Prime Minister Chris Hipkins unofficially kicked off the election campaign this Sunday with a big speech at the Labour Party’s annual congress in Wellington.
Roughly 500 members and delegates were gathered in a conference room at Te Papa to hear their leader make the case for the party and his first 123 days as prime minister.
His speech hit all the classic Labour notes, starting with a nod to party founder Michael Joseph Savage and working through the list of leaders up to Jacinda Ardern.
But not every Prime Minister got a mention. David Lange was skipped, as were those who took the top job during a Labour Government but failed to win re-election for themselves.
These include Mike Moore, Geoffrey Palmer, and Bill Rowling. Hipkins will be hoping not to have his name added to the list.
Handing out Mr. Whippy ice creams in the parking lot afterwards, Hipkins attempted to capture some of the charm and personality of Ardern’s premiership.
She was not at the congress, perhaps because she could overshadow the new man, but she was evoked in Hipkins’ speech as he listed her government’s achievements.
Less children in poverty, extended paid parental leave, free school lunches, higher minimum wage, public holiday for Matariki, the Zero Carbon Act, almost 12,000 public houses, and so on.
“So let’s take a moment to say thank you, Jacinda, for your steadfast leadership, your perseverance, and for your unfading commitment to public service,” he said, to substantial applause.
Then he quoted his fellow MP’s grandfather, James Henare, saying: “We have come too far not to go further, we have done too much not to do more”.
But he neglected to mention Henare was a member and five-time candidate for the National Party through 1946 to 1963.
Hipkins said the role of leaders was to “light the path forward, not exploit the fear that comes from the darkness of uncertainty”.
“For some this is an age of hope, opportunity and acceptance. For others it is an age of fear, uncertainty and suspicion,” he said.
When he was asked at a press conference after the speech whether he’d run a “relentlessly positive campaign” like his predecessor did, he was only willing to say “a positive campaign”.
“But not relentlessly,” one reporter asked.
“We’ll run a positive campaign,” he repeated.
Saturday speeches at the party congress had featured rhetorically vicious attacks on the National and Act parties and personalities.
Finance Minister Grant Robertson said ChatGPT must have formed the National Party’s policies and its leader: “Captain Cliche himself”.
“I haven’t checked to see if he has six fingers on one hand, but I know he only has one policy on the other,” he quipped.
“They are like the most rubbish Marvel comic ever - Chris Luxon as Captain Cliché and his sidekick David Seymour as Reverse Robin Hood. Stealing from the poor to give to the rich”.
Not to be outdone on the name calling, National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop later responded with “Hypocritical Hipkins” after he promised not to lift the age of superannuation.
Raising the retirement age used to be Labour Party policy in 2011, but it now doesn’t think it is necessary after all.
Keeping it 65 was one of the policies Hipkins used in his speech to differentiate himself from National and Act, pleasing the predominantly older audience.
Not everyone in the room looked eligible for superannuation, but that demographic was definitely overrepresented — as they will be on polling day as well.
They seemed to be enjoying the event. Laughing, cheering, and even jesting with journalists.
“I’m one of the good ones,” a reporter from Newstalk ZB told one group of unconvinced Labour veterans.
They were more swayed by Hipkins’ stories of his working class parents.
His mother, a school teacher who worked nights to support the family. And his father, a retail worker at a department store until “the Brierley’s crew asset stripped it and it went broke”.
“As a teenager I watched my dad each night as he spread his accounts out on the dining room table. He wrote his carbon copy invoices by hand, totalling them up on a big old desktop Casio calculator”.
The oldies loved it. And, it echoed earlier remarks in the speech about the party’s “relentless focus on careful economic management” under Robertson.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Grant Robertson has well and truly earned his place alongside the likes of Sir Walter Nash and Sir Michael Cullen in the Labour Finance Ministers Hall of Fame”.
Hipkins and Robertson together found $420 million to announce its first election policy: permanent funding for the Apprenticeship Boost programme.
This was an Covid-era initiative of then Education Minister Hipkins who wanted tradies to keep training despite economic uncertainty.
It works by paying employers to take on and train new apprentices in their first two-years of an approved programme.
Budget 2023 extended its funding through to the end of 2024, but Labour would fund it indefinitely, if re-elected, at an approximately cost of $120 million each year.
“It will reinforce our strong message to school leavers, and in fact to all New Zealanders, that under Labour – the party of apprenticeships – the trades are a great career opportunity and we will back you all the way,” he said.
His closing pitch to the party was one that all Governments seeking a third or more term end up making: better stick with us, than risk it all with the other guys.
“We know how to lead and run a country. We are known and we are tested, and we can be trusted. We are ready for the tough battle ahead in October. Bring it on!”
He and his party walked off stage to Elemeno P’s 2008 jam ‘Baby Come On’, shaking hands and plotting ways to win in October.
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