Labour scrambling as Hipkins sidelined

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Opinion

As the penultimate week of the election campaign gets under way, to use a sporting analogy Labour is starting with its captain on the sidelines and the big question confronting National is what final team it might put out on the field.

Just as he was about to launch into an all-or-nothing burst to reinvigorate Labour’s election campaign, leader Chris Hipkins has caught Covid and will be forced to sit out campaigning for much of this week.

Labour has scrambled to reorganise itself with other ministers taking on his engagements, while Hipkins resorts to Zoom to try to get his message across.

The Prime Minister has had what appears to be awful luck since he took over from Jacinda Ardern in January — first being diverted by destructive storms, then a succession of ministers acting badly or defecting to another party. The latest setback has come just as early voting gets under way this week.

Perhaps Hipkins can hope for a repeat of what happened in Australia last year when Labor leader Anthony Albanese rose in the polls after contracting Covid and actually finally winning.

National leader Christopher Luxon looks to have a winning lead in the polls, if they are correct, but at present that comes with a problem of who will join him around the Cabinet table.

His preferred combination of a National and Act government hangs in the balance, on recent polling. If they can’t reach the magic figure of 61 seats, he will be faced with trying to see where Winston Peters and NZ First fits into the side.

Rest assured that Peters would want a prominent position in the team, leaving Luxon — in this scenario —facing the most difficult post-election coalition negotiations of the MMP era.

If so, that might rival the Rugby World Cup, which moves into the quarter-final stages on election weekend, for the public’s attention.

One factor that could still affect the final result is the undecided or “soft” voters.

This stood at one in five last month. It is reported to be falling but could still be something of a wild card.

What is not expected to be a wild card is the OCR decision tomorrow which will probably be for no change, leaving mortgagees struggling while savers continue to get better returns.

One area where team Luxon has a strong advantage is in the amount of donations the party has received from business interests. New Zealand’s richest man Graeme Hart alone is said to have donated $400,000 to the party in the past two years, part of $700,000 for parties on the right.

For those who have tired of the campaigning, never mind — election day is also A&P Show day.