Hipkins stamps his authority on health

Where was this guy during the lockdown? New Health Minister Chris Hipkins held his first Covid-19 briefing at the Beehive yesterday and gave a masterclass in political crisis communication.

He announced the daily numbers, was on top of his brief, and most tellingly said that he wanted to stay that way: Hipkins said he himself was keen to hunt out all the information possible so that he could front up to media and answer all questions put to him – which he pretty much did. The contrast with his predecessor could not have been clearer. And with directorgeneral of health Ashley Bloomfield on leave, he took no health officials with him.

Straight out of the gate, he said that the Government’s view was that not enough testing was happening, and that he expected the Ministry of Health to ramp up the number of daily tests from a bit over 1000 a day in the general community to 4000 a day. He expected this to happen within days.

Based on yesterday’s performance, it is not a stretch to say that had Hipkins been health minister during lockdown, he would have been retained as a key player in the Covid response.

The other thing that Hipkins has brought with him is a clear and generous dollop of political acumen. He intuitively appeared to understand that the low testing numbers are a problem of both perception and reality.

The contrast with David Clark was compelling. While Clark deferred to officials, equivocated or didn’t seem to know the answers to some pretty obvious questions at times, Hipkins made sure that was not the case.

For the Government, this is a

godsend. Behind Jacinda Ardern, there has really been no-one with the authority and the political nous to consistently front on the Covid health response. Grant Robertson has clearly been capable, but has had enough on his plate dealing with the economic fallout, and has rightly directed his efforts in that direction.

Megan Woods – the quiet fixer that makes political problems go away for this Government – has taken charge of the border fiasco.

But the Government has not had another figure who can clearly hold their own and make a political positive out of the crisis. It has now found one.

He is also a class act. While refusing (perhaps ironically) to throw his predecessor Clark under the proverbial bus, when he has clearly found things wrong with the Government’s handling of Covid, he simply said he was a fresh set of eyes, asking new and different questions of officials.

You also get the feeling that he would be less inclined to accept answers from officials that he thought fell short.

The key questions that the Opposition has been asking of the Government revolve around competence: is the Government competent enough to handle border security? With Hipkins now firmly in charge of health – border mistakes to date notwithstanding – there will be far fewer doubts over competence from here on in.

Straight out of the gate, he said that the Government’s view was that not enough testing was happening.