The Labour Party has no obvious future leader waiting in the wings, according to political experts, and will seek to settle the confidence vote murmurs before Christmas arrives.

Party leader, Chris Hipkins said he was still mulling over his future as Labour Leader after what he admitted was a "pretty rough" meeting with his Caucus on Tuesday. 

Under the party's rules, Labour MPs must vote on the party leadership within three months of a lost election. 

According to New Zealand Herald deputy political editor, Thomas Coughlan the party will want to have the confidence vote over the opposition's future leader sorted sooner rather than later. 

"If they delay it, it just hangs over them and every day a Labour MP appears in front of the media, the question will always be how will they vote in the confidence vote," Coughlan told The Sunday Session over the weekend. 

"I do think that before Christmas is the kind of timeframe they're working to."

Coughlan said he understood there had been murmurs about a David Parker challenge for the top job, although there's strong question marks over whether he has the numbers to support his stake. 

"The big question is whether Hipkins wants to keep it, or if he thinks it's time to move on - his decision is important as to whether others put their names forward."

Coughlan said the next leader for Labour isn't sitting ready to go, which would mirror the situation Christopher Luxon found himself in 2021 when National was considering a leadership shuffle and the now Prime Minister-elect was "clearly there, ready to go". 

In this case, the options for a Hipkins replacement are slim pickings. 

"It's clear someone who could do well, like Keiran McAnulty - who has ruled himself out at the moment - isn't suited to leadership at the moment." 

As Labour reflects on the election results that continue to change with the special votes being counted, there might be a need for the party to re-consider where it stands on typically left-sided issues that risk isolating the party from a larger voter base. 

"There's a lot of chatter in the Labour movement about the wealth tax and whether they should have supported it," said Coughlan. 

"It's two schools of thought - on the one hand, the tax seems to excite people and it gets people going. But on the other hand, you have Te Pati Maori and the Greens who got less than fifteen per cent of the vote between them, so there's not a massive segment of the electorate ready for that wealth tax."

Coughlan said an option for the party might be to let Te Pati Maori and the Greens "fight it out" for the left-wing fringe and instead see the Labour Party claim more of the centre vote with the wealth tax. 

This would mop up some of the vote going to National, but potentially abandon some of the left principles that Coughlan said some of the caucus hold dearly. 

"I spoke to someone last week who said the ideal position for them was like Helen Clark, who could be many things to many people," he said. 

"She was able to motivate people on the left wing of the party but also be quite competitive on the centre of politics and duke it out with National.

"Nobody is able to occupy the left and centre for Labour at the moment, it's a real challenge for them.