Lighting a fire in the first hundred days

In the thick of it – Christopher Luxon shakes yet another hand on the campaign trail. (Image: BusinessDesk)

Tue, 03 Oct 2023

With a hiss and a roar, Chris Hipkins took up his prime ministership in late January, promising a “policy bonfire” that would reset Labour’s relationship with the New Zealand public.By stopping a variety of unpopular policies or watering them down, he was attempting to get his hands on a policy agenda that had become bloated, unwieldy and, worst of all, ineffectual. The trouble with that approach was that it too often featured Hipkins as “The Great Unannouncer”.Rather than giving the country a sense of what La...

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