Hipkins: slogans are not solutions… and caretakers are not architects.

Drop kick Chip made his own state of the nation speech at the weekend.  At least I think that’s what it was. Everyone else had done their speeches – was he waiting for the relevance level to hit retro before doing the #SOTN meme? Was he trying to avoid it?

It must have been the weekend because he didn’t have a tie on, but then… who makes a major speech like he’s off-duty? Is he on or off, is it serious or not? Where’s the flag? Is this not a state of anything? Trying so hard and never looking the part. The demeanour: so surprisingly smug for someone who so recently shepherded their party into the jaws of defeat without any concerns at all – before or after. Seemingly oblivious. The secret soviet autopsy he ordered must have shown he didn’t do it. It wasn’t me – it was 27% when I got here, honest.

With the gravitas of a head prefect he makes this speech, shall we say, about the nation, rather than the State of the nation because: dude’s not wearing a tie and no flag, so what is it? There’s nothing stately about it.

Are you sick of the sight of him, not really listening anymore…? Is he just background static at this stage? What is he there to do – ultimately – to be a loser again but worse than Cunliffe?

The tax u-turn is all anyone is talking about; being a complete repudiation of his own “captain’s call” – an ill-judged, selfish veto his team was too weak to resist.  It is the most important indication of what a re-built Labour movement might bring to a future government. Will Droppie McChipface still be there: 95% no. 20-1 on that. How can he be? He is an opportunistic hypocrite after what he said in his speech, and added to the loser dweeb vibe we grew to dislike, it amounts to a leadership change sometime next year.

As for the speech, it’s content and delivery, it was a mash. It had bits of everything thrown in with lots of sickly, sweet syrup to try to keep it together. The speech pitched and yawed, ranged and drifted from National’s bad m’kay to ANZAC Day to heart-rending tales from Labour’s motherland of heroes – school teachers – to the economy, to repudiating a tax policy that he himself, personally, was responsible for without any shame or apology. God, the carefully manicured absence of self-awareness to avoid accountability for what he was now calling “inequitable” and “unsustainable” was so egregious. It insulted the electorate’s collective intelligence, if not collective dignity. If only someone else – someone believable – was saying it instead of, you know, ginger dork boy over there, the guy with the sausage roll and no mates. Chris Hipkins is the Simeon Brown of Labour after all, that is the reality, one rare misstep after another.

“When even the IMF is saying our tax system is broken it really is time to do something.” And when Hipkins said that it immediately confirmed our worst thoughts: Labour will not fix anything until the IMF says they’re worried – fuck the 5 million people who live here and what they think. The cheek of this twerp. It’s only until Grant Robertson has resigned as an MP and finally cleared out his parliamentary office that they think it’s safe enough to start openly talking about a wealth tax within the party. That’s the chronology for what it’s worth.

Did it sound as though Hipkins believed what he was saying? He wasn’t admitting they, or he, were in the wrong for any of it. No hint of contrition at any point. Most tellingly was his cracking up under the pressure of the historic aspect of the tax reversal he had crucified the caucus upon less than a year ago. Hipkins provided the most excruciating moment:

“It’s not hard to contrast the commitment of my grandparent’s generation with the [*squeezed voice, drying up*] aggressive drive [*coughs*] towards individualism and dog-eat-dog competition that has prevailed since the 1980s.

Later this year we will mark a significant, and [*voice breaking up*] challenging, milestone in Labour’s history, [*To someone off-stage: ’Someone grab me a glass of water’* *coughs*] the 40-year anniversary of the election of the 4th Labour government.”

That’s more forced, eye-watering, hard swallowing and gagging than a Belgian porno. He choked on it, didn’t want to say it. Fucking say it! Phil and Helen etc were all part of it. They kept all of Roger’s stuff pretty much anyway. Take GST. Take it off? No. Never.

Labour ran the election on GST off fresh fruit and vegetables and yet they voted to kill the Maori Party Bill on GST that could have achieved a similar scenario. No. The Rogernomics they supposedly detest are all locked-in facets of the system that Labour believes can’t be changed unless National also agrees. Labour does things like ‘GST off’ reluctantly and in desperation when they are only completely sure they will lose and not have to do it – as we all know. The question is does Hipkins’ renunciation signal they have given up on winning the next election? Just, no, please. And check out the timeframe – they are bargaining on this troika government going a full term so the policy won’t be ready if there’s an early election.

