CHRIS HIPKINS: STOP ME IF YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

At a time of economic crisis and increasing poverty and inequality, Labour leader Chris Hipkins is offering to do little more than tinker around the edges. He might want to present himself to the business sector as a 'steady pair of hands' but his dull centrism is not going to excite an electorate looking for real change.

 

IT WILL require a political party with vision and imagination to lead New Zealand out of the neoliberal-induced economic mire it is stuck in. That political party isn't the Labour Party. At a time of deepening poverty and inequality and climate change spreading its tentacles throughout the country, leader Chris Hopkins has offered nothing but a half-baked promise that a Labour government can manage the free market economy better than National. Stop me if you think you've heard that one before. You have. For the past forty years and at each general election, Labour has presented itself as the superior political party to manage the free market economy. And nothing changes.

There was a brief moment when Jacinda Ardern promised change during her 2017 election campaign, but quickly retreated from that election promise once she was safely installed in the Beehive. In 2025 Chris Hipkins doesn't even hint of challenging the status quo. Instead, Hipkins droned on about 'balancing the books', 'increasing savings' and 'expanding the opportunities for investment'. It's no surprise he delivered this 'State of the Nation' dirge to the Auckland Business Chamber because this was a speech designed to ensure the business sector that it has nothing to fear from a Labour Government.  It certainly wasn't a rallying call to an embattled working class to rise up against the forces of capital.

But it gets worse. Hipkins also said that any government he led would not necessarily overturn all the policies of the present government. Labour, in other words, has stepped further to the right. One can only speculate which policies that Labour would not touch. The coalition government's abysmal climate policies? Mining on conservation land? The severe sanctions regime imposed on beneficiaries? Denying access to emergency housing?

The problem is Labour still thinks it can win elections by appealing to the liberal middle class, while ignoring the working class. It should have learnt by now that it can't.

And Chris Hipkins and Labour have a more immediate difficulty. Labour will need, at least, the support of the Green Party if it is going to win the next general election. But this is not the same Green Party it allied with in government. Co-leader Chloe Swarbrick has signalled on more than one occasion that the Green Party is not seeking accommodation with the status quo.

Swarbrick has commented that 'conventional, incremental politics has failed to rise to the challenges we face — those intertwined climate, inequality, biodiversity, and housing crises.' But it is exactly 'conventional, incremental politics' on offer from Labour. Chris Hipkins should not be surprised when the Green Party tells him, 'thanks, but no thanks'.