When Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister in January 2023, the legacy media preposterously promoted him as a new broom. By promising a “policy bonfire” of some of the issues that had led to Labour’s plunging popularity, he somehow persuaded journalists to overlook the fact he had been Jacinda Ardern’s faithful lieutenant and confidant for five years in government.
After he turned up to a media interview in Napier to talk about his new role wearing wraparound sunglasses, cap and hoodie they presented him as a working-class lad from the hard-scrabble Hutt Valley with a tough streak underneath his look of boyish innocence. In reality, he had been raised in a thoroughly middle-class family, but nevertheless it was a confected image he happily went along with.
That he had been an integral part of Ardern’s “kitchen Cabinet” was mostly forgotten. As was the fact he had been the Minister of Police during a crime wave; the Minister of Education who oversaw the introduction of a one-eyed, black-armband compulsory history curriculum in schools focused on the supposed evils of colonisation, and the insertion of the spiritualism of mātauranga Māori into science courses; as well as the Minister for the Public Service when its numbers swelled to bursting point.
And, of course, he was also the Minister for Covid-19 Response from November 6, 2020, to June 14, 2022, which included the national lockdown in August-September 2021 while Auckland and Northland endured a longer lockdown. He was also in charge of organising border closures, ordering vaccines on time and mandates.
Since Labour’s spectacular defeat at 2023’s election, Hipkins hasn’t been keen to draw attention to his party’s record in office to burnish his credentials as a Prime Minister in waiting. As David Seymour said in a speech to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce in February: “Chris Hipkins is a politician we have to admire. Slipperier than an eel fed on sausage rolls, no politician has glided over failure like he has.”
Suddenly, however, the fog of amnesia is being lifted. And Hipkins — just 15 months away from an election — is becoming visibly rattled as inconvenient facts about the previous Labour government’s management rise to the surface.
His show of tetchiness early this month over a dramatic drop in ram-raids since Labour’s term ended was extraordinary. Speaking to Newstalk ZB, he claimed the reason that reports of ram raids no longer appeared on the NZ Herald’s front page was because its “Tory owners” had “decided that it’s not in the government’s best interests and they do the National Party’s singing for them”.
Hipkins said the raids were “still happening,” but just weren’t being covered now.
The Herald quickly debunked his wild assertion. Its political editor, Thomas Coughlan, pointed out that in 2022, under the Labour government, there were 714 ram raids, or 59 a month. The numbers began falling in 2023 when Hipkins was Prime Minister and implemented new measures, but in the first five months of this year, there were only 45 ram raids, or nine a month.
“I would imagine the reason why there aren’t so many ram raids on the front page is there are just far fewer ram raids,” Coughlan said.
The interview was a reminder that, when he is cornered, Hipkins will say anything to save face, no matter how divorced from reality it might be. In September 2023, five weeks before the election, he acknowledged that although the Covid period was “a challenging time for people they ultimately made their own choices” about whether to accept a vaccination — despite the mandates meaning the unvaccinated would at the very least be shut out of shops, cafes and entertainment venues or, worse, might lose their jobs
Clearly untroubled by stretching the truth to breaking point, he reiterated: “There was no compulsory vaccination. People made their own choices.”
Hipkins is now showing a similar tin-eared defensiveness and aggression about the second instalment of the Covid inquiries by damning participants as “conspiracy theorists”. This is an extremely reckless gambit because it will bring back very strong memories for many voters of just how contemptuous Ardern and her ministers were towards those who dissented from the official narrative she expounded daily from the “podium of truth”.
Rather than demonising those who didn’t want to be injected with what many viewed as an experimental vaccine, they could have been classed from the beginning as conscientious objectors. That would have acknowledged most were exercising their right to informed consent and taking a stand based on principle. Section 11 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights 1990, for instance, states: “Everyone has the right to refuse to undergo any medical treatment.” Dismissing them out of hand as conspiracy theorists shows Hipkins has learned nothing.
Some of those who rejected the vaccine might still have lost their jobs and some of their liberties according to the government’s assessment (well-founded or not) of the risk they posed to others, but avoiding branding them as a caste of untouchables would have at least acknowledged their position deserved respect in a liberal democracy — and perhaps eased the polarisation that was ripping the nation apart.
Instead, Speaker of the House Trevor Mallard described the protesters outside Parliament in early 2022 as “feral” while the Deputy Leader of the House, Michael Woods, called them a “river of filth”.
Hipkins says he will “co-operate” with the inquiry and has agreed to answer questions put to him in writing but he is obviously very reluctant to appear in person. Unfortunately for him, that makes him look as if he has something to hide.
When Ryan Bridge on Herald Now asked Hipkins if there were questions “you don’t want to answer”, his curt reply — “Nope” — was particularly unconvincing.
There are many serious questions voters want Labour’s leader to answer in person given he was the Covid minister managing the government’s response. His bluster about what he sees as the shortcomings of the inquiry can’t absolve him from responsibility for the decisions he made in that role.
Political commentator and broadcaster Peter Williams, for one, has posed questions for Hipkins on his Substack:
“When the government approved the Pfizer vaccine in February 2021 were you as the Covid-19 Response minister aware:
That the duration of vaccine protection was not established beyond two months?
That there was limited evidence of protection against severe disease?
That there was no long term safety follow-up information?
That prevention of disease transmission had not been established?”
Williams has presented what appears to be damning advice gained from OIA requests that makes it imperative these questions are answered. Hipkins may have perfectly credible explanations for what appear to be instances of the government ignoring official health warnings but the public deserves to hear them. After all, the focus of the inquiry includes the safety of the vaccines and how they were approved.
There is a lot at stake for Hipkins in how he deals with the inquiry and the sudden focus on the influential role he played in Covid management. Labour’s hopes of returning to government next year depend on vastly improving on its performance in Auckland at the last election. Somehow, he has to convince Aucklanders that he understands just how much damage the extended lockdown in late 2021 did to businesses, households, health and education.
The scale of Labour’s losses in the nation’s biggest city now go largely unremarked, but under Hipkins’ prime ministership his party managed to lose New Lynn and Mt Roskill, which had been rock-solid seats for the party for decades. Labour also nearly lost its traditional stronghold of Mt Albert, which it had held since 1946 when it was created. In 2020, Jacinda Ardern had won the seat with a 20,000 majority.
Hipkins has his work cut out for him in Auckland, where the effects of his Covid policies were most keenly felt — and resented. Trying to undermine the credibility of the commission of inquiry by dismissing it as “politicised” and demonising those who show up to voice their opinions in public is hardly a promising start.