Comment: In professional wrestling, a performer keen to quickly win over the crowd often resorts to what is known as a “cheap pop” – rolling out a reference that they know will find favour.
Politicians are no different, as evidenced by the loud cheer that Chris Hipkins got at the party’s election congress on Sunday when he declared: “Neoliberal, trickle-down economics is a hoax.”
It was with no small degree of irony, then, that the most effective section of the Labour leader’s speech to the party faithful took inspiration – intentionally or otherwise – from neoliberal boogeyman Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign against incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.
The political echo went like this:
“As we go to the polls this year, every Kiwi needs to ask themselves a simple question: are you better off than you were three years ago?” Hipkins asked.
“Is the weekly shop any easier? Are your power bills any lower? Is it any easier to get a doctor’s appointment? Are your kids and grandkids choosing to build their lives here?”
They were rhetorical questions, but each time the crowd offered a loud “NO” in response, making clear their dissatisfaction with the coalition Government.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon may be yet to offer a Kiwi equivalent of Carter’s famous ‘malaise’ speech, in which he declared the United States was facing “a crisis of confidence”. But there is a similar sense that New Zealand is being weighed down by an array of challenges (including an Iran-related oil shock, funnily enough) that are chipping away at the national psyche.
Across the weekend, Labour’s conference speakers found their firmest footing when they were taking aim at the coalition’s actions and the cost of living crisis that many New Zealanders are struggling to handle.
A day after deputy leader Carmel Sepuloni labelled Luxon “the most out of touch Prime Minister that we have seen in our lifetimes”, and finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds accused the Government of trying to cut its way to growth, Hipkins suggested Luxon and National had failed to meet every one of their 2023 campaign promises.
The party had promised to fix the economy, but it had instead shrunk; pledged to bring the cost of living down, only for it to rise; and committed to back business, only for more to close in the past year than at any time in the past 14.
“Christopher Luxon and his National Government are out of touch, and out of time.”
The Labour leader did try to balance that negativity with a sense of optimism, speaking of “a nation of leaders, innovators and pioneers” that under his party could revive the Kiwi Dream: “A warm home. A secure job. Good schools for your kids. Healthcare when you need it.”
The party’s centrepiece policy announcement, an expansion of its Covid-era Apprenticeship Boost initiative to incentivise employers to take on more trainees, fit into the second category.
While the coalition Government has kept the scheme in a reduced form, Labour would expand it to pay employers $500 a month for the first two years of an apprenticeship (up from one at present) and increase the number of qualifying trades.
The policy gives the party an opportunity to highlight job losses in the construction industry under the coalition, while coming at a relatively modest average annual cost of $56.5 million, funded through future operating allowances. That did not stop National’s campaign chair Simeon Brown from accusing Labour of failing to properly explain how it would cover that cost, although Hipkins was quick to point out Brown’s party had been similarly vague about the cost of the KiwiSaver policy unveiled at its own conference.
The apprenticeship initiative is solid rather than spectacular – in many respects, a good match for the current Labour leader.
Hipkins delivered a good conference speech that nonetheless was nowhere close to matching the star power of his predecessor Jacinda Ardern; “Well, that was OK,” one attendee remarked as the crowd filtered out of the Tākina auditorium.
The close state of the race for the Beehive seems more about the coalition’s unpopularity than a compelling message being offered by Labour, as evidenced by the party’s five-point drop in the latest 1News-Verian poll and Hipkins’ own dip in preferred Prime Minister polling.
Like Luxon, Hipkins may not care too much about his party’s own polling as long as it finds the friends to secure a parliamentary majority come November 7.
But he only need look to the United Kingdom, namely the fate of ousted British leader Sir Keir Starmer, to see the pitfalls of getting into office on the back of a small target strategy without a clear vision for change.
There is also the small matter of making the party’s numbers add up, as Edmonds has promised. Labour is yet to explain how it will meet the costs of reinstating the previous pay equity regime – estimated by Treasury at roughly $11 billion – and at the weekend its leader said only that it would provide answers “in due course”.
As much as National has over-egged matters by accusing Labour of leaving an $18b ‘hidden bill’, the opposition party will soon enough need to lay out how it can deliver on its vision in straitened circumstances.
Hipkins has no show of replicating Reagan’s landslide victory in 1980, and no desire to implement a Reagonomic agenda. But he may need to convince voters that there will be morning again in New Zealand if Labour is to win back office after three years in the wilderness.
