The power players in new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins' orbit
Saturday, 29 April 2023
Power is the currency wielded in the capital but who really holds it?
Former prime ministers from Helen Clark to John Key, Bill English and Jacinda Ardern built a coterie of backroom alliances and networks they reached out to, but new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, by his admission, dances to his own tune.
Absent are close advisers in business, academia and community leaders, aside from a trusted and longstanding network of political confidants. Hipkins counts the political intel gleaned from the local sports field and Pak N’ Save as most valuable.
“I don't have a huge advisory network outside of Parliament in any formal way,” Hipkins said.
The Post has spoken to a number of people in and around politics, all who spoke on condition of anonymity to offer their assessment of whom the most powerful players are in Hipkins orbit and on what basis it operates.
There’s the kitchen cabinet - those closest Cabinet colleagues - and a list of informal confidants, mostly around politics, who loosely act as sounding boards and advise on matters political. They almost all date back to the Clark Government, or Labour’s dog years in Opposition during the Key Government.
One Labour insider put that down to the fact that Hipkins quietly soaks up information and is simply better than most ministers at instinctively understanding what any given job requires.
“He is very good at knowing what his mission is,” one insider said, pointing out that his success as Covid-19 minister in particular was a result of knowing “what his job is – he is very focused in that way.”
“The fact is that he inherited a Government in need of change – it was clear the ship needed to go a different direction when he took over and he’s done that.”
The Kitchen Cabinet
That inner circle of power is, first and foremost, Hipkins’ kitchen Cabinet. It is his set of closest Cabinet colleagues – and is made up of Deputy PM Carmel Sepuloni, Finance Minister Grant Robertson, Housing Minister Megan Woods who is also Labour’s campaign chair and Labour deputy leader Kelvin Davis.
Since Hipkins has taken over, he and Sepuloni have grown increasingly close. Auckland-based, she has a powerful support base in West Auckland. Robertson - whose key jobs are finance and cyclone recovery - is still the chief economic architect of this Government.
“Grant is one of the people whose call Chippy will always take”, another insider said. Sepuloni, the source said, is another.
Robertson holds the purse strings and his authority amongst Cabinet colleagues remains undiminished. Davis is an important cog in managing the caucus and a conduit to Labour's sizeable Māori caucus.
”He’s not the sort of person who calls up people for advice – information, yes – he reads a lot, gets to grip with the issues, and knows what he thinks, ” another insider said.
Even those closest to Hipkins cannot point to any key figures outside politics or his family that Hipkins regularly consults with. There was no Labour faction which elevated him to the leadership, and he isn’t a person who regularly picks up the phone to various trusted people who act as sounding boards outside of politics. Since January politicians, lobbyists, public servants across the Capital have been trying to work out: apart from the obvious, who has the new leader’s ear?
“He has very consciously listened to concerns and is making a real effort ot get to business events”, one senior business person said.
Gregarious and friendly, but also a singular character, comfortable in his beliefs and his own skin, Hipkins has plenty of friends – mostly in politics.
“I don’t know anyone he talks to in business … he’s a bit of a lone wolf”, another business leader said, saying that in meetings with business Hipkins listens intently but gives little away.
“I think there’s been a serious drive to engage that is quite refreshing. But my question is whether it goes beyond the superficial or if it's a tick-box exercise of turning up at the right meetings and looking earnest.”
“Even the previous prime minister would have directly or have people in her office who kept a close ear to the ground of what people were saying and thinking – I’m just sure yet if that's the case with the current Government”
The informal network
Hipkins does have a number of less formal advisers close to him, mostly around politics, who loosely act as sounding boards and advise on matters political. They almost all date back to the Clark Government, or Labour’s dog years in Opposition during the Key Government.
He sometimes speaks to Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern - because they are some of the few people who have done the job before, and occasionally Sir Geoffrey Palmer.
Dame Annette King, soon to be former High Commissioner to Australia, is a key mentor to Hipkins and has been for a number of years. She has been a quiet sounding board in the background for Hipkins.
Hipkins came to power in an election year, making Labour Party campaign manager Hayden Munro a key person in Hipkins orbit. Munro ran Labour’s successful 2020 campaign and is thick in campaign planning for the October poll. A key party strategist, a deep thinker about politics and well-liked, he will be very close to Hipkins through this year.
He and Hipkins will also be working hand-in-hand with pollster David Talbot. DT, as he often known, is the analytical brains and key backroom operator behind Labour’s voter research. It includes polling but also focus groups and help to divine the matters which voters care about, don’t really and how they view them.
