David Harvey: The Chair Is Still Empty

Chris Hipkins’ Inability to Recall

On 24 March I published a piece on this Substack about Chris Hipkins. It was entitled “The Empty Chair”

It was about Hipkins’ response to the Iran crisis.

I wrote:

There is a particular kind of political cowardice that masquerades as wisdom. It speaks in the language of restraint, dresses itself in the garb of responsibility, and calls itself prudence. But strip away the euphemisms and what you are left with is a simple, damning truth: nothing. No ideas. No vision. No plan.

Chris Hipkins delivered a masterclass in this art form this week, and in doing so, he did New Zealand a genuine service — not the service he intended, but a revealing one. He showed, with uncomfortable clarity, exactly why Labour is unfit to govern this country.

Standing before the press gallery in the shadow of a genuine global crisis — weeks into the war in Iran, with New Zealand