A group of people in blue safety gear and helmets stand outdoors near industrial piping and gauges. A woman in front is smiling at the camera, while others are engaged in conversation.
Nicola Willis tours Marsden Point. (Photo: The New Zealand Herald)

OPINIONPoliticsabout 9 hours ago

Hard hats, the ultimate accessory for the plan-challenged politician

Senior writer
A group of people in blue safety gear and helmets stand outdoors near industrial piping and gauges. A woman in front is smiling at the camera, while others are engaged in conversation.
Nicola Willis tours Marsden Point. (Photo: The New Zealand Herald)

As long as you’re wearing a hard hat, it looks like you’re working hard and taking action.

As petrol prices spiralled towards $4 a litre, Nicola Willis siphoned off some of the nation’s dwindling fuel stocks to travel from Wellington to an oil terminal in Northland. Once she arrived at Marsden Point, the finance minister got kitted out. She donned a turquoise jumpsuit and some clear safety goggles. But the outfit wouldn’t have been complete without the ultimate political accessory; the item of clothing that says words like “plan” and “action” without you having to spell out a plan or take action. Willis put on a blue hard hat and turned to face the media scrum.

Never mind that the hat sat wonkily, giving Willis a passing resemblance to Act candidate John Boscawen after someone put a lamington on his head circa 2009. The getup still had the desired effect, visually communicating that she was, in her own words, “not relaxed” and “vigilant”, even if her statements didn’t seem to communicate much of anything. “As we look to the future, we can expect that fuel importing companies will continue to secure orders for more fuel for the months ahead. Were they to face delays in those arrivals, or disruptions, they would try and source fuel from elsewhere to meet demand here in New Zealand,” Willis helpfully informed reporters.

A split image: On the left, an older man with a foil hat speaks into a microphone. On the right, a woman in a blue Channel hard hat and safety vest smiles outdoors at a construction site.
The headwear is different but the 45 degree angle is the same.

Willis added that the government might look to help companies secure that fuel, which will surely be of use when we next need to send a small army of reporters to the top of the country to transcribe a bland statement. 

She’s not the only one failing to spell out a detailed roadmap for navigating this crisis. Labour leader Chris Hipkins has spent the week studiously avoiding having any ideas, positions or even thoughts, telling reporters that coming up with solutions to problems is the government’s job. 

A news headline reads: "Labour leader Chris Hipkins not offering policy ideas to help Kiwis amid fuel price rises." The section is labeled Home / New Zealand / Politics.
Hipkins’ reticence is part of Labour’s strategy to cruise to election on a grand wave of apathy.

Neither is she alone in seeking out a high-vis vest and hard hat to demonstrate her addiction to progress and connection to everyday New Zealanders. Only Winston Peters is immune to the lure of a good solid plastic lid, with his immaculate coiffures providing the hardest hat anyone could ever need. Labour MPs regularly tootled down to work sites during the party’s last term in office. The 2015 UK election was so replete with high-vis photo ops that some reporters started creating dedicated galleries to catalogue them all. Australia’s 2025 election wasn’t far behind. 

Two men in suits wearing yellow construction helmets stand smiling behind a podium that reads “GET NZ BACK ON TRACK.” One gives a thumbs-up; green plants are visible in the background.
Simeon Brown, left, and Chris Bishop came straight from the construction site to the 2023 National conference. (Photo: Getty)

National has taken things to a new level. Its affection for hard hats is so great that ministers Simeon Brown and Chris Bishop wore bright yellow headwear to the party’s 2023 annual conference, presumably having forgotten to take them off after their shift at the construction site. 

The party’s need for the visual crutch has never been greater. National is in the unfortunate position of having opposed many of the measures that may have gone some way to insulating New Zealand from the current oil crisis. It’s also averse to some of the quickest ways of giving relief to those spending their life savings filling up a Subaru. It can’t go for broke on direct payments. That would run counter to its lines about Labour’s irresponsibly running up debt (often with National’s support) during Covid. It can’t subsidise public transport. That’s the grotty Green party’s idea. It can’t introduce new taxes to fund relief efforts. That would blunt its loudest criticism of the left. It’s unlikely to take Bernard Hickey’s suggestion and carry out a “war-styled decarbonisation on our economy” as that would probably involve reopening a front in the war on cars. Worst of all, it can’t end the war that’s the whole reason for petrol prices ascending into the heavens. That will be entirely decided by the flickering synapses inside US president Donald Trump’s brain.

In those circumstances, its options are limited. On Tuesday, Willis and Luxon announced the government is upping the in-work tax credit for 143,000 families at a cost of $373 million a year. It’s something, and will undoubtedly be appreciated by the families that receive the boost. But if the crisis gets worse and sends the country once again spiraling into recession, it may not feel like enough, particularly for the poorest members of society who have been left out of this giveaway entirely. At least in a hard hat, it looks like you’re working hard.

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