Cautious Chris Hipkins Keeps Courting The Centre-Right

Chris Hipkins meekly launches into 2025 promising policy in the near future, lightly jabbing the government, and hoping to draw the centre-right vote.

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Behind The Panels

Apparently, Labour is charging into 2025 with a “fire in their belly” but with no actual policy announcements, a jandal-clad Chris Hipkins announced outside of a party meeting in Palmerston North.

Leaning heavily on his “reasonably down to earth” image in jandals, shorts, and a rolled-up business shirt, Hipkins sent light jabs at the coalition government, claiming their “supposed focus on outcomes is actually taking New Zealand backward”. The article keeps mentioning that Chirs Hipkins was “fired up” but all that is being presented here is embers.

Hipkins seems to be afraid of actually pushing back hard on the government, even that “light jab” has little to no substance. None of his quotes dig deep into the government’s failures, no rebuttals, no attack plan, and leans more on “government is bad because they are our opposition” than anything substantial.

Hipkins needs to step up, he needs to learn the lesson from his election loss, take advantage of a slight early lead in the polls, and show New Zealand that he has a spine and what it takes to push back and stand up, not just in the year leading up to the election but throughout the whole term of the current government. The opposition leader needs to be seen fighting, pushing back with evidence and alternatives that outshine the shitshow, otherwise, all we are going to see is the shit show and feel like there’s no alternative.

He claims he learned some “hard truths” from New Zealanders after his loss in 2023, but in the same quote goes on to say that he thinks we want the Labour Party to have a more focused on economy and crime, “traditionally the stomping ground of the center-right”. This made my eyes roll so far back into my head that I could watch my brain ache in real time.

Courting the center-right is exactly what the Labour Party tried to do in 2023 and it absolutely ballsed it up, it’s what the Democratic Party attempted last year as well, and look how that went.

And it’s infuriating to see. the coalition government is handing Labour huge losses and examples of their failings and the Labour Party is just staring at it like a fussy cat who doesn’t want to eat a new flavor of wet food.

When the government is attempting to privatize our health system through canceling new builds and cutting staff, Labour should be in there painting that picture loud and clear to the country and showing us how they will stop this and save our public health system. There are so many examples I could use, but you get the picture.

Voters will get around someone who shows leadership, has solutions, and continues to have their back. If Hipkins wants to lead the Labour Party into victory he needs to grow a spine and step up, or get out of the way. Because “hinting” at future policy, lightly jabbing the government, and aiming to court the center-right is a pretty weak start to 2025.

Danz

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