What Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon had to say to The Front Page in 2024

Prime Minister Chritopher Luxon and labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo / Mark Mitchell.

While The Front Page is on its summer break, we are revisiting some of the biggest news stories from 2024. New episodes return on January 13th.

The 2023 general election was a battle between the two Chrises – Labour’s Chris Hipkins, and National’s Christopher Luxon.

It was a battle that Luxon ended up winning, thanks to the support of two coalition partners in Act and NZ First.

But it’s a match-up that currently looks set to be repeated next year, with Hipkins sticking around as Labour’s leader – and showing no signs of stepping aside.

That’s likely because the polls between the coalition and Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Māori remain pretty evenly split.

At the end of 2024, The Front Page, caught up with both leaders a week apart for a wrap of the year.

Firstly, Hipkins, speaking after the Labour Party conference, said that many Zealanders believe Christopher Luxon is a bad Prime Minister and “they’ve got grounds for that”.

Hipkins also reckons Luxon is running the country too much “like a corporation” and is “struggling”.

He said people can form their own views as to whether Luxon’s a good Prime Minister.

“In a corporation, you can decide to make people redundant and then they’re someone else’s problem. You can say this group of customers is a group we’re no longer going to chase as a company.

“You don’t get to make those decisions in running a country. Everyone is your problem. Everyone is your customer.

“I think a lot of New Zealanders think he’s a bad Prime Minister and I think they’ve got good grounds for that,” Hipkins said.

In response, when Luxon joined The Front Page a week later, the Prime Minister did not hold back.

“He [Hipkins] was a terrible Prime Minister. He took the keys to the car, drove it at tremendous speed, put it into the ditch. We’re hauling it out of the ditch, getting it the right way up, and we’re moving forward.

“How do you spend more, borrow more, tax more, hire more people, and deliver worse outcomes in every dimension? So, I don’t take lectures from Hipkins, with all due respect.”

Listen to the full episode to hear more from the leaders of our two biggest parties.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

You can follow the podcast at iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.