Labour leader Chris Hipkins saying he will not resign after yesterday's poll results, that he will be announce some shadow line-up changes this week, and wouldn't confirm if Grant Robertson is leaving.
Video / Mark Mitchell
Opinion by Claire Trevett
Claire Trevett is the New Zealand Herald’s Political Editor, based at Parliament in Wellington.
On Tuesday, Labour leader Chris Hipkins went through the traditional humiliation of an Opposition leader having to face up to questions about a slump in his personal polling levels.
Just down the hallway, his MP Willie Jackson was doing his utmost to set things right bytelling media there was a Hipkins Strategy in place.
Jackson can be an entertaining chap – and he is very loyal to Hipkins.
Asked what this strategy was, Jackson said he could not say. It was still a secret, but he insisted it was a banger and would see the love of the people flow back down on Hipkins and Labour.
A couple of hours after that, Hipkins turned up again at a press conference to talk teary-eyed about the resignation of his friend and support crew Grant Robertson.
The tears were personal - the pair were old friends, they had been through a lot together and Hipkins had known Robertson had his back.
It is a discombobulating time for Hipkins and so for Labour.
Leaders of the Opposition risk facing three enemies: the polls, ill-disciplined MPs and themselves.
Hipkins got a taste of the second the day after Robertson’s resignation.
Illustration / Guy Body
Ginny Andersen has done no favours for him with her bizarre attack on Police Minister Mark Mitchell on Newstalk ZB about his past as a security contractor in the Middle East. Mitchell quite rightly described it as a character assassination.
Hipkins has said it went too far. Andersen has apologised to Mitchell personally, but not publicly and clearly not satisfactorily. She is now refusing to front on it. If that public apology doesn’t happen on next Wednesday’s slot on Newstalk ZB, she needs a talking-to.
Andersen and Hipkins have sought to downplay it, by pointing to the often “robust” exchanges the two have on that Wednesday show. But Mitchell’s side of the “robust” exchange had been about the performance of the past Labour Government. Andersen made it personal and then kept digging.
It was, quite rightly, put into the background by both Labour and Mitchell after news of the death of Fa’anānā Efeso Collins later that morning.
The election drubbing was enough to start up the speculation about how long Hipkins would last as leader. The 1News Verian poll out this week, showing Hipkins’ rating as preferred PM had dropped to 15 per cent has done little to silence them.
He does have some time up his sleeve. There are no signs as yet that any other credible leadership contender is ready to put their hand up. Once regular speculation starts around one or two names, that will become a more present danger for him. But until there are proper contenders to be a new leader, there is no point in rolling the old one.
That gives him a window of opportunity to make sure that those names do not emerge, and that he is the one still standing in 2026.
He needs to convince his caucus – and the wider party – he should stay in the job. That has to come before he can convince the public of it.
How he goes about that will be crucial. Willie’s great strategy will need to be a good one and to actually be delivered on.
Surviving as a leader in Opposition for three full years is no small task; it has not been achieved since Phil Goff managed to last from after the 2008 election until just after the 2011 election.
In some ways Hipkins is in the same boat as Goff, who was put into the role to hold the party together in its first term in Opposition after nine years in government. There was little hope or expectation among the realists within Labour that it would have a chance of winning the 2011 election, and nobody else really wanted to take the fall.
That aspect of it is a little bit different for Labour now. They do have some hope, although that hope is optimistically based on a National-Act-NZ First coalition ending up in a morass of dysfunction rather than a great resurgent Labour. There are no signs that is imminent.
Labour MP Ginny Andersen did not give leader Chris Hipkins much to smile about this week. Photo / Mark Mitchell
But that hope could be a problem for Hipkins, if his party think he is the reason Labour is not capitalising on what opportunities do arise.
Hipkins has to start looking as if he actually still wants the job, and as if his heart is in it.
He needs to try to reclaim some of the original vim he had when he first took over, a vim that the election campaign and result thumped out of him a bit. He also needs to convince caucus he is open to bending to their wishes rather than making unilateral decisions, as he did during his policy bonfire.
At the moment, Hipkins’ relatively low-key approach is not a big problem. It will become a big problem if he doesn’t start ramping it up over the next six months to a year.
The first step for Hipkins is establishing himself with a new tight unit.
Opposition leaders need a group of loyal MPs around them who have the clout to manage the rest of caucus – and stare down any potential uprisings. Robertson leaves a big gap there.
His value to Labour in Opposition was not so much his experience in the finance role as in his role as a guiding hand and political strategist. He was its spine, with great influence and respect within Labour. His departure will unsettle a fair few of them.
Hipkins does have loyal MPs – but he needs a new Robertson and Ardern, the ones who have his back and enough sway to tell him when he’s going adrift. That will mean the likes of Megan Woods and Ayesha Verrall need to step into the gap left by Robertson especially when it comes to areas such as policy formulation.
Barbara Edmonds should be more than able to handle the finance role once she gets her boots on, but that wider role is harder to replace.
The final challenge for Hipkins is that, as well as being on the attack, he will also have to be on defence. National takes every opportunity it can to point to the failings and shortcomings of the former Labour Government – often merrily erasing the challenges of dealing with Covid-19 from history in doing so.
Robertson’s departure is a small help in that regard – Edmonds can hardly be held to account for actions taken by Robertson as finance minister.
However, Hipkins still can. This week provided a further illustration of that in the release of child poverty figures. Those were bad news for Labour, because the figures had deteriorated further under its watch – despite it being a key target of Labour.
It is also bad news for National because that problem is now on its doorstep and Luxon has said he will be able to do better than Labour. He may well be able to, without even trying, as inflation starts to ease back.
You can bet National ministers will be rubbing the dire results into Labour’s face – not least to ensure the wider public do not blame it for the numbers. In fact, there is such a lag in the numbers that we won’t get the first months of the National Government until 2026, just in time for the next election.
