A cold facecloth on the fevered forehead of election year

2026-02-23 - 16:07

Analysis: It’s superficially tempting to agree with Nicola Willis that Chris Hipkins’ state of the nation speech was “jelly”. Or with Winston Peters that it was one of “the most boring in recorded history.” Or with David Seymour that it was “lightweight”. The speech was no headline-grabber. It was both deficient and disciplined. A relatively considered declaration of intent, a cold facecloth on the fevered political forehead of election year. It was Labour trying to convey maturity, a little contrition, humility and to claim it could be the adult in the room now and after the November 7 election. Whether it can hold that pose for nine months or will be allowed to, as demands for specific policies and revenue solutions build, is another thing. The learned assessments of the speech from the other side of the parliamentary aisle were as predictable as they were hyperbolic. (Quite why his opponents got to have the first assessment and most prominent headlines on the Labour leader’s speech is a mystery of the political-media industrial complex. Or perhaps it was because after giving the speech, Hipkins took the best part of an hour to front the media pack to explain himself.) The speech itself was Hipkins playing his cards close to his chest. But the Government critics might not have watched his question-and-answer sessions after the address, where he opened up about mistakes learned, inexperienced governments, the possibility of leading a minority government and more. On the ‘state’ of the nation, Hipkins ran through what Labour sees as this coalition’s failures in government finances: the cost of living, climate policies and energy planning and the emigration of thousands of Kiwis every month who no longer see a future here. The speech wasn’t inspirational or visionary, other than in its attempts to compete with PM Christopher Luxon in claiming Labour would “build the future”. If anything, this was Hipkins downplaying expectations of an incoming Labour-led administration. He focused almost myopically on what could be achieved within a first, three-year term, putting the concept of “affordability” at the centre of every decision in Labour’s election campaign and future ministry. And therein lay its significance. He wasn’t being boring by accident. He wanted to assure his Auckland Business Chamber audience of about 120, and beyond them the voting public, that Labour recognises the centrality of the cost of living and affordability to the lives and prospects of New Zealanders, and that it would act calmly and firmly. Often with these milestone political presentations, the most pertinent points come out beyond the reading of the autocue. In a question-and-answer session with former National leader and now chamber CEO Simon Bridges, Hipkins tried to head off obvious criticisms that Labour hadn’t shown such a capability two and a half years ago when it was expelled by the electorate. He accepted that that government hadn’t been “perfect”, that it had tried to do too much too fast. He and his team had learned and would not repeat the cycle in which promises made to voters were broken or not met. The comments about how Labour plans to play the pre-election period and a possible return to governing are worth a read: Promising not to over-promise “I’m not going to make promises unless I can deliver on them. The Government’s got a whole other Budget to go. The economy is in, really, a delicate space. “I don’t want to be going out and making a whole lot of promises where six months later we’re sitting there saying ‘Why did we promise that? We might need to dial that back.’ Hipkins offered a high-level judgment on what he saw as his opponents’ strategic failure this term. “I reckon the National Party made a mistake by promising tax cuts as early as they did and then they wedded themselves to them and they delivered them at entirely the wrong point of the economic cycle, and they weren’t willing to back out on that and say we’re going to delay these. If they had done that, I think some of the damage could have been avoided, I think. “So, I want to be careful. Yes, we are waiting until we get closer to the election before we start announcing more big policies. But I point out that the policies I announced towards the end of last year cumulatively are more policy announced now than the National Party had announced this time three years ago.” There was more “big policy” to come but most would come after the May Budget “because we want to get it right. When I say we want to promise only what we can deliver I really mean that. “Because democracy around the world is really struggling. And one of the reasons is people are kind of getting fed up with being promised everything will be rosy if you just vote for us and finding that’s not the reality. “So our campaign this time around is going to be very real. It’s going to be focused on the situation we are in now and what we actually can materially do in the next three years and then the things we can do that can give us a better long-term trajectory.” Hipkins 2.0 Bridges asked Hipkins how he had changed personally since leading Labour to defeat in October 2023. “Would Hipkins 2.0 be a bold, progressive government of substantive reform, or is it more of the same?” Hipkins: “Will we be focused on the things that will change course for New Zealand so that we end up in the right place in 20 or 30 years from now? Yes, we will. “But I’m not going to go out and promise people that everything is going to be better in three years if the changes that we need to make are going to take longer than that. I said I want to run a very grounded, very real campaign about things that we can reasonably do in the next three years but also things that we can do in the next three years that can actually set us up for a better future.” Asked if he had personally changed as a politician, Hipkins brought out some self-assessment lines that no doubt will feature in campaign material. “I’m probably a softer politician now than what I was when I first started in Parliament. I mean before I became an MP I worked for Trevor Mallard, and so sort of emulated him when I first arrived. “The reality of governing actually knocks some of those rough edges off you a little bit. You realise that actually everyone’s a human being. “We don’t like to talk about the pandemic, particularly not in Auckland but leading the country through the pandemic softened all of us a little bit, I think. And so I’m probably a kinder person now than I was when I first started in politics. “Experience in politics is important. I think governments have to have the right mix of people with new energy, new perspectives, new ideas, new external perspectives but you do actually need to have some people who have been around a wee while. “I’m really frustrated by the fact that we keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again. “So, some of the things that will be different for me next time around will be focused on far fewer things, and doing them well. So, do fewer things but do them better. Make sure that those things that we’re doing are the things that will actually make a difference, and are not just window dressing for the sake of looking like we’re doing something.” Minority Report Hipkins told Bridges the National-NZ First-Act coalition hadn’t been a good showcase for how MMP should operate, with minor parties exercising over-weighted influence including on “distractions” like culture wars. But he wouldn’t be definitive on whether he or Labour could work with Winston Peters and NZ First. “I’m leaving all options on the table at this point. And that includes minority government. We have had minority governments under MMP. Helen [Clark] led, pretty much all of the time she was Prime Minister, minority governments. We don’t have to have majority governments. We should leave the option of minority governments on the table in order to run government on the things that Kiwis need to see us focused on.” A case for veterans “The turnover of MPs has been massive in Parliament. The days when we had long-serving MPs who would serve in multiple governments seem to be rapidly disappearing. And I’m not sure that leads to good governance for New Zealand, adding with a slight laugh: “I’m saying this, of course, because I’m still here, but I do think we need a few people to stick around a bit longer in politics and be willing to go through that cycle because I think if you have governments that are dominated by people who’ve never been in government before, the cycle of repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again is going to continue.” A year ago, Hipkins emphasised in his state of the nation speech that Labour would not fight the 2026 election with the same team or policies as in 2023. The leader, of course, seems certain to be the same, and his words on the value of experience are a form of anticipating the criticism that November will see him repeating a battle of two relatively uncharismatic Chrises. If they both stay as leader of their parties until November, this will be the first time in 33 years that voters will get to choose between the same two major party contenders. That was the second of the contests, in 1993, between Jim Bolger and Mike Moore. Like the 2026 edition, both those men, too, went to the polls having held the office of Prime Minister. After its radical first-term economic reforms, that Bolger government was run nightmarishly close by Moore’s Labour, with Moore famously predicting a long, cold night for Bolger when election night vote counts were neck and neck. Hipkins’ campaign against a relatively unpopular National Party component of this coalition has echoes of that era. He’ll not want to mirror Moore in being thrashed first time up after taking on the party leadership late, and then going agonisingly close, but failing three years later.