No tie, not even a glass of water organised.

The speech has since been billed as a renunciation or break with neoliberalism. Khruschev denounced Stalin over four hours, but Hipkins spent hardly 4 minutes on neoliberalism and found Rogernomics ‘challenging’ for only about 4 seconds. Repudiation of neoliberalism would have taken more than our policy team will look into it. So, I cannot see it is a serious revision of anything other than reversing his own diktat on barring a wealth tax. And what else can he do?  He isn’t to be believed or trusted. Hipkins hasn’t got any mandate to exercise any transformative agenda given the election result. The willingness of the caucus to keep him as caretaker does not mean he is an architect to design the next government.

Under the leadership of Kruschev the Communist Party apparatus would have organised some water for his speech to the party faithful – Hipkins and Labour cannot provide even that. The irony of a man proclaiming Labour’s 3 waters would have worked when his own party can’t supply one glass to its leader in a speech about the nation is subconsciously absorbed by the audience.

Did anyone else wince when Hipkins went on about the ram raids, dairy owners and criminal justice? What a mess.

“I’ve heard people say they think Labour is soft on crime. Nothing could be further from the truth. But a race to outbid each other on longer sentences won’t address the underlying problem of why we have so much crime in the first place. If we want safer communities, we need to tackle the causes of crime.

When I speak to dairy owners who have been the victims of ram raids they are at the end of their tether. Their businesses aren’t just where they work, they’re also often their homes too. They work so hard and they shouldn’t have to endure the fear and insecurity they currently experience.

But when I talk to them, they also express concern for the future of the kids who are doing the ram raiding. They often know the kids’ families, they know their backgrounds, and they want to know we are going to do something to give these kids a better future, not one where they spend a lifetime in and out of prison. It’s expensive, it doesn’t work, and it’s such a waste of human potential.

Investments in our people are investments in the future prosperity of all of us.

If we really want to be tough on crime, we should spend a lot more time and energy breaking the cycle before people offend.”

His own Justice Minister, Kiri Allan, is on a TVNZ interview saying she was suicidal over the cabinet decision changing the law to lower the age of jail for ram raiders… That was the first thing I thought of – I wonder if anyone else of the tens of thousands who saw that interview was thinking the same thing? How empty is Hipkins’ rhetoric when that sort of real life is streaming. Sacrifice some kids for the optics, it’s what the focus groups and the Karendemographic want. That was the government Hipkins ran – ran into ground. In his last reshuffle he couldn’t even fill 20 spots in the cabinet – useless.

The speech was mainly awful, hypocrisy, diversions, platitudes and corny bullshit filler, but I did enjoy the women’s choral parts where they say ‘no!’. Winston has quite a vocal female following and their synchronous responses are louder than Labour’s rent-a-mob, they’re a bit quieter – still determined, but quiet almost mumbling apologetically. Hipkins, as Winston does, employs the call and response very early to get everyone on-side. Hipkins posed four in a row to get Noes and then asked a rhetorical question (which, of course, they still responded to). The questions were about National and references “the incoming National Government”. In doing so Hipkins has framed the contest as between the big two and ignoring everyone else as much as possible.

“Did New Zealanders voting for change vote to wind back our world-leading smoke-free laws to fund tax cuts?

Did they vote for billions in tax breaks for landlords while threatening to cut free school lunches?

Did they vote for National’s new drivers’ tax and higher fuel prices while winding back almost every measure our Labour government put in place to tackle climate emissions?

Did they vote to suspend work upgrading our schools and hospitals and to stop the building of new state houses?

I’m pretty certain they didn’t vote for the Prime Minister to talk about tough love for others whilst claiming a $1,000 a week housing allowance he doesn’t need.”

Funny thing is, yes, New Zealanders voting for change did know most of that, or at least expected as much – it was going to be National plus necessarily Act and/or NZ First and this is what it looks like, no one is shocked by anything that National has done. All the shock and awe is coming from Act and NZ First. The shock is National are so weak they – and Luxon in particular – have no control over them. As for Luxon’s housing allowance rort – same stunt the last National PM did (when he was Finance Minister). They might not like all of it, but it is what they voted for. They weren’t going to vote for Hipkins and Labour then and those same voters gone to National won’t vote for Hipkins and Labour at the next election either.