‘We aren’t feral’: Just how can Chippy soothe Labour losers?

Sunday, 1 December 2024

Andrea Vance is National Affairs Editor for The Post and Sunday Star-Times.

OPINION: When Chris Hipkins climbs onto the stage at Christchurch’s Isaac Theatre Royal later today, it will be to give the speech of his career.

Few people, beyond the party faithful and the politics tragics, will be listening.

But for now it’s only this room full of losers — roundly rejected by the electorate just over a year ago — that Hipkins must win over.

He says he wants to lead the Labour Party to the election in 2026.

If that’s true, to get a second chance at victory, he needs to convince the conference that he is more than a caretaker. Just how sore are these losers?

No-one should underestimate Chippy’s killer survival instincts. He’s lasted the year with no major internal ructions.

He avoided becoming a target, largely by being invisible.

And, there’s no sport in shooting a lame duck. Any obvious replacement can afford to wait and gain more profile and political experience.

But there’s surviving, and then there is performing a miracle.

Polling suggests the public like him fine. He’s clever, experienced, able to deliver an incisive sound bite, and even talks like a regular human.

But liking him is one thing. Trusting him and his party to run the country and the economy again is quite another.

After such a long career in the public eye, Hipkins cannot be remade.

Nor can he disassociate himself from the Jacinda Ardern government, and his poor track record as health, education and police minister.

It’s a cliché to observe one-term governments are rare, but it’s also true.

One of those was led by Norm Kirk, who died 50 years ago — and his Labour government shortly after.

The spectre of history haunts this conference. It suggests National will get at least six years.

Even if the recession is deeper and crueller than expected, Christopher Luxon’s government isn’t actively botching it, and better times are on the (distant) horizon.

And while anger over the redundant Treaty Principles Bill is genuine, it will dissipate. It is unlikely to move votes two years from now.

Hipkins can’t escape his political destiny. The sand is slipping through the hourglass of his leadership; the question is just how quickly.

But he can alter the outcome for his party, in two ways that are interconnected.

Internecine wars are what keep parties out of office, and one threatens to broil over tax policy.

That won’t be decided this weekend, but Hipkins has made enough soothing noises about narrowing options to keep the membership happy. “We aren’t feral,” as one put it on the eve of the conference.

And those options pave way for the second goal: winning the financial competence argument. Only then can the party lean into Labour’s electoral strengths like health and social services.

Unemployment will be an Achilles heel for National next year, as austerity bites. Labour can argue that the country won’t get its mojo back with cuts, and not building new hospitals or ferries.

At the same time, the party needs to develop an alternative strategy that focuses on jobs and incomes.

Capital taxation will almost certainly be part of that strategy — but it’s only sellable if the numbers add up and there is a credible plan for the extra revenue.

The best thing that Hipkins can offer the conference floor is comfort that the party is developing a semblance of a plan to fight the next election.

It’s unlikely to be him taking that plan to the electorate.

His job is get the party match-fit and make that battle easier for the next leader.

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