Mike Hosking: Election 2023 - Chris Hipkins, Labour’s slogan meaningless, it’s results that count

OPINION

If Chris Hipkins is “in it for me” I’ll pass thanks.

The trouble with Labour’s campaign slogan is it highlights him, and the trouble with that is he is trying desperately to disassociate himself from his own record.

The reason the polls have turned so ugly is because, after two terms, Hipkins can pretend he has only been in the job a few months, but in reality he has been there for six years of government.

A lot of the major decisions this Government has made, and as a consequence a lot of the fallout from the lack of delivery or the shambles that ensued, were made by him.

This nonsense about being a boy from the Hutt is not new, he didn’t pop up from the Hutt when he got to be leader, he and his Hutt upbringing have been with him the entire time he was Minister of Education, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Police, or the Minister of Covid.

Just pause for a moment and ask yourself about the state of those activities.

Health: What sort of shape is it in, do you feel good about the health system? The waiting times, the lack of staff, the lack of services, the endless reorganisation.

Police: Do you feel the Government is on top of crime, are the ram raids a thing of the past, are those who deserve it in jail, do you feel safe in your neighbourhood?

Education: Are your kids getting world-class facilities and services, do your kids get taught by world-class teachers, do those schools have enough teachers, are your children progressing well in reading and writing and maths and science?

Was our approach to Covid the right one, asks Mike Hosking. Photo / Dean Purcell

Covid: Do you feel our approach was right, is the ensuing economic fallout a fair price to pay for the lockdowns, if you couldn’t get home from offshore do you now see that Hipkins was right in locking you out?

There can’t be a single New Zealander who has been untouched over the past six years by the work of Chris Hipkins.

The ironic thing I have always thought has been so insulting is he is often referred to as a “Mr Fix It”.

Another simple question: just what is it he has fixed?

Which service would you describe as better or improved or fixed? Health? Crime? Education?

Part of the “In It For You” slogan of course is about distancing himself from the rest of the party, who have so badly let him down, and arguing that as leader he should get a decent shot.

Part of it will also be about optics; we love a relatable leader, we love a bloke we can identify with.

And all of that may well have had the chance of getting some traction if he was a Chris Luxon-type figure, or earlier a John-Key type figure, a person who had been out in the world doing other stuff and returned home to make a contribution to the country.

But Hipkins has been there forever, all he has ever done is be a politician; very few of us can relate to that.

How can he be in it for us now …. if he hasn’t been in it for us since he arrived all those years ago?

Who was he in it for, then?

The sad and hard truth is, Labour are done for, because slogans can’t and don’t beat records, and the record of 2017 through 2023 speaks, if not shouts, for itself.

There is no more vision or new ideas, when you have had six years to implement anything your heart desires. What you should be running on is not slogans but records, results, facts, improvements.

What you should be running on is the long series of marked differences you have made that has led to world-class education, record levels of optimism, job growth, economic growth, the sense of accomplishment that this is a great country boxing a mile above its weight on the global stage.

They can point to none of that, hence they are reduced to slogans, a leader with a track record that even the best PR operative would have trouble selling.

And a country that is seeing guys like Marc Ellis bail, along with the thousands of others, because, as he so simply yet eloquently put it, we have lost our mojo.

Hipkins claims his upbringing grounded him in the reality of working families with big aspirations. In that we have something in common, I am from that same upbringing.

But I can tell you this for free, the country and aspiration I want doesn’t look anything like the one he’s presided over.

Mike Hosking hosts Newstalk ZB’s breakfast programme and is New Zealand’s number one talk host.