Dunne's Weekly: Hipkins' Risky Overseas Trip

It is often said that timing is everything in politics. Sometimes the timing is fortuitous, a case of being in the right place at the right time, and sometimes it is the precise opposite.

This week, the Labour leader heads off to Britain, taking up the traditional annual taxpayer funded overseas study trip, available to the Leader of the Opposition. He will be away until the start of October, attending the annual conference of Britain’s new governing Labour Party and “meeting with think-tanks, economists and writers both in Liverpool and London”. Hipkins says it is an opportunity “to take stock of what is happening internationally and discuss our direction with other policymakers.”

It all sounds very reasonable and plausible and not likely to be in any way controversial or newsworthy to anyone but the most ardent Labour aficionado.

However, the timing of this trip might come to prove awkward for Hipkins. Earlier this week, a Taxpayers Union-Curia poll showed support for his leadership plummeting. According to the poll, Hipkins’ net favourability rating with voters has suffered a large fall of 16 points to -10%, since July. The net favourability rating is the gap between those poll respondents who like a leader, and those who do not. In this poll, just 31% of respondents said they had a positive view of Hipkins, while 41% said they had an unfavourable view, a difference of -10%.

Whenever there is concern within a political party about its leadership, the absence of the leader abroad always seems to prompt the opportunity for discontent with that leader to come to the surface. The infamous, but ultimately unsuccessful “Colonels’ Coup” against Sir Robert Muldoon in 1980 was hatched while he was out of the country. It failed because Muldoon aggressively and forcefully stared down his critics upon his return to New Zealand.

In 1997, supporters of Dame Jenny Shipley worked during the absence overseas of Jim Bolger to secure the numbers for her to replace him as leader of the National Party and Prime Minister. Senior Minister, Sir Douglas Graham, was then deputed to meet Bolger at the airport upon his return to acquaint him with this unpleasant new reality. Bolger stood down a few days later, without provoking a direct contest with Shipley.

There was another feature of the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll that should be of concern to Hipkins as he sets off overseas. The poll showed the governing parties increasing their lead over the Opposition, with the Labour Party going slowly backward, now polling marginally less than its percentage at last year’s General Election. The combination of this, and Hipkins’ plummeting personal support, will undoubtedly have set some alarm bells ringing within the Labour Caucus.

Of course, it is unwise to read too much into one poll – the longer trends are more important – but the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll confirms a trend that has been apparent since the election ten months ago.

Under Labour’s Caucus Rules, the position of party leader must be considered at the first Caucus meeting of the year preceding a General Election. So, Hipkins’ position is up for review next February anyway. Normally, this is a formality if the leader is seeking to carry on – the last time Labour voted out a sitting leader was in 1965 when Norman Kirk replaced Arnold Nordmeyer by 25 votes to 10.

But Hipkins, given Labour’s currently indifferent performance and his own declining public support, will be under pressure to make his intentions clear well before then. Since last year’s election defeat, he has been adamant that he wants to lead Labour into the next election campaign, and there have been no apparent challenges to that. Two names frequently mentioned as leadership contenders, Kieran McAnulty and Barbara Edmonds, have both persistently and emphatically (at least so far) ruled themselves out of contention.

Hipkins’ forthcoming absence overseas will give the Labour Caucus – and Hipkins himself for that matter – an opportunity to reflect on the party’s poor performance of recent months and the extent to which Hipkins as leader is responsible for that. It will give each the chance to consider whether it is credible for things to carry on as they are, or whether Labour’s prospects might improve if someone else was at the helm.

If there is a move afoot within the Caucus for change, Hipkins’ absence will give any challengers the opportunity to quietly canvass Caucus support and then to assess the mood of the Party overall. Whatever outcome is reached, nothing is likely to happen publicly before next February’s first Caucus meeting.

However, an early clue might be provided by who – if anyone – turns up to meet Hipkins at the airport when he returns on 1 October.

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