt South candidate and afterwards said he didn’t know the NZ First leader was going to give him his backing.

The National candidate did highlight Peters’ endorsement on social media.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins made the comments prior to his party's first post-election caucus meeting. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Hipkins suggested National’s electorate candidates were running an overhang strategy despite Luxon’s comments.

Overhangs have occurred in the past, although not to this extent.

Te Pāti Māori, a potential coalition partner of Hipkins’, was deliberately trying to engineer their own overhang, which appears was successful.

The Labour leader was asked why his party didn’t embrace that strategy Te Pāti Māori was putting forward, to which he said his view was that “you should aim to win an election by aiming to win an election rather than trying to manipulate the electoral system”.

A couple of hours after Hipkins’ remarks, the Herald asked him as he walked through Parliament whether he stood by saying National was “manipulating the electoral system”.

Hipkins said: “That’s not what I said.” He walked off and didn’t answer a further question.

National MPs are pushing back, with Luxon telling the Herald that Hipkins’ allegation was a “load of rubbish”.

Bishop, whom Hipkins claimed stood next to Peters to get his endorsement, said it was “just nonsense” and “utter crap”.

“Nobody was more annoyed by the quixotic Mowbray/Brash campaign than we were. His one example is also wrong. I wasn’t next to Peters, it was total news to me when it happened and I didn’t know it was coming.”

Chris Bishop has called it "utter crap". Photo / Mark Mitchell

Campaign chair Brown told the Herald there were “a lot of conspiracy theories coming out of the third floor of Parliament House from the Labour Party’s office at the moment”.

“Absolute conspiracy theories and the reality is, the public has spoken and they voted,” Brown said.

Brown said it was “sad to see that the Labour Party is reverting to conspiracy theories when National was very clear right through the campaign that we’re asking for people’s party vote for National”.

“That was our campaign, that’s the campaign that we ran.”

National campaign chair Simeon Brown has called Hipkins' comments "conspiracy theories". Photo / Dean Purcell

National MP Erica Stanford told the Herald that National had “asked for two ticks blue like we do every single campaign”.

“So I’d say that’s completely untrue and bunch of rubbish,” she said.

The senior MP said, “we have integrity in the National Party because we asked for two ticks like we always do”, Stanford said.

“There are other people saying other things from different parties, but we have always been clear: two ticks blue.”

Mark Mitchell told the Herald that Hipkins’ allegation was “atrocious”.

“We have got an MMP system and people get to choose how they use their votes. We could see clearly that there was campaign on both sides around that.

“It wasn’t our’s, I assure you of that. We ran, as always do, a straight party vote campaign.”

Jamie Ensor is the NZ Herald’s chief political reporter, based in the press gallery at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office. He was a finalist in 2025 for Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards.