OPINION
It might be the fact that yet another of his ministers is in trouble (or rather, the fact that one of his in-trouble ministers is in trouble again).
Or it might just be crashing a bit after the adrenaline rush of meeting President Xi Jinping and the top tiers of the Chinese leadership earlier this week.
Whatever it is, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins felt a bit flat on his last day in Beijing, the wind having decidedly left his sails.
He should feel on top of the world. He’d done his job in China, and done it well.
The Hutt Valley Marco Polo said the “crystal clear” focus of this mission was trade and the economy. By that measure, the trip has gone extremely well.
He secured meetings with the top three members of the Chinese leadership, garnering him plenty of good coverage in the local press (an indication China’s Government has been happy with the visit as well).
The decision to bring Te Matatini champions Te Whānau-ā-Apanui was an inspired one. Photographs of the group performing on the Great Wall have been doing the rounds on Chinese social media. Their presence in pōwhiri and other protocol events on the trip has genuinely piqued local interest.
A pair of local influencers (called Key Opinion Leaders in the local argot) said tourism experiences Māori were a highlight of their recent visit. They weren’t kidding, pronouncing te reo Māori words better than many New Zealanders - in fact an MC at an influencer event in Shanghai used the word Aotearoa to recover from a nearly fatal faux pas, when he urged visitors to visit “Austr-… Aotearoa…”
Pretty good save. The poor MC was mortified.
Hipkins did not come on a diplomatic mission, and diplomatic goals have not been achieved. He didn’t discuss in any detail human rights, Xinjiang, Hong Kong or the militarisation of the Pacific with Xi (although he recovered slightly the day following his meeting with Xi, discussing all of these with Chinese Premier Li Qiang).
This will disappoint many, and for good reason. But Hipkins didn’t come to China to score a great feat of diplomacy, beyond dancing a few steps in New Zealand’s interminable diplomatic tango between China and the United States.
No, this was a trade mission, and by that measure, it was a success.
China’s one-party system means that even more than in other countries, politicians open doors. The mission, members of the business delegation say, has opened doors that may otherwise have remained shut.
Weta’s Sir Richard Taylor, Rocketwerkz’s Dean Hall and PikPok’s Tyrone McAuley met with the director of the China Audio-Video And Digital Publishing Association. Hall described one meeting as achieving more progress than past 10 years. That’s crucial for a sector New Zealand is desperately trying to grow as we diversify away from primary production exports.
But despite that success, poor Chippy seemed distinctly un-chipper on his last day in Beijing.
Maybe it was the jet lag. He acknowledged the gruelling schedule when asked how he was feeling on Thursday. That might need to be looked at. Ardern was no slouch, but she didn’t pack her schedule with back-to-back trade events to the extent Hipkins has.
Perhaps the problem is that once again domestic problems, dating back to before his leadership began, have chased Hipkins overseas. He wanted to discuss the improving business outlook in China; instead, he ended up fielding questions about whether he was obliged to trigger a snap election if he loses another minister.
On Wednesday, the pressure appeared to get to him.
He delivered three of the flattest speeches he’s of his time in government, one to students at Peking University, the rest to a succession of trade events.
Pity the poor students of Peking University who were dragged from their summer holidays to listen to the dry speech.
Subsequent speeches were also lacklustre, with Hipkins rolling out the old gag that we would personally assist people booking their trips here.
It’s not a bad gag. Jacinda Ardern used it to her advantage, personally collecting Steven Colbert from the airport. But poor Hipkins wasn’t able to summon the energy to sell it like she did.
Hipkins will inevitably be compared with Ardern when overseas. She thrived on the world stage. It energised her for the long maul that is domestic politics (quite unlike Hipkins, who seems to take more pleasure in the no-holds-barred melee that is domestic politics).
Her own big international university speech, delivered to Harvard, is one of the best any recent prime minister has ever given (the comparison is a bit unfair, as that speech was a centrepiece of that particular mission).
Overseas, she somehow managed to turn it on at innumerable business functions, electrifying and captivating a room. Hipkins, by contrast, can’t seem to summon the same secret sauce.
This may be no bad thing. The high rhetoric that made Ardern great abroad wore thin with the electorate at home.
Hipkins’ home brand Cossie Club-ness doesn’t inspire Ardern-like devotion overseas, but it seems to be the reset the New Zealand electorate was looking for from Labour.
That fact aside, Hipkins also seems genuinely exhausted by the past few weeks, and fair enough.
He departed to China having survived yet another petty scandal, accepting Michael Wood’s resignation just days before leaving the country.
Then, mid-trip, issues with another minister, Kiri Allan, emerged in the form of a Stuff story about “concerns” raised regarding the culture in her office.
Hipkins has been let down on multiple fronts. Let down by Ardern, who stuffed the closets of the Beehive with so many skeletons the place is beginning to feel like the grim reaper’s advent calendar.
He’s been let down by his ministers, too. Hipkins, his office and his kitchen Cabinet pulled off a miracle earlier this year, rescuing Labour’s polling from a National-Act victory.
Some of his ministers did not seem to appreciate the feat, and have plagued him with front page after front page of bad news.
While the things these ministers have been in trouble almost always began under Ardern’s watch, Hipkins’ Cabinet hasn’t taken seriously the warning he put out following the Nash scandal to make sure they identified and sorted any potential future problems.
Hipkins heads home today a victor in China, but in trouble at home. He’ll be livid that domestic strife has occupied the news for two out of the five days he has been abroad, robbing him of a week of good photo ops. Leaving the country during an election year is always a risk, and the struggles at home suggest that while Hipkins’ tour may have been a victory for the country and the economy, strife at home means those wins may not translate into wins for himself and Labour.
He’ll need to give his ministers an earful next week, a warning to behave.
He can’t risk another foreign trip being derailed by more ministerial misfires.
Ministers don’t have long to get the message. Hipkins leaves for Europe next week for the Nato summit in Lithuania, his last significant trip before the election.
Thomas Coughlan is deputy political editor of the New Zealand Herald, which he joined in 2021. He previously worked for Stuff and Newsroom in their Press Gallery offices in Wellington. He started in the Press Gallery in 2018.
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