The Front Page: Can Luxon overcome trust issues to beat Hipkins?

Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon are set for a tight race to the election. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Two polls this week offered good news for the Labour Party following the ascension of Chris Hipkins to the position of Prime Minister.

The Newshub-Reid Research showed Labour rising nearly six percentage points to 38 per cent, while the 1News Kantar Public poll had Hipkins on 23 per cent as preferred PM, just ahead of Chris Luxon’s 22 per cent.

Many headlines were attributed to the fact that Hipkins had risen from zero to being ahead of Luxon almost instantly, but another interesting figure in the polling could be found in the respective trust ratings of the two Christophers.

NZ Herald political editor Claire Trevett tells The Front Page podcast that in Newshub Reid-Research poll 53 per cent of respondents said they trusted Hipkins, while 27 per cent said they did not. Luxon lagged well behind in this regard, with only 37 per cent of respondents saying they trusted him, while 44 per cent said they didn’t.

“Hipkins came in very high in trust figures, and I suspect this comes from his legacy in Covid management,” says Trevett.

Luxon will have work to do to make up that ground and show the public he can be trusted, says Trevett.

She says that this will likely mean that Luxon ends up showing more of his cards in the shape of revealing his policy positions on a number of pressing issues.

“I’m sure we’ll hear more from National pretty soon, and we have to because Labour has grabbed the agenda well and truly by the throat this year. Hipkins is announcing things, he’s about to announce a lot more things and Luxon hasn’t really announced anything other than what they kind of announced last year - all of which is now under review as they decide whether or not it’ll stay around for the election.”

Trevett says that pressure will grow on Luxon to back up his rhetoric with action.

“He keeps going out there saying things like ‘We are going to get things done’, but the trouble is that we don’t know what things they’re going to get done and he can’t leave it very long without explaining some of that because people are going to see that for what it is and it’s going to get very grating.”

So what are set to be the big policy issues in the lead-up to this election? How much should we read into Labour’s Cabinet shuffle? What impact will the storm have on the political mood this year? And how well will Minister for Auckland Michael Wood and the city’s Mayor Wayne Brown work together?

Listen to the full episode of The Front Page for Trevett’s breakdown of what’s shaping up as a tight race between the two men named Christopher.