The Labour leader knew he had to win the second leaders’ debate and came out swinging. It’s a well overdue gear shift from Chris Hipkins who has been failing to fire for weeks, writes Jo Moir
Chris Hipkins admits his campaign to date has “started slow” and has promised to say what he thinks and bring a new energy to what’s left of it.
The Labour leader has clearly been doing some deep reflection and been served some honest truths by his staff because the Hipkins who turned up to the second leaders’ debate on Wednesday night had found a new gear.
After weeks of failing to fire and a flat performance at the first leaders’ debate a week earlier that saw Christopher Luxon take the win, Hipkins held his ground, pushed Luxon around and won the audience over at Newshub’s leaders’ debate.
Both gave themselves a score of 8/10 last week but speaking to media on Wednesday night after the debate finished, Hipkins gave himself an extra point while Luxon deducted one from his score. Their assessments reflected what they’d brought to the table.
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Luxon had the front footing initially with crime being the first section of the night and Hipkins struggled to articulate his messages around retail crime, while Luxon repeatedly told him things had got worse during Labour’s six years.
Where both missed an opportunity to look like human beings was when moderator Paddy Gower asked them to name one policy that would help the owner of a dairy who had been robbed, held up, built a cage to protect herself and installed fog cannons, but was still being targeted.
The dairy owner sat in the audience and was pointed out by Gower, yet neither leader acknowledged her nor apologised to her for what she’d been through in their answers.
Newshub asked her after the debate if either of the leaders had impressed her – she said neither said anything new.
The same thing happened when Gower asked if they would extend screening for bowel cancer, as called for by a young woman in the audience who had missed out on early detection and now has terminal cancer.
Both Luxon and Hipkins responded to the question politically (they both agreed to extend screening) but didn’t acknowledge the woman or what she had been through or was facing.
It was a moment that felt like it would have been handled differently and with a human touch in 2020 or in 2017 when Jacinda Ardern, Judith Collins and Bill English were facing the debates.
Later, Gower put Luxon under the pump on whether he’d resign if National doesn’t raise the revenue it says it will through the foreign buyer tax.
Luxon stuck to his line of committing to delivering tax relief, until pressure from both Gower and Hipkins for him to answer the question extracted a “no”.
Asked by Newsroom afterwards if Winston Peters had ever said anything he considered offensive, Luxon replied, “no, not personally”.
The health section of the debate had the pair most at odds with each other and Hipkins continued to nip repeatedly at Luxon to the point that the National leader suggested Hipkins needed a hug because all the negativity wasn’t good for him.
From there the gloves came off when they were asked if they thought New Zealand was a racist country.
Luxon didn’t believe so but acknowledged there were some racist people in it.
Hipkins took the opportunity to make it political and referenced there being “some political parties who are playing the race card”.
Asked if he was including National in that, Hipkins said Luxon certainly wanted to “work with some of them”.
Hipkins had come prepared for this segment and launched into a quote from a New Zealand First candidate referring to Māori in which he said, “we are the party with the cultural mandate and the courage to cut out your disease and bury you permanently.”
“Christopher, you’re willing to work with these people, why?” Hipkins asked.
Luxon said he didn’t want to work with New Zealand First and had made it clear his preference was a coalition with Act, but went on to say he thought the comment was racist.
Asked by Newsroom afterwards if Winston Peters had ever said anything he considered offensive, Luxon replied, “no, not personally”.
It was an unusual answer and somewhat protective of Peters when Luxon is trying so hard to turn voters off New Zealand First and convince them to vote for a National-Act government.
The two leaders did find plenty of things to agree on and there were some moments of potential future bipartisanship scattered throughout the debate.
They both agreed to look at the country’s drug laws and menopause leave, pay parity for nurses, move communities threatened by flood zones, make forestry companies more accountable for slash, remove tax exemption from church businesses, and include feral cats in Predator 2050.
In some of the looser quickfire questions, they both said they hadn’t ever used MDMA, Hipkins confessed to having a stolen road cone in his flat during his university days, and both believe alcohol is a more dangerous drug than cannabis.
Hipkins had read the room when he told media his campaign to date has taken a while “to get up a decent head of steam” and was clearly enjoying himself on Wednesday night.
Voting is now open for those living overseas, advance voting begins on Monday and the pair next go head-to-head at The Press debate in Christchurch on Tuesday night.
Luxon will be looking to bring some more fire to that live show, now that he knows Hipkins has found a new lease on campaign life.
Wednesday night’s 1News-Verian poll showed once again that National would need both Act and New Zealand First to form a government, but form a government they can, something Hipkins doesn’t have the ability to do on current polling.
