Chris Hipkins: in defence of ‘solid incrementalism’

The Labour leader responds to calls for a bit more Burnham-esque boldness. 

Andy Burnham has burst into the British prime ministership with a bolt of energy, leading Labour to a surge in polling. It has made for a marked contrast with his predecessor, Keir Starmer, who succeeded in bringing his party to electoral victory, but faced countless criticisms for attachment to a small target and perceived political timidity. 

So as Chris Hipkins approaches the final days of this election campaign, which is he: a Starmer or a Burnham?

“Neither, really,” the New Zealand Labour leader said in an interview for the Spinoff podcast At Large with Toby Manhire. “But if you look at what Andy Burnham's doing at the moment, if you look at the things that he's campaigning on halfway through that parliamentary term, they're much the same as the things that we're talking about. Pretty much all of the cost of living measures that he has announced in the UK … we're campaigning on very, very similar things here.”

Less apparently similar, however, has been Burnham’s determination to lay down ambitious challenges. Within days, he had declared he would eliminate rough sleeping on British streets and implement universal social care for the elderly. He deliberately put boldness ahead of incrementalism. 

“I'm cautious about criticising anyone else or [passing] judgement,” said Hipkins. “But look at the actions there. It's very easy to make big sweeping statements like eliminating homelessness and dealing with aged care and so on. Let's see how he's going a few years down the track. Let's judge the actions there because at the moment, the early actions that you've seen from Andy Burnham are the same early actions, very similar early actions to the ones that we're proposing.”

Hipkins pointed to the achievements of the fifth Labour government as a template. “The big transformative changes that we've seen in the last 30 years since MMP was introduced, in my view, all took place under the Clark-Cullen government,” he said. 

“Now, no one would describe that as a radical government. It was a solid incrementalist government that made big transformative changes in a way that stuck. KiwiSaver. Working for Families. Interest-free student loans. Free early childhood education. Paid parental leave. These were big transformative changes. 

“But they did them in a way that made them stick, and we're all still benefiting from that now. So the idea that you have to be big and bold and crash major changes through to effect major change? I've never bought into that, and perhaps that's because I grew up in an era where there were politicians who were doing exactly that, and I watched how they wrecked people's lives without any consideration to the human consequences of those decisions. And that's not the sort of government I want to lead.”

Other subjects covered in the At Large episode:

• Whether the overhang spectre could lead to questions over legitimacy.
• Criticisms of health and education policies. 
• Why there is no fiscal accord with the Greens.
• How Hipkins got into ancient stoic philosophy and how that led him to read The Road.