Chris Hipkins won’t be critical ‘just for the sake of getting on the telly’

Saturday, 24 August 2024

Does New Zealand have an effective Opposition in a party that’s still licking its wounds? Kelly Dennett and Anna Whyte report.

Chris Hipkins is a man with time to read.

Thirty books this year, he says. It’s easy if you do a few pages before bed. And after last year’s election loss the former prime minister of nine months no longer has reams of documents to pore over late into the night.

The leader of the Opposition’s book shelves in his parliamentary office are an unsurprising tribute to the political memoir. One about Norman Kirk was impressive, Bill Clinton’s not so much. The tomes are divided into international and local sections and on bottom shelves are academic education texts.

The words of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous The Man in the Arena are framed beside the shelf. Notable for its call to noble action, a kind of anti-potshots from the sidelines that’s so common in politics, one line reads: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.”

Says Hipkins: “Generally I hate critiquing other politicians’ personalities and styles and so on, because that’s just not who I am. I tend to prefer to focus on being the best person, best politician, best leader that I can be … I don’t want us to criticise, I want us to be constructive and supportive. I’m not going to be critical, just for the sake of getting on the telly.”

Where, then, is the sweat and blood seen before the election now, and how does an Opposition leader recalibrate after a thrashing that saw the party gain just 26.9% of the vote last year?

The delicate balance is that atoning or dwelling too long serves as a constant reminder to the public of the past, while going too hard, too early, risks peaking before the next campaign, allowing time for holes to be poked in policies, for energy to run out.

How little is too little then, when it comes to hearing from the Opposition?

And how, exactly, does the man voted out of the top job plan to bring Labour back into Government?

There’s a certain mental switching of gears when you go from the ninth floor to reading Norman Kirk before bed. Hipkins describes being a different kind of busy. As prime minister you “kind of get swept along”, but being in Opposition was a chance to redesign the day.

“Here, there isn’t really anything that you have to do, other than show up to Parliament to do Question Time. So really, it’s how you shape the job.”

Hipkins is quick to clarify that if you’re not busy in Opposition, “then you’re not doing it well. So you still need to be busy, but you get to determine what that business looks like.”

It’s Friday morning and the Labour leader has just had a successful appearance in front of the Local Government New Zealand conference, where earlier in the week Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had lectured unimpressed mayors on fiscal prudence, (“Sorry [about him],” Hipkins told the audience yesterday).

The day before, Hipkins had travelled the Wairarapa, sitting down with the local editor and offering stand-up opportunities with media in rural Carterton. Where a year ago a media contingent followed Hipkins’ every move closely, it’s understood there was little interest in this trip. With no policy announcements coming from the Labour camp, there wasn’t really a story, says one bemused local reporter.

Hipkins says the policy won’t be coming until next year. While the party’s senior members are striking out on the Government’s key announcements ‒ Ayesha Verrall is strong on health, Kieran McNulty on local government ‒ there’s little to be found, if one goes looking, on Labour’s thoughts on some of the Government’s most contentious policy as the coalition sets its sights on the economy, education and law and order.

For example, the little known Rachel Brooking has been the party’s main voice on the contentious fast track legislation, while justice spokesperson Duncan Webb’s first solo proactive press release was about contract law ‒ although police spokesperson Ginny Andersen has been active on police and firearms.

Barbara Edmonds is considered one to watch as finance spokesperson, but the party also has a rigorous process to follow through its board to shape its economic policy ‒ so don’t expect tax ideas too soon. “I think we need a different tax policy going into the next election,” says Hipkins. “I’m not going to put my penny down on what that might look like.”

While the party has very slowly ratcheted up its ripostes, there’s a feeling Labour has lost its mojo, with commentators alternatively describing Labour as losing its voice, or needing to up the ante.

To be a successful political leader ‒ whether that is the person in power or the person who wants to be in power ‒ politics Professor Richard Shaw says Hipkins needs a clear policy offer as it’s become “very unclear” what Labour stands for.

Hipkins needs a story, says Shaw. “Both about himself and about the party that he leads that will distinguish it from both the party he inherited from [Dame Jacinda] Ardern and the parties he'll be up against come 2026.”

Shaw says it’s almost easier to describe what Hipkins’ leadership isn’t.

“I don't mean this necessarily in a pejorative or a negative way, because the things that he isn't may very well be the things that eventually appeal to people … [but] nobody is ever going to talk about Hipkins-mania in the way that we did about Ardern.

“He's an extremely intelligent man and a highly experienced politician, but I don't think he has that sort of steel trap mind that [Helen] Clark did, he doesn't have the rhetorical brilliance … that [David] Lange did.

“What he is, is down to earth ‒ at least, that is how he presents. He's deeply steeped in politics. He's a good operator.”

That said, Shaw finds himself wondering what Hipkins’ special sauce is: “The one thing that makes him stand out that you could distil and bottle and sell with?

“With Lange and Clark and Ardern, that was really, really clear, with guys like [David] Cunliffe and to a lesser extent Andrew Little, Phil Goff, it’s less clear.

