Chris Hipkins is frustrated that political disagreement has got personal. He explained to political editor Jo Moir that smokefree laws are partly to blame.
The internal culture of Parliament has become more “polarised” according to the Prime Minister.
It’s a more recent “frustration” for Chris Hipkins, who told Newsroom that camera phones, a changing media culture, and smokefree laws have all contributed to the problem.
READ MORE: * Hipkins on disagreeing with Ardern * Hipkins loses sight of no-distractions policy
“Socialising around the building is different to what it used to be … camera phones have had an impact on that.
“Political disagreement has become more personal,” he says.
“The idea that you could get stuck into each other in a parliamentary debate and then sit down after and have a beer about it, that seems to be fading away.
“It’s become like, that person was horrible to me in a debate so therefore they’re a horrible person,” he said.
In 2004, smoking laws changed meaning it was no longer legal to smoke indoors at workplaces, including bars and restaurants.
While Hipkins supports the changes, he says they had an impact on personal relationships in Parliament.
“If I think right back to the early 2000s, smokefree legislation had an impact on it in a funny kind of a way.
“You used to have three people go into 3.2 (Parliament’s bar) to have a smoke and they’d interact with people outside of their day-to-day working lives who worked in the complex, and that doesn’t happen anymore,” he said.
“I’m not saying the fact people don’t smoke in the bar is not a good thing, it is undoubtedly a good thing and makes it a much more pleasant experience, but a lot of that has changed.”
The effect is that politicians from competing parties now don’t socialise together as often. They aren’t exposed to other sides of the debate, or able to take the intensity out of whatever happened in Parliament by sharing a drink or cigarette together off the clock.
Hipkins also points to other factors, such as changes within media culture.
“I’m going to get myself into trouble with this … that old 3.2 code where people could relax in the bar and not have anything they said quoted or used against them, the prevailing culture around here – and this isn’t a generalisation – but there are more pockets where that’s not the prevailing culture.”
Hipkins doesn’t believe cross-party political relationships need to be as divisive as they’ve become.
“I’ve never seen politics that way.”
He points to his relationship with Simon Bridges as an example of how it should be.
Hipkins and Bridges both entered Parliament in 2008 and had a competitive but respectful relationship up until the former National Party leader left in 2022.
His new role as chief executive of the Auckland Business Chamber means he continues to have a lot to do with Hipkins.
The Auckland business community is a group Hipkins is deliberately spending a lot of time with since becoming Prime Minister.
He told Newsroom it’s not a community that particularly likes him, but trust levels have been improving in the past nine weeks and he think the communication between them is good.
Hipkins describes his relationship with Bridges outside of Parliament as “very good”.
“We always got on really well in Parliament,” he told Newsroom.
While there’s been plenty of public spats over the years “it’s never been personal” between the pair.
“We’ve always been able to have a yarn about non-politics stuff and we’ve always got on as people and that’s continued.”
Hipkins says his views on the internal culture at Parliament are only “half-formed thoughts”, but he does sometimes ponder what caused the change.
“I haven’t got my hands around exactly what it is that’s caused it, I’ve felt it but haven’t been able to reach a landing on what’s the reason for it.”
