As Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins proved his mettle. Here's hoping he can do the same as Police Minister, writes John Roughan. Photo / Mark Mitchell
As Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins proved his mettle. Here's hoping he can do the same as Police Minister, writes John Roughan. Photo / Mark Mitchell
OPINION
Chris Hipkins is the go-to guy again. His pandemic job done, he has been handed the Police portfolio in the Cabinet reshuffle this week to deal with another worrying infestation, gangs with guns.
Every government finds its troubleshooter. Steven Joyce in the last one, Michael Cullen in Clark's, BillBirch in Bolger's, Geoffrey Palmer in Lange's. Muldoon, of course, did it himself.
Sometimes they are whip-crackers on a lazy department, sometimes minesweepers, clearing a policy area of more potential public explosions, sometimes they are just conspicuously competent politicians, giving the country confidence that a problem can be fixed.
We saw a great deal of Hipkins during the pandemic lockdowns, when he did the weekly Wednesday press conferences between Jacinda Ardern on Mondays and Grant Robertson on Fridays. To my mind, Hipkins was the best of the three.
He possesses the invaluable political quality of candour that Ardern and Robertson do not. When Hipkins faced questions about mistakes or shortcomings in the Covid response, he didn't get unduly defensive on stage. He considered the problem, discussed it, conceded points at times.
It was more effective than the Prime Minister's relentless positivity or the Finance Minister's cleverness. Hipkins was not trying to disarm me with a smile or sophistry, he struck me as someone who would be honest to his cost, someone I can trust.
I don't think he is a hands-on operator, which isn't a role permitted to a Minister of Police thankfully, and might not be needed anyhow. There are more subtle ways of cracking a whip.
When the public hears houses in Auckland have been targets of drive-by shootings overnight, or that juveniles have driven a stolen car in a shop for a smash-and-grab, or that police officers are now confronting firearms in routine operations an average of twice a day, people just want to know the police are on to it.
We are told they are but we need to be told much more. We need to know about arrests – not names at that stage but numbers and places and some facts and figures about on-going investigations and their problems.
Hipkins proved in his Covid press conferences that he understands the public needs solid information, not blind reassurances. He also he proved himself capable of offending sensitivities if necessary.
When many in the press gallery bought into the idea the vaccination roll-out was racist because it didn't prioritise Māori, Hipkins bluntly rejected the contention. It was in everyone's interest, especially Māori, to get the whole population immunised as quickly as possible.
Chris Hipkins proved in his Covid press conferences that he understands the public needs solid information, not blind reassurances. Photo / Mark Mitchell
When the Delta variant leaked out of Auckland's lockdown, the likes of Ardern, Robertson, Ashley Bloomfield and Ayesha Verrall gently blamed "marginalised communities". Hipkins didn't mince his words, he called them gangs.
Candour is not just good politics, it can bring pressure to bear on even the most sacrosanct department of state. We have a police force with an admirable professional culture and consistently fine leadership but inside, as many former cops can attest, it is also a department with the protections and comforts of a public service.
When we read that a document containing the details of about 400 registered gun owners has been somehow "stolen" from police care, we have a right to hear a head has rolled. It is within the rights of a Minister of Police to express our expectation publicly and he should stay on the case until it happens.
I am probably hoping for too much from Hipkins. He wants to keep the Education portfolio, just as he did when he took on the Covid response. Education is his "passion", he says, and he points out there is an obvious connection between educational failure and youth crime. But I am not sure he is finding enough time for his "passion".
If there has been any news more disturbing than even juvenile car raids and drive-by shootings lately, it is the revelation that regular school attendance is down to 60 per cent, mainly in primary and intermediate schools where the foundations of learning have to be laid.
Hipkins' response has been rather lame, telling us truancy was a "complex" issue with no easy answers, etc. He has thrown some money at the problem, $88m, published a "strategy" of obvious bromides and given his ministry a soft target to raise regular attendance to just 70 per cent by 2024.
Whatever happened to truant officers, you might wonder? Education doesn't use that word anymore. They are an Attendance Service and the rot set in when it was centralised in 2013.
Here's hoping Hipkins does better with police. Facing a proliferation of gangs and guns, you have to hope.