Then there are former Labour staffers GJ Thompson and Sifa Taumoepeau. Both are directors at government relations firm Thompson Lewis, but their influence on Hipkins is separate from their lobbying activities.
Thompson was a chief-of-staff to former prime minister Ardern for a short period. As long-time Labour operatives who came up working with Hipkins in Parliament, and then for Labour after Hipkins became an MP, the three are mates. While they don’t speak directly often, they do act as indirect sounding boards for various people within Labour’s orbit, sources say.
Broadening out beyond the kitchen cabinet, the promotions to Hipkins Cabinet have a very Wellington flavour to them. Despite many of these MPs being younger and less experience they have been invested with a significant amount of trust by Hipkins.
They include MP for Mana and minister for internal affairs Barbara Edmonds, MP for Hutt and Police Minister Ginny Andersen as well as the MP for Wairarapa and local government and emergency management minister Kieran McAnulty.
Less widely known is that Hipkins and new Health Minister Ayesha Verrall are good friends, having known each other since being university student union presidents at Victoria and Otago at the same time, although she is further to the left of Hipkins. New education minister Jan Tinetti also works closely with Hipkins.
The key staff
A crucial cog in team Hipkins’ is long time friend and new chief-of-staff Andrew Kirton. Most recently a lobbyist, Kirton is better described as a long time Labour operative who was general secretary of the party. He is an affable approachable character, brings significant experience from inside the party. Whereas Ardern’s office was characterised by some level of earnestness, Hipkins’ is a bit more light-hearted and keenly focussed on what middle New Zealand wants. Hipkins also relies on long-term staffer David Choat.
While power ultimately emanates from the prime minister’s chair, there are a team of professionals that think about how to craft the message.
The key people in Hipkins’ orbit in this regard are chief press secretary Andrew Campbell and deputy chief press secretary Richard Trow and as well as Gia Garrick. Campbell, a former Greens chief strategist who also worked at New Zealand Rugby was Ardern’s chief spinner since 2018. Trow, a salty Welshman and former Dominion journalist has been a Labour staffer for years and Hipkins' press secretary since Labour came to government in 2017.
The public servants
Between being new to the job and spending a fair bit of that time on disasters, Hipkins has not had as much regular interaction with senior officials as might usually be the case, and so key figures are still in a state of flux
Peter Hughes leads the Public Service Commission, a department Hipkins was formerly in charge of as public service minister. Hughes is a divisive figure in the service with vociferous backers and detractors alike. Hipkins' gets on well with Hughes, and reappointed him to the position in 2020.
Hughes is also he man who primarily looks into public service not behaving as it should. His deputy is Rebecca Kitteridge who joined the commission as deputy in late 2022 after leading the New Zealand Security and Intelligence Service. She is currently the acting chief executive in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
Brook Barrington, currently on leave, will continue to be a key player in the halls of power. Barrington, former foreign affairs chief executive, has been secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet since 2019 and has been a significant and important player throughout the Covid-19 response.
One person in business who Hipkins (and Labour) have had a bit to do with is the perennial Mr-Fix-It man: Sir Brian Roche. Used to help steady the NZTA Waka Kotahi board, to do ongoing reviews of the Covid-19 Response and now cyclone recovery, he is trusted by Labour and Hipkins to ensure things run smoothly.
Veteran lobbyist Mark Unsworth remains a fixture in the halls of power. In the broader ex-Labour team often seen around the halls of power are lobbyists Neale Jones and Clayton Cosgrove.
However, it is people who might have Hipkins ear outside of politics that has many scratching their heads, but everyone spoken to by The Post, including Hipkins himself, say that that’s not how he operates.
Significantly – and he acknowledges it's a bit lame – he says that going to the Upper Hutt Pak’nSave probably gives him the best informal advice he gets.
“Still doing supermarket shopping does make a difference, some of the ladies that work there have known me the whole time.”
He thinks the crucial thing is to remember just what voters have going on in their lives
He says that getting out into the public, standing on the sidelines at community sports fields, are all things that “makes you realise just how little politics cuts through into people's daily lives”.
He also says that outside of politics and officialdom most advice he tries to glean is about how best to talk about issues.
“Those conversations and those things informs how you talk about things - Governments come unstuck when their decisions are informed by market research.
“Decision that you make are value propositions, but your market research tells you how you talk about it.”
He exercises power in transparent ways – he listens a lot, decides where the political play is. He is a private person who jealously guards his personal life and separates it from his politics. Outside of politics he likes to spend time with his children and just muck around at home with little DIY projects.
He has also taken charge of the party in an election year, where the nature of his job is to get Labour re-elected as well as govern the country. This as much as anything drives membership of his inner circle.