CHRIS HIPKINS: WAVING, NOT DROWNING

The Labour Party conference provided little evidence that it has learnt the lessons of last year's election defeat.

 

DURING THE course of the Labour Party conference in Christchurch over the weekend, Labour released to Stuff its own internal polling that suggested that Labour had edged ahead of National. It showed Labour on 32 percent with National on 31 percent.

The Labour leadership might have released these results to convince and encourage its foot soldiers attending the conference that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But for the handful of progressive activists still active within Labour, the results would have provided little encouragement that the party can be bumped from its centrist course. Chris Hopkins, a dour centrist politician very much like his predecessor Jacinda Ardern, would almost certainly contend that the polling results provide ample confirmation that Labour is on the right path to an election victory in 2026. That means only some minor adjustments to Labour's set of policies are appropriate because, after all, why change a winning formula?

But this the same Chris Hipkins who has also acknowledged that New Zealanders wanted change in 2023, and that Labour lost the election by failing to meet that demand. But, so far, there's little evidence that the Labour leadership have taken that crucial lesson on board.

If the Labour Party conference was any indication, the best that Chris Hipkins and his supporters are prepared to offer is a wealth tax (maybe) and a few liberal lollipops tossed in the direction to its middle-class base. Hence Hipkins declaration that a Labour Government would not join AUKUS. That might be enough to satisfy its supporters, who will continue to support Labour regardless anyway, but it won't convince an angry, frustrated and disillusioned electorate that Labour is offering anything more than just 'business as usual'. Again. If Labour is 'the party of the working-class' as Hipkins often likes to claim, then he needs to put his working-class policies where his mouth is.

What's amazing about all this is that Chris Hipkins and his supporters think that their brand of centrist politics is still electorally viable. The failure of a centrist US Democratic Party and its centrist presidential candidate to defeat a monster like Donald Trump says otherwise.

Centrism, the political philosophy that Hipkins continues to subscribe to, has failed because its inherent loyalty to the status quo means its incapable of providing a different vision of a better government. That's not a recipe for election success.