Labour’s climate change moment

Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern has declared climate change is the ‘‘nuclear free moment’’ of this generation

Launching the party’s election 2017 campaign in front of about 2000 party faithful at the Auckland town hall, Ardern started by paying tribute to rugby great Sir Colin Meads, who died on Sunday, as a great New Zealander.

She also acknowledged the presence of former prime minister Helen Clark, who got a standing ovation.

Ardern told the party faithful Labour would tackle the issue of climate change.

‘‘This is my generation’s nuclear-free moment, and I am determined that we tackle it head on,’’ she said.

But that involved tackling issues closer home such as clean and swimmable rivers.

‘‘We will clean up our rivers. We will do it for the next generation.’’

She pledged to lead a government that made the hard calls and ‘‘leads, not follows’’.

Ardern ran through her selection as leader, thanking Andrew Little for his work.

She also sketched her own history, from being born in Hamilton before moving to Murupara and then Morrinsville.

The speech contained no new spending policy, but was designed to fire up the troops - with Treasury due to unveil on Wednesday how much cash there is available for campaign promises.

After paying tribute to former leaders and their legacies she said her aim was to ‘‘build a country where every child grows up free from poverty, and is filled with hope and opportunity’’.

On the economy, she said the measure should be how it ‘‘serves its people, not the other way round’’.

That meant judging success differently - not just by the rate of GDP growth.

‘‘We will change the Public Finance Act so that every budget, you don’t just hear about surpluses and deficits, you will hear about how many kids we have lifted out of poverty.’’

But the country also needed to share the fact economic success was not being evenly spread ‘‘between people, but also across our regions’’.