Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (Photo: Dianne Manson/Getty Images)
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (Photo: Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

PoliticsJanuary 21, 2023

A beginner’s guide to Chris Hipkins, our next prime minister

Contributing writer
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (Photo: Dianne Manson/Getty Images)
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins (Photo: Dianne Manson/Getty Images)

New Zealand has a new prime minister. What’s his deal?

With nominations closed and only one name on the ballot, Chris Hipkins from the Hutt will be the 41st prime minister of New Zealand. Here’s his backstory.

He’s been a leader before

New Zealand’s new prime minister has always had an inclination towards leadership; he was head boy at his final year in Petone College, too. In case you couldn’t tell from his attire on casual Friday morning jogs, Hipkins, the current member of Parliament for Remutaka, grew up in the Hutt Valley. “[The Hutt] has always been home to me. I love the amazing outdoor spaces and activities we have,” he told the Police Association in a Q&A in 2022. 

Before he was a prime minister, Chris Hipkins was a president – of the students association at Victoria University of Wellington, where he completed a bachelor’s degree in criminology and politics. He was president in 2000 and 2001. (Incidentally, this is a distinction he shares with former Labour leader and current cabinet minister Andrew Little.) 

A meeting of VUWSA presidential alumni (Photo: Getty Images)

He’s been arrested

As a student in 1997, Hipkins was arrested and detained overnight while protesting the Tertiary Review Green Bill. It was his first protest. “It was going to turn academic entities into corporate entities, treat students as customers and we were protesting against that,” he told the Hutt News in 2009. The arrests were ruled to be illegal 10 years later after lengthy court processes. 

He was in Jacinda Ardern’s political class

After working as an oil and gas industry trainer, policy manager and parliamentary advisor to Trevor Mallard and Helen Clark, Hipkins entered Parliament in 2008 – at the same time as Jacinda Ardern – replacing retiring MP Paul Swain. While Labour was in opposition, he became the chief whip of the party and spokesperson for education and state services.

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He’s the minister for everything

As a member of cabinet after Labour’s victory in 2017, Hipkins became the leader of the house, and then picked up lots and lots more portfolios. He’s known for being absurdly busy with a wide range of portfolios. He’s been the minister for the public service and education since 2017, was minister of health for the second half of 2020, then minister of the Covid-19 response from 2020 until a cabinet reshuffle in 2022 saw him replaced by Ayesha Verrall when he became minister of police. 

He loves Coke Zero

Hipkins, also known as “Chippy”, is notorious for his love of Coke Zero, and has been known to attend select committee hearings with a can in front of him. In 2020, former speaker of the house Trevor Mallard said that he wouldn’t want to spend lockdown with Hipkins because the then minister for health “appear[ed] to eat nothing much more than sausage rolls and Diet Coke.” As the minister for police, the police gave Hipkins an enormous sausage roll cake for his 44th birthday in September 2022. “Police intelligence gathering has reached new heights,” Hipkins said on Facebook at the time.

He cycles

Hipkins is a dedicated cyclist, often riding the 30km from his home to parliament, then catching the train back (except when he is accompanied by journalists who get a puncture). He also loves cricket and possibly soccer. 

He got married at Premier House

He’ll shortly be living there but in 2020, Hipkins married his partner, Jade, at Jacinda Ardern’s Premier House residence. Grant Robertson was his best man. He has two children; when he took extended paternity leave for the second child’s birth in 2018, he was one of the first senior male cabinet ministers to do so, and he told the Herald’s Audrey Young that he was looking forward to having time to cook roasts and fish pie. He has said that keeping his children out of the spotlight to ensure they have a normal childhood is particularly important to him. He also has a dog. 

He is meme-friendly

Hipkins is also possibly the minister of memes: at a press conference as the minister for the covid-19 response, Hipkins advised those in lockdown to get out and “spread their legs” which was fodder for the bored, at home on the internet demographic, and also international outlets looking for quirky New Zealand stories. He was also possibly the first member of parliament ever to respond to a written question with a meme. 

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Chris Hipkins at parliament in 2020. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty
Chris Hipkins at parliament in 2020. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty

PoliticsJanuary 21, 2023

‘Genuine Hutt boy’ Chris Hipkins will be NZ’s next prime minister

Editor-at-large
Chris Hipkins at parliament in 2020. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty
Chris Hipkins at parliament in 2020. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty

Nominations have closed, and there is only one name. 

Less than 48 hours after Jacinda Ardern shocked New Zealand and the world by announcing her resignation, her successor as Labour leader and prime minister has been revealed. When nominations closed at 9am today, there was only one Labour caucus member in the mix: Chris Hipkins. The 44-year-old senior minister and MP for Remutaka is expected be endorsed by acclamation as party leader in a caucus meeting at lunchtime tomorrow. Jacinda Ardern will then tender her resignation to the governor general and Hipkins will be sworn in as New Zealand’s 41st prime minister.

Hipkins was the only candidate to receive the required support of 10% of caucus, or seven MPs. It means Labour achieves the “quick and decisive” transition that party president Jill Day urged. Hipkins had yesterday said, “I think if we can reach a consensus and then really unite as a team behind a new leader that’s going to be far better for New Zealand.”

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Nicknamed “Chippy”, the former student politician is currently minister for education, police, and the Public Service, as well as leader of the house. He came to prominence for many, however, during his stint as minister for the Covid-19 response, during which he routinely appeared at briefings alongside Ardern and then director general of health, Ashley Bloomfield. He is likely to announce a front bench reshuffle in the coming days, with a general election looming on October 14.

In his maiden speech to parliament in 2008, Hipkins said of his success in the Rimutaka (now Remutaka) seat: “As a genuine Hutt boy I feel deeply honoured to have this opportunity to serve and represent the community that has given so much to me.”

He added: “Growing up in the Hutt Valley during the 1980s I saw, first hand, the impact the great rolling back of the state had on many of our families. Many of the kids I went to school with had parents who had worked in the public services and found themselves on the economic scrap heap, thanks to Rogernomics. Those parents struggled to provide their kids with the basics in life. Their problems were compounded when what little financial support they did receive was cut by the incoming National government in its now infamous ‘mother of all Budgets’. Like mine, they were loving parents who wanted the best for their kids. I utterly reject the notion that they could have got ahead, if only they had worked harder. They had no jobs, and there were no jobs to get. In many cases they had only minimal skills and qualifications and there was no support available to gain any. As a society, we simply turned our backs on them.”

In 1997 he was among a group of Victoria University of Wellington students arrested during a protest against education reforms at parliament. The arrests were successfully challenged in a protracted legal battle, and the parliamentary speaker formally apologised 12 years later.

“We were peaceful and we sat down, but the police arrested us and took us to the station. I was one of the first to be arrested and one of the last to be released. They let me out at around 3am and, as a teenager from the Hutt, I had no way of getting back home at the time,” Hipkins told Stuff in 2009. “To remove someone’s right to protest, you’ve got to have a very good reason. We weren’t harming anyone or destroying property, we were peaceful. The District [Court] and later High Court agreed with us and confirmed that what we’d been trying to do was not wrong.”

Jacinda Ardern unexpectedly announced she was standing down as leader and prime minister at the party caucus retreat on Thursday. The deputy prime minister, Grant Robertson, immediately ruled himself out of the contest it triggered. Other MPs tipped as potential leaders, such as Michael Wood and Kiritapu Allan, are understood to have decided to throw their weight behind Hipkins in the interests of party unity.

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