Election 2023: The PM Job Interview - Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins on the missed chance for a snap election, coalition options and plans for a team reset

Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins says he still has no regrets about not calling a snap election earlier in the year when Labour’s polling was rosier, even if he’d had the benefit of hindsight.

The NZ Herald’s Shayne Currie, Liam Dann and Claire Trevett put Hipkins and National leader Christopher Luxon through their paces in the NZ Herald’s PM’s Job Interview, asking questions about their leadership style, plans for the economy, regrets and the big decisions on a PM’s plate, such as what it would take to send troops to war.

In his interview, Hipkins was asked what he would do differently in hindsight – and whether that would include a snap election.

He said he still did not believe there would have been any justification for a snap election in the months after former PM Jacinda Ardern resigned, despite Labour’s battle in the polls since.

However, one of the reasons for that slump in polling was a string of problems with ministers he inherited from Ardern – and he did say he would have set up his Cabinet differently had he known then what he knew now.

“I would have made different decisions. [But] you have to make decisions based on the information you have at the time.”

He also said he was not spending any time thinking about whether to stay in politics if he is not re-elected as prime minister on Saturday, but still has the hunger for another term in that job.

Asked if he had the hunger for politics to stay on if he wasn’t in the top job, he said he had not given it any thought. Nor had he contemplated whether his caucus would continue to support him if he lost.

“I feel like I am just getting started, to be honest, in the job of prime minister and I’d love to have a full term at it. My focus really is on leading the strongest possible campaign for Labour so that we are in the best position possible to form a government after the election.”

Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins undergoes his prime minister job interview with (from left) Liam Dann, Shayne Currie and Claire Trevett. Photo / Mike Scott

As to the shape of that possible government, Hipkins would not say if he would be comfortable having both the Green Party and Te Pāti Māori sitting around the Cabinet table with Labour, but all options were on the table.

However, he said coalition often did not work out well for the smaller parties.

“If you think about coalitions, for the smaller parties generally it’s not worked out so well for them. I think you can deliver strong governance with a range of different arrangements.”

He said it was a question for New Zealanders whether a smaller party was in a position to be included in Cabinet. “But we have worked together with both of those parties and I’m sure we can continue to do so.”

Hipkins said one of his early priorities if he wins the election will be a reshuffle to lock in a “new-look team” after troubles with MPs buffeted his first nine months in office.

He was asked what areas of his leadership he had to work on. He pointed to his team, saying he had had to make more changes than he anticipated after having to demote or sack Michael Wood, Stuart Nash and Kiri Allan and the defection of Meka Whaitiri.

“So I want to make sure we really lock the team down after the election. It will certainly be a new-look team.”

Although that string of problems was a factor in Labour’s drop in polling, Hipkins said he remained optimistic about the election.

He described his leadership style as “inclusive and stable and consistent”.

“I’ve set very clear standards for ministers and, where they haven’t met them, the New Zealand public have seen that I’ve taken action and there’s been consequences for that.”

He said the most difficult situation to deal with was Allan, who had to resign as justice minister – and is not standing for election again – after going through mental health problems and crashing her car.

“That was probably the most complicated and the most difficult. Kiri is incredibly talented and actually a very competent minister. But clearly her conduct and the issues she was facing made her position untenable.”

On what he would do to try to ease tensions around race if he was re-elected, he said New Zealand had made a lot of progress in reconciling past wrongs and should be proud of that. It should not shy away from trying to close inequities.

“It should be a bottom line for anybody. I don’t think any political leaders should be standing up in this election campaign and saying that they’re satisfied with the health system that produces such inequitable outcomes.

“The fact Māori don’t live as long as other New Zealanders and are more prone to a range of serious diseases .... is a sign we are failing as a society. The fact we are taking proactive action to deal with that is something I’m very proud of.”

Former Labour governments have delivered legacy projects such as the KiwiSaver, the Super Fund and Working for Families. Asked what he would want his legacy to be if he got a second term, he pointed to his policy for free dental care for under-30s and the plan to extend that as the economy allowed.

Asked why Labour wasn’t doing better, despite scepticism about National’s tax cuts and potential coalition partners, Hipkins said he believed it would do better on election night than the polls predicted.

Although he has acknowledged a mood for change, he said he believed voters were now digesting what that change might mean – and took aim at the prospect of a National-Act-NZ First government.

“It would be chaos, it would be unstable, it probably wouldn’t last a full term. And the fact that they’re already threatening New Zealanders with another general election before they’ve even sat around the table once is an indication of the sort of instability that kind of coalition would create.”

He also set out his credentials, saying the No 1 priority should be bringing inflation down. The economy was now righting itself, and inflation was set to drop back to usual levels by this time next year.

The extended period of high inflation has taken its toll on Hipkins’ polling, but he’s still backing himself. He points to free prescriptions, GST off fruit and veges, free dental care for under-30s – and adds that National would take them away.

“The cost of living is certainly biting NZ households, but they have to really ask themselves, would they be better off under a change of government? And I think most are now coming to the conclusion that they wouldn’t.”

On foreign affairs, Hipkins said both the US and China were very important to New Zealand. “And I think it’s in New Zealand’s best interest to preserve both of those relationships as much as we can.”

Asked if he would see a time when New Zealand might have to take a side, he said: “The best thing for the whole world will be to see the de-escalating of tension between the US and China.”

His ground rules for involving New Zealand in a war, or sending troops in, were based on principle rather than the need for a United States Security Council resolution. He pointed to the use of veto powers and New Zealand’s help for Ukraine. “We will support international efforts where it is consistent with our principles as a country. Generally speaking, that will often involve indirect support.”

Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.