As Robertson exits, Labour’s reset becomes critical
The ceaseless demands of the 24/7 news cycle mean it’s easy to miss the harbinger of a political party’s evolution, whether it rises, suffers a swooping fall, or fails to thrive. Tuesday’s announcement that Grant Robertson was leaving politics and returning, prodigal son-like, to his alma mater, Otago University, as vice-chancellor contained a sense of inevitability about it. Robertson had neatly placed himself next to the political exit door over a year ago with his decision to not step into Jacinda Ardern’s shoes while also walking away from his deputy PM role, and announcing he wouldn’t be standing for Wellington Central.
If Labour has lost with Robertson’s departure, from his ability to wrangle policy to his savvy retail politics, then its leader stands to lose more. It leaves Chris Hipkins without a loyal wingman when questions over his own future haven’t yet reached a crescendo but the drums are beating.
That was best exemplified at Tuesday’s press conference when Hipkins was forced to bat away questions about party dissent, answering questions about his 10-point drop as preferred prime minister in the 1News-Verrian poll, with him protesting too much that “I’ve still got plenty of fight left in me”.
While “party loyalty” is the chorus in every opposition leader’s songbook at some stage, for Hipkins it hasn’t really surfaced yet because when your caucus numbers a paltry 34 there is no-one else with the experience to challenge at this stage of the election cycle.
But all the indications are there that that loyalty will be broken over an issue that Hipkins is inextricably entwined with – a wealth tax.
As prime minister, Hipkins made the captain’s call last April before officially ruling out such a tax out before the campaign, after Robertson and David Parker had worked on the policy for months. Seven months later – after Labour had plummeted from being the first party under MMP to win an outright victory in 2020, to winning just 26.9% in 2023 – Hipkins declared it was back on the agenda. “Everything comes back on the table,” he said. “So, in 2026, our tax policy could look quite different.”
Which tells you everything you need to know about the left of the party quietly rising while Hipkins’ caucus continually pledge fealty. It also tells you that when it comes to Labour’s siren call to tax, despite having it as policy in its 2014 and 2017 campaigns only to scupper the idea when in power, that it has lost its ideological compass and is adrift in the wilderness of what-it-doesn’t-stand-for. All while applying the magical thinking of all opposition parties – that the government of the day will only last for a term before they are ushered back into power.
October’s election result proved Labour has a problem of Democratsized proportions; they’ve become disenfranchised from their base while other left-wing parties enjoy the benefits. Which is how the Greens managed to snaffle the red strongholds of Rongotai and Wellington Central, and Te Pāti Māori grabbed six of the seven Maori seats. That’s what happens when there’s a divide between the professional managerial class running the party and the supposed bluecollar workers they’re meant to represent.
As a paid-up member of that managerial class, having worn the well-trampled path from student politics directly to Parliament, the question must be, is Chris Hipkins the man to represent the workers in an age when AI threatens to disrupt all jobs? Can a leader who scuttled the tax work of his peers in one election hope to stop increasing dissension in the ranks if its polling numbers continue to slide and party irrelevancy beckons?
The answer to that is a categorical, “tell ‘em they’re dreaming”.
First-term Opposition is by its very nature crisis-in-action. You slide from having access to power and information and the comfort of a Crown limo to not having enough staff and being forced to make your own tea. Hipkins has done a good-enough job of righting the ship while trying to not fall into the Opposition trap of just opposing for opposing’s sake.
But the reset he promised at the end of last year – of both himself and his party – has yet to appear. He’s still the same slightly combative Chippy saddled with a party exhibiting the so-called definition of insanity, by continuing to do the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Which makes Hipkins’ contention that he’ll still be the Labour leader taking the party into the 2026 election a piece of fantastical thinking in a category of its own. Why would his own party, let alone voters, allow a leader who delivered an historic loss in 2023 another election without a reset? Maybe he should talk to Bill English about 2002.
If that reset doesn’t appear – and soon – dissension and tumult await. Robertson’s departure marks an era’s end for Labour. And it leaves Hipkins exposed to the vagaries of opposition politics in a much weaker position.
Janet Wilson is a regular opinion contributor and a freelance journalist who has also worked in communications, including with the National Party in 2020.