Hipkins unaware Labour candidate sits on charter school board amid party's pledge to phase them out

Chris Hipkins did not know that one of his party's prominent candidates was sitting on the board of a charter school, a detail that surfaced as Labour prepared to campaign on a promise to phase out the model entirely. The contradiction sits at an awkward angle: Hipkins has been clear that Labour views charter schools as a drain on the public system, yet Rakesh Naidoo, a former senior police officer and high-ranking candidate for the party, holds a board position at a sports academy that opened this year under the charter school framework.

When asked about charter schools earlier today, Hipkins was direct about his position. He said they were not "adding anything" to New Zealand's education system and that they operated with less accountability than traditional public schools. The party's commitment, he explained, is to rebuild a strong public education system. But he was careful not to suggest a scorched-earth approach. Existing charter schools would not simply vanish under a Labour government. Instead, they would be transitioned into the public system, handled individually based on their circumstances. One pathway he mentioned was converting them into character schools—institutions that remain fully government-funded, teach the national curriculum, and are built around a particular educational philosophy or cultural identity, such as an iwi-based approach.

The sports academy where Naidoo serves as a board member represents exactly the kind of institution Labour would need to reckon with. It launched this year as a charter school specifically designed for athletes, operating under a model that gives it independence from the national curriculum and greater autonomy in how it runs its programs. That autonomy is precisely what charter school advocates, including Associate Education Minister David Seymour, argue is their strength. Seymour has been a consistent champion of the model, contending that charter schools give educators more freedom to innovate and that they have demonstrably lifted achievement, particularly among students who have struggled or disengaged from traditional schooling. He also points to a built-in accountability mechanism: charter schools can lose their government funding if they fail to meet agreed-upon achievement targets.

The history of charter schools in New Zealand is relatively recent and contested. They operated between 2014 and 2018, a period when they were a signature policy of the Act Party, which was supporting the National Government. When Labour returned to power in 2017, one of its early moves was to abolish the charter school model in 2018. Schools operating under that framework were given the option to transition into character schools, which offered a middle ground—government funding, a defined curriculum, but with room for a distinctive educational character.

Now, with charter schools reintroduced under the current government and Labour preparing for an election campaign built partly on restoring public education, the discovery that one of the party's own candidates sits on a charter school board raises questions about how closely aligned the party's candidates are with its stated positions. Hipkins' apparent lack of awareness about Naidoo's board role suggests either a gap in vetting or a sign that the issue has not been treated as a priority within the party's candidate selection process. As the election approaches, Labour will need to clarify how it intends to handle the growing number of charter schools now operating, and whether candidates holding positions within them can comfortably represent a party committed to their phase-out.