Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins talks to media after the party's major losses in the 2023 election on 14 October. Photo: RNZ / Nathan Mckinnon
Labour's outgoing MP for Ilam Sarah Pallet says it is too early to say if Chris Hipkins would continue as the leader of the party.
Pallett lost her seat in Christchurch's Ilam electorate to National Party's Hamish Campbell by 7847 votes.
It was too premature to say if Hipkins would remain leading the Labour party, she said.
"It's far too early for me to have taken part in any of those conversations.
"I think we're all just dealing with our own individual news. I'm not thinking about the the bigger future right now for the party is not on my radar at the moment."
She said that despite their efforts, the party's popularity might have been affected by the challenges posed by Covid-19. That's in line with what campaign chair Megan Woods has said.
"If we look across the world, we've seen this sort of response to governments that were in power during the Covid pandemic fairly consistently.
"And there's often a reaction against the government that guided people through really serious issues and concerns like that."
Woods said: "We're seeing that globally with incumbent governments that were there through Covid as well. Not trying to be defensive about it - obviously we have to go back and have a look at what we did, have a look at the campaign itself."
Pallett said the party worked as hard as it could.
"I haven't really given [Labour's loss] an awful lot of thought, though, to be honest.
"All I know is that we couldn't have worked harder, and that's really what matters to me at the end of the day.
"We tried as hard as we could, but things didn't work out as we'd hoped."
Woods said it was "far too early" for a prognosis on whether Labour was too negative during the campaign.
"We need to review what happened… that mood for change was there and we need to look how much of it was the campaign, and how much of it were forces that we're seeing globally as well with incumbent governments. They're all really deep questions we need to give a lot of thought too."
Pallett said she would take some time to rethink her steps on politics.
"The next steps for me is some sleep, just very seriously, we've campaigned really hard, we are all very tired.
"I haven't given the future any thoughts so far, but I imagine there'll be plenty of time for me to do that in in the near future. "
It was a pleasure to serve Ilam as a Member of Parliament, she said.
"And I'm incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to do that.
"But now, it would be nice to take a breath and just say thank you to everybody. And after that, we will see what the future holds."
Woods said there would be further analysis of the campaign and its performance later.
