On Chris Hipkins' first day of campaigning after holing up in an Auckland hotel room for five days with Covid-19, he tried to reinject some excitement into the race, Marc Daalder reports
Analysis: As Chris Hipkins zoomed around the Daytona Adventure Park in Upper Hutt in a go-kart on Friday afternoon, a surfeit of appropriate metaphors soon became apparent.
One is the act of driving in circles 11 times, only to end up back where you started.
In his first day of campaigning after holing up in an Auckland hotel room for five days with Covid-19, Hipkins quickly fell back on the tried and true strategy of attacking National's tax plan.
The details of the attack were different – this time highlighting how the $250 a fortnight which National had suggested a household on the average income would receive would instead go to just 3000 households. But the language and underlying ideas were mostly unchanged from what Labour has been saying since the plan was launched more than a month ago.
"I think New Zealanders know that National's numbers don't add up. And they know that if Christopher Luxon and the National Party win, they will lose," he said, kicking off his first in-person press conference in nearly a week.
It may well be true that voters don't believe in National's tax plan. In the latest Newshub-Reid Research poll, 54 percent of respondents said they didn't think the party would be able to pay for its tax cuts.
The issue for Hipkins is that voters may not care. Or at least, few will care enough to return him to power.
Labour has been attacking National's tax plan for the better part of six weeks now. And yet, just like Hipkins' go-kart, this strategy doesn't seem to be taking them anywhere.
Part of the issue is the speed bump that was Hipkins' bout of Covid-19. After a rally in Wellington marking the halfway point of the campaign, he made clear he was going to be more aggressive in criticising and attacking National.
That attack dog approach showed up in the Newshub leaders' debate, where Hipkins relentlessly went after Luxon on tax, climate, crime and more. Commentators labelled him the winner on the night and he was looking forward to picking up another title at the Press debate in Christchurch – until Covid-19 struck.
Now Hipkins is eager to regain the momentum leading into the final week of the campaign. He hinted Labour would have its own party stars to wheel out, after Sir John Key did a promotional video for National. And he'll be preparing for Thursday night's TVNZ leaders' debate as his last, best chance to turn things around.
To kick off the final eight days of electioneering, he went to friendly territory. After leaving his Auckland hotel room, he flew to Wellington for sign-waving in the Rongotai electorate, where Labour's Fleur Fitzsimons is staring down a serious challenge from the Greens' Julie Anne Genter.
That was followed by a walkabout in Porirua, where he only made it a few paces between passersby stopping him for selfies. It wasn't quite the level of attention Jacinda Ardern used to receive, in being literally mobbed by fans and supporters, but it will have been a welcome ego and confidence boost.
While these walkabouts tend to be highly choreographed, the Porirua trip was knocked off track early when the cooks at a local kebab joint called for Hipkins to stop in. They showered him (and the attendant Wellington-based MPs Grant Robertson, Ayesha Verrall, Barbara Edmonds and Greg O'Connor, plus the press entourage) with free baklava and took selfies.
Then Hipkins dropped into a local youth services centre, where he took questions from the media and filmed a TikTok dance with young people who were practising for their driver's exams.
The next stop was Brewtown in Upper Hutt, where Hipkins strapped in to the go-kart. He won, but of course he was going to win, given most of his competition were Labour MPs. They were hardly going to outrace the boss the day he recovered from Covid-19.
There was some discussion among the attending media and press secretaries as to whether the checkered flag Hipkins waved in his final lap around the racetrack represented the "last lap".
Perhaps it's a metaphor for the final lap of the campaign, a government press secretary suggested. Certainly not the last lap for Hipkins as a politician.
That's what Hipkins will be trying to reassure himself – and the voting public – over the next eight days. That this isn't his last go around the racetrack. That there's still a bit more fuel in the Labour go-kart.
The last week of the campaign will be full-on, pedal-to-the-metal. It's Hipkins' only chance if he wants to drive a victory lap on October 15.
