Chris Hipkins. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Former Covid-19 Response minister Chris Hipkins has admitted there were a number of things the former government got wrong about the pandemic, but has stood by the initial response.
Appearing on the Dom Harvey Podcast, the now-opposition leader spoke at length about his career, including how he became an MP, how he found out he was going to be Prime Minister, and what was going through his head during those 1pm briefings.
"That first 18 months, I reckon we nailed it. I really do, I'm really proud of it. But the exit from elimination was the bit that we didn't get right. Once Covid started to spread in the community, things moved really fast, and we weren't keeping up with how fast that was moving," he said.
Hipkins said if he were to do things differently, one would have been the treatment of Auckland.
"At the end of that final lockdown, I think we could have still had the boundary around Auckland, but given people more freedom within Auckland.
"You know, as long as people are staying in Auckland, not spreading around the rest of the country, more freedom there. And then we probably could have released that boundary around Auckland earlier."
He said the re-opening of the border was another one that could have been done differently, saying the government had a stepped plan but it was trying to balance too many things.
"The airlines were saying to us things like 'we need six weeks, because we haven't got any planes, and if you just reopen the border we're not going to be able to cope with the influx of demand'. At that point, we should've said 'well, that's not actually the government's problem', but we didn't.
"We took that on, and we tried to work with the airlines to sequence the border re-opening in a way that was going to work for the airlines as well, which meant we got blamed for the fact people couldn't come back into the country, when actually in many cases there were other restraints."
Jacinda Ardern and Chris Hipkins speaking to media in 2022. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Hipkins said often, things were moving so fast that the government did not have all the information, which left other people trying to fill the void themselves.
"We had an issue with people who had travelled between Auckland and Northland. There were questions about why they had done that, and what their motivations were, and whether there were gangs involved, whether they were sex workers.
"And I remember standing there saying I've got no evidence that they're sex workers. And yet now, five years later, I still get people saying 'are you going to apologise to those people you accused of being sex workers?' I was like 'well, I stood there and said that we had no evidence that was the case.
"Winston Peters, on the other hand, was in Northland at the time and he was making those claims publicly. Now the anti-Covid people seem to think that he's their hero, and yet he was the one making those allegations."
Referencing the Parliament occupation, Hipkins said social media had emboldened people who were in echo chambers to go out and "be horrible" to people they thought were wrong.
"The thing that really made me sad about that was, I knew some of the people out there. I recognised some of their faces, and not all of them were at the end of this, you know, of that extreme. Some of them were moderate, nice people who kind of got caught up in something, or in some cases there were actually people out there with, I thought, altruistic motivation," he said.
"So they weren't necessarily anti-vaccine. They just didn't believe that government should do things that kind of had an element of mandate about them, and so they were there on principle.
"Now, I actually respected that, even though I disagreed with them. I did respect that, but then they got sort of swept up in something that ended up becoming a violent protest where they were throwing bricks at police.
"And I don't think that's who those people, many of those people were, but it just sort of shows how these movements can sort of morph and take on a life of their own."
Police officers holding a person on the ground as they make arrests on the third day of Covid protests at Parliament, 10 February 2022. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
He also spoke about the process of taking over as health minister from David Clark, revealing Clark had told Hipkins over a beer that he should replace him.
Hipkins said upon Labour's re-election, Jacinda Ardern wanted him to keep Health and lose Education, which Hipkins did not want to do. So a compromise was reached where Andrew Little would take Health and Hipkins would look after the Covid-19 Response portfolio.
Even still, Hipkins said he was "frustrated" he could not do all he wanted in Education.
"The education reforms that we wanted to do just kind of got stuck, and we just couldn't progress them because of Covid. And it wasn't just because of lack of time on my part, I would have made the time to do it. It was just that you couldn't ask schools to do major reform when they're just functioning day to day."
Chris Hipkins at a Covid press conference in 2022. Photo: POOL / Stuff / Robert Kitchin
Hipkins admitted there were times during the daily Covid press conferences where he got things wrong, or did not know the information.
But he said admitting not to know something was something Christopher Luxon could take on board.
"I'm not going to give him too much advice. I don't want him to get better. But one of the things that I think sometimes he just needs to say, 'I don't know,' or 'I'm not in a position to answer that question'.
"At the moment, people by and large again will respect you for saying that. I think it's when you try and bluster your way through that people get a bit frustrated."
He would not criticise Luxon for the photo opportunities he puts himself in while abroad, saying it was important to "be human" while Prime Minister.
Luxon taking a selfie at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
"Every now and then, just taking a moment to enjoy the job, there's nothing wrong with that. It's a hard job, and there are some fun aspects to it, and just taking a moment now and then to take a deep breath and enjoy it, I probably didn't do that enough."
Hipkins confirmed he had the support of Labour to lead it into the next election, and hoped his previous time in the role would allow him to hit the ground running should Labour win re-election.
"I think that actually gives me a head start in a way that most incoming Prime Ministers don't. The learning curve is steeper than you could ever imagine."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
