Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon battle for supremacy. Photo / Rod Emmerson
Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon battle for supremacy. Photo / Rod Emmerson
The Weekend Herald’s Chris v Chris column compares the weeks that each Chris has had – National Party leader Christopher Luxon and Prime Minister and Labour leader Chris Hipkins.
Chris Hipkins had a blistering start to the week, attending the dawn service at Waitangi on Monday before headingto the Waitangi@Waititi music festival in west Auckland and back down to Wellington.
On Tuesday he jetted across the ditch for lunch with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese before jetting back that evening (hardly a bread and butter meal, it must be said).
On Wednesday he cleared the decks at the first meeting of the new Cabinet, giving the RNZ-TVNZ merger and the biofuels mandate the bullet while putting hate speech reforms and the social unemployment insurance in deep freeze.
Well, he gets points for showing up at the Waitangi dawn service. After distancing himself from the Don Brash Orewa Speech era of National Party race relations, Luxon legged it in the direction of Orewa itself for a Waitangi celebration at the Takapuna Boat Club.
With all due respect to the good people of the North Shore, the Takapuna Boat Club doesn’t quite have the historical significance of Waitangi.
Hipkins’ Australia jaunt with neither a boost nor a drag to his performance this week. As has already been remarked upon, Albanese’s dapper appearance put Hipkins to shame (buy a new suit and shoes sir!).
Albanese also showed Hipkins’ relative inexperience on the international stage, dominating the media conference.
While Hipkins was having a rough time across the ditch, Luxon was having an even more difficult time at home, heckled ruthlessly by Counterspin Media goons in Rangiora. Fair play to Mr Luxon, he handled it well.
Hipkins had a much better day on Wednesday, managing to clear the decks of complicated and unpopular policy with ease.
The pair had a proper head-to-head on Thursday, when both jaunted to Tauranga to hang out with real bread-and-butter New Zealanders.
Poor Luxon got heckled there too, dubbed a “dickhead” by a high school student.
Credit to Luxon, he brushed it off with a “thank you mate - that’s very kind of you”.
The winner:
This week’s winner has to be Chris Hipkins (for the third week running, we might add), if only because Christoper Luxon hasn’t actually done much;.
That will change this weekend, when Luxon delivers his state of the nation speech in Auckland, where he is likely to announce a policy. The House begins sitting next week, giving Luxon more of a platform.