“Hipkins feels a little to me as if he needs to find and then really burnish and then communicate very clearly the thing that sets him apart as a prime minister in waiting. It's complicated by the fact that he's already been the prime minister.”

Hipkins during the pandemic firmly established himself as that political unicorn ‒ the aforementioned intelligent operator who could also compel a laugh or at least a smile with his love of sausage rolls, Coke Zero, his local RSA and a cheeky joke.

Hipkins says he’s still that person, and that the humour and humility during the Covid years was a necessary tool. The importance of personality in a politician was both over and underestimated, he says.

“Let’s be clear that the pandemic was the biggest challenge probably I faced in my lifetime. A big part of bringing the country with you is that you have to be relatable, and you have to be honest, and you also have to acknowledge that not everything goes according to plan.”

PR expert, journalist and former chief press secretary to then-Opposition leader Judith Collins, Janet Wilson describes the role of Opposition leader as “the hardest, hardest job in all of politics”.

“All too often, Opposition leaders are seen in comparison to those who are in power. The danger … is that they are seen as just barking at passing cars, piping up and trying to get column inches and on-air time at every level and that forces them to make comments … to play the culture wars, to do that kind of stuff.”

Hipkins rode Labour’s turbulent waves of the 2010s, as the party went through two tight leadership contests and four Opposition leaders ‒ Phil Goff, David (Shearer and Cunliffe) and Andrew Little ‒ between prime ministers Helen Clark and Dame Jacinda Ardern.

Wilson thinks he has probably watched and learned, “but to his detriment”.

“The man who led a party to an historic loss immediately in the wake of an historic gain is not the leader who is going to take you through to a win at the next election,” she says.

“Hipkins keeps telling us he's listening, but he's not telling us what he's hearing, and I think that's a problem for him.

“If he can't actually reflect back what he's hearing and how he's thinking, we're just going to get the same kind of thinking that we got during the campaign when he made his captain's calls that went completely against Labour Party policy and ideology [of] the last 10 years.

“The name is on the tin ‒ Labour. Where are their working class policies? Taking GST off fruits and vegetables isn't going to cut it when you can barely make rent and you can't put bread and butter on the table.”

Labour is still getting to grips with being in Opposition ‒ the majority of the party have never been here before, Hipkins points out.

“We had to talk to them about, OK, this is a different job, you know. Even the ones who had been in Opposition before, I had to set out a different set of expectations.

“I’m not just going to repeat what we did last time we were in Opposition. I want to do it differently, and that means being more thoughtful about what we criticise the Government for, and what we don’t.

“I think Kiwis have, frankly, had a guts’ full of the notion that every time there’s a change of government, the Government just reverses everything the last [one’s] done.”

There is a tightrope to walk, Hipkins says, although not in those words. Telling voters, many of whom will be giving the coalition Government the benefit of the doubt in the first year, that they’ve got their vote wrong, won’t go down well. “We’re not going to win support back by saying, ‘you were wrong, you made a mistake’.”

The party was doing policy work behind the scenes, and would be ready to present new ideas in the new year, Hipkins says, not agreeing that a year of reflecting and listening may lead to a void a traditionally noisy Opposition once filled. Good policy and exciting ideas wouldn’t form overnight.

“I think what matters is that when they do hear from us, we’ve got something meaningful to tell them. I think when we are criticising, they want to hear, well, what’s your alternative? What would you do differently? And so that means we have to have answers.”

Shaw says, to some extent, Hipkins’ strategy is correct.

“There is a risk in trying constantly to insert yourself into the political narrative that you start looking a little bit needy. The structure of the current Government has sufficient potential political fault lines that might be forced open by events and circumstances that Hipkins doesn’t really need to go looking for chinks in the armour.

“What really matters now is whatever it is that he is doing to build his party and their potential parliamentary allies into a credible electoral force for 2026 ‒ that's the long game.”

Wilson, though, says Labour needs to be a lot more daring.

“They're not being nearly brave enough, and they haven't been all through the last six years of their last administration, and even during Helen Clark’s time. Why do you have political capital? To spend it.

“I think they're thinking with Luxon so low in the polls at this stage of the election cycle for a new PM, that all they have to do is sit there and twiddle their thumbs, and that come 2026 they'll be ushered in as the brave new people.”

Hipkins says he is absolutely committed to leading Labour into election 2026, and rejects that it’s because there’s no-one else to lead. He also rejects a column published that morning by a commentator suggesting Hipkins should get out of the road and make way for McAnulty.

“Oh, nonsense. I mean, look, I think Kieran, one day, if he wants to be, will be a fantastic leader of the Labour party. He doesn’t want to do that right now.”

At the outset of our interview Hipkins describes a summer spent carefully thinking whether he wanted to dedicate another potential decade to the party as leader, saying he sought counsel from friends, family, former colleagues. Ultimately, he decided he had plenty to give.

“I’m in this for the long haul. I’ve still got energy for this job, and I want to lead Labour back into government.

“We were in Opposition for nine years. No-one wants to do that again.”