Chris Hipkins will barely have time to settle on the ninth floor before his colleagues and employees seek his decisions on a range of vexing issues. Sam Sachdeva looks at some of the challenges he will face early on and throughout the year
The swift nature of Chris Hipkins’ selection to replace Jacinda Ardern as Labour Party leader could be seen as both a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand, the seamless transition has helped to preserve the Government’s sense of stability in the face of a major change, giving Hipkins a reasonable amount of runway ahead of the October 14 election.
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But that also means the new prime minister will from his swearing in on Wednesday dive headfirst into a complex array of political and policy issues requiring his immediate attention, with an opposition determined to tear him down.
Here are just some of the most important factors Hipkins and his team will be getting to grips with.
The economy, stupid
The issue more likely than any other to determine the outcome of this year’s election is one the new prime minister will have little meaningful ability to influence – the state of the New Zealand economy.
With the cost of living crisis continuing to hurt many Kiwis, and business confidence hitting its lowest level since the 1970s in one survey, it would be fair to say the trends are not in Labour’s favour heading towards polling day.
That the situation is the same across much of the world makes little difference in a political sense: oppositions are hardly inclined to give incumbents a break due to global headwinds, any more than governments downplay their role in periods of prosperity.
It’s hardly surprising that Hipkins put the economy at the forefront of his first speech as Labour leader, pledging to bring “a strong clarity, sense of purpose and priority to helping New Zealanders through these tough economic times”.
How will the prime minister and his team ease the financial pressure on many New Zealanders without being accused of an election-year lolly scramble, and can Labour prevent voters from defaulting to the stereotype that conservative governments are best in times of fiscal trouble?
The extent to which the Government’s decisions mitigate or aggravate the state of the economy will go a long way towards determining whether Hipkins has a chance to implement his vision over a full parliamentary term.
Where to stick or twist
Before Parliament wrapped up for 2022, Ardern revealed she had asked her ministers to review their various work programmes in the interests of paring back the Government’s election-year agenda.
She may no longer be in charge of said agenda, but Hipkins has indicated he intends to pick up where she left off.
“I know that some New Zealanders feel that we are doing too much too fast, and I've heard that message,” he said, confirming Cabinet would make decisions this week over which non-essential programmes and projects to “rein in” for the greater good.
That sounds easy enough in theory, and much of the legwork will have already been done over the Christmas break.
Killing your darlings is always a difficult task, however, and Hipkins may find that some ministers regard all their work as high priority. Scrap too many policies from one particular minister, and internal discontent could follow.
Then there is the political awkwardness associated with reneging on any commitments made in the party’s 2020 election manifesto. Even with the defence of a changing economic environment, there is nothing that angers supporters more quickly than a broken promise.
The fate of Three Waters looms as a particularly fraught decision. The reforms are clearly unpopular with the wider public, and a net negative viewed purely in electoral terms.
But ministers have spent years arguing the changes are vital for the health and wellbeing of Kiwis, while legislation to make the programme a reality have already passed through Parliament.
Senior Māori minister Nanaia Mahuta has in particular taken a hammering as the face of Three Waters, with criticism heading into racially charged areas. Having already kicked wider co-governance work out to 2024, would Hipkins really deal the Māori caucus another blow?
Meeting Māori expectations
Labour’s Māori caucus may already have some cause for disgruntlement.
After Kelvin Davis stepped aside to give Grant Robertson a clear path to the deputy prime ministership after the 2020 election (albeit with Davis staying as the party’s deputy leader) there was a sense that expectations would be higher the next time around.
Yet the dust has settled with a Pākehā man as prime minister and a Pasifika woman, Carmel Sepuloni, as his second in command. Davis may have kept his party leadership role, but that represents the bare minimum outcome rather than a great reward.
After the news was confirmed, Te Pāti Māori co-leaders Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi claimed the choice of leadership was equivalent to telling Māori “we are still not good enough”. There is an element of political strategy to that critique, of course, but that is a sentiment that could end up felt more widely.
Political commentators often present Labour’s Māori caucus in a vacuum, as if ‘heavying’ their caucus colleagues just for the sake of it. In reality those MPs face plenty of pressure from their own constituents to deliver for Māori and tackle existing inequities, while the backing of Māori voters is critical to Labour’s overall support levels.
Given the leadership decision, there is significant pressure for Hipkins to elevate Māori up the cabinet rankings as part of a reshuffle set to be unveiled next week.
That will in turn lead to predictable claims of the Government putting demographics above talent, an argument relatively easily to rebuff but one that may still sting.
Hipkins’ failure on Monday to name the third article of the Treaty of Waitangi, while a forgivable mistake in response to a cliched ‘gotcha’ question, will hardly help the sense that Labour is taking Māori support for granted.
The Government will get an early sense of how the leadership change is being received in Māoridom when Ardern, Hipkins and other ministers travel to annual celebrations at Rātana Pā on Tuesday.
Fresh faces versus proven performers
The issues to be navigated by Hipkins during his reshuffle extend far beyond the role of Māori ministers.
Reading between the lines of his comments on Sunday, the changes seem set to be more than minimal: the Labour leader talked about striking a balance between stability and the opportunity for renewal and new talent.
“I went to the caucus meeting that we just had where I was confirmed as the leader, you look across that room of 64 people and you think, gosh, picking 20 to be in the Cabinet, there's a real challenge because there is so much talent there.”
Hipkins will be keen to put his own stamp on the executive, but as he acknowledged, there is a need to maintain experience at a time of global volatility and economic hardship.
As with any party, there are a plethora of different subgroups and factions whose interests need to be considered, from the Māori and Pasifika caucuses to those who sit on the left or the right of the Labour tent.
Too much change, and the argument for tried and tested performers over the unknown of a Christopher Luxon government is undercut; too little, and Luxon can more easily claim that Hipkins is just a new face for the same tired administration.
The unknown unknowns
Those are just a few of the predictable problems for Hipkins, Sepuloni and the wider team to get to grips with.
But when you think about all the political and global madness that has taken place in the six years since Labour came to power, it feels highly likely there will be another surprise or two before October 14 rolls around.
Hipkins has proven an able performer in a wide range of portfolios, but as prime minister he will have to be even faster and better at adjusting to unexpected situations and deciding the Government’s direction of travel.
To put a list of all the things that could happen in the next nine months risks willing them into existence, but suffice to say it is the unknown unknowns as much as the known unknowns that will be keeping the country’s new leader awake at night.
