Show Notes
What do they say about the truth always coming out? By Friday morning Kerrin Leoni was gone. She lied and she got caught with the photo and the video. Not only didn’t it pass the pub test, it didn’t pass the truth test. Campaigns almost always have things in them you never saw coming. For Labour it was a combination of dishonesty and their past. Law and order was not part of the vote of 2026, until it was. It was very much a part of 2023 because Labour was perceived to have failed abysmally on the subject. Law and order was, if not the number one issue, certainly in the top three and a major part of the law-and-order story was the perceived weakness Labour had around gangs. They ruled the streets, they paraded the patches, they sold the drugs and they abused the women. Labour opposed the new Government's gang patch ban, until they didn’t. Labour has been hoisted by their own petard. This started as a Greens/Māori Party mess that infected a third party. The initial issue was reputational. Could Labour be seen to be alongside a couple of radical operators in the gang space? An embattled Chris Hipkins did his best by saying none of their people would hold justice/police, or law-type portfolios. Then he said funding gangs was wrong. Then when asked why his party had funded the Mongrel Mob, he said it was a mistake and, in doing so, threw his former leader under the bus. It was a miserable ten days and a story that he couldn’t shake. But then it got worse, disastrously worse, after one of his own turned out not only to hang with gangs and campaign with gangs, but then when sprung, lied. The only thing he can do now is hope this fades, which it will. But what won't fade is the simple truth that all three parties in the left bloc now, in some way, shape or form, associate with the gang culture, like and support the gang culture, or are not averse to funding the gang culture. All three share the same broad ideology towards gangs. Given that it makes them so far removed from middle New Zealand, it's fatal. Other issues could be forgiven or looked past, but gangs are in a league of their own. Criminality and dishonesty might have been the singular event that caught all three. And blew it for all three. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
More from The Mike Hosking Breakfast
Subsidising access to GLP-1s through Pharmac would be a “win-win” for New Zealand, according to an Auckland University medical professor. New research has found more than 80% of healthcare spending in New Zealand goes into treating chronic and long-term conditions. A huge percentage of those conditions were tied to obesity, Professor of Molecular Medicine and Pathology Peter Shepherd told Mike Hosking. “We’ve now got these wonderful medications to reduce weight, and they’re showing massive effects long-term in terms of improved outcomes for heart disease, for Alzheimer’s, for diabetes…we need to start proactively funding some of these solutions.” Some 30-40,000 Kiwis were already paying for the medicines themselves. “But if we funded it more widely, it'll benefit not just those people who are suffering, but also the rest of us by reducing healthcare bills.” Illegal versions of the drugs cost around $100-$200 per month, and Shepherd predicted official medications would cost a similar amount once patents ended. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
On the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast for Tuesday 27th of October, it's the first of our special Leaders Breakfast shows for the election. Today it's two hours with Labour Leader Chris Hipkins, discussing everything from Kerrin Leoni to education, health, tax, and coalition partners. And ACT has released their manifesto, which talks about money for health and even more cuts that they say didn't go far enough this term. Get the Mike Hosking Breakfast Full Show Podcast every weekday morning on iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris Hipkins has confirmed the Finance portfolio's off the table for any potential coalition partners, as well as Police and Justice for Greens and Te Pāti Māori MPs. The Labour leader says everything else is up for discussion after the election. Hipkins told Mike Hosking on the Leaders Breakfast he wouldn't agree to increasing the size of Cabinet beyond the 20 Ministers it has now. He says he wouldn't want a Cabinet that's disproportionate towards the smaller parties. The Labour Leader is also spelling out the differences between his current lineup of potential ministers and his last government. Senior members of the party include Kieran McAnulty, Barbara Edmonds, and Ayesha Verrall. Hipkins told Hosking there's only about half a dozen in his party who were ministers when they became government in 2017. He says most weren't ministers until the very end of the last Labour Government. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chris Hipkins says he has no regret over his level of involvement with the Covid inquiry. The Labour leader was criticised for not appearing at the public hearing when the Royal Commission was gathering evidence. Hipkins told Mike Hosking on the Leaders Breakfast he answered every question thrown at him. He also says the reviews of the Reserve Bank’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic were “largely fair”. An independent review of the bank’s response found that stimulus was kept in place for too long as the economy recovered, contributing to the wave of inflation that shook the economy after the pandemic. Hipkins says the reviews were in line with reviews of other central banks’ responses to the pandemic, but you could argue they got that a bit wrong.
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins admits his party wasn't totally ready to govern in 2017. National won the largest share of the result in that election, but New Zealand First chose to go into government with Jacinda Ardern's Labour instead. Hipkins told Mike Hosking on the Leader's Breakfast because of the nature of the election, they weren't as ready as they could've been. He says he went home on election night thinking they'd be in Opposition, not expecting the coalition negotiations to go the way they did. But he says the party is tangibly different now, as they're much more focused in what they're promising in this election. Hipkins says one of the biggest criticism of the previous Labour Government was that they were trying to do too many things and thus weren't delivering them well. He told Hosking this election they're only promising things he knows he and the system can deliver on. The Labour Leader says they're more pragmatic than they used to be. LISTEN ABOVE See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.