Former MP Peter Dunne believes Labour's biggest headache is figuring out what they stand for as a party rather than who is the leader.
It comes as Labour will hold a caucus meeting in Upper Hutt on Tuesday and Newshub understands the leadership will be voted on.
This will be the first time the new Labour caucus will meet since the release of the final election results and will see current party leader Chris Hipkins face what essentially is a vote of confidence.
Dunne told AM on Tuesday morning he would be "astounded" if Hipkins didn't survive the vote.
"I think it's fairly obvious, the meeting is even being held in Upper Hutt, it's in his own backyard and Labour would be foolish in the extreme to get rid of him at this point," he said.
"The only qualification is, I don't know but it's possible Hipkins may have decided he wants out anyway that's the only possible fly in the ointment. Otherwise, he'll survive for as long as he wants until Labour decides what it wants to do long term with leadership."
And if Hipkins' previous comments are anything to go by, it doesn't seem like he wants to vacate the leadership position.
"I've still got a bit of fight left in me," Hipkins said back in October.
While Labour might've been on the receiving end of a resounding defeat at October's election, only getting 26.91 percent of the vote compared to National's 38.06 percent, Dunne believes Labour will need Hipkins' experience and "guiding hand" to help them over the next 18 months.
He believes Labour has time on their side to build the party back up towards the 2026 election and urged them to not rush any decisions.
"The reality is no one's going to be interested in what the Opposition says for possibly the next 18 months to two years, so they don't have to rush into this," he said.
"They need to just work their way through what went wrong, what they need to do and who's best equipped to take them there. I think this process just needs to be a steady one rather than a dramatic drama, which just looks like yet again, all the wheels are falling off the chariot."
The leadership vote might be the headline at the Labour caucus meeting, but Dunne believes it isn't the party's biggest headache.
He believes Labour needs to figure out what they stand for as a party following the resounding success of Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
"That's the biggest challenge to Labour is to work out where it fits in the current political environment," he said.
"Labour's always worked on the basis that it's had a monopoly on the left-wing vote for the last hundred odd years and that's now being severely challenged and Labour needs to work out how it repositions itself."
Dunne believes this is a key decision otherwise they risk losing even more votes to the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
"Is it going to be a more social democratic party in which case it runs the risk of leakage to the centre right? Or is it going to try and compete on the left-wing ground, in which case, it also runs the risk of just scaring a lot of voters further into the hands of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori," Dunne told AM.
"So they are the big issues for Labour. The leadership is actually secondary to the ethos. Who are we? What do we stand for? What's our key message going to be? Once they've resolved those, go to who is the best person to present that."
Watch the full interview with Peter Dunne in the video above.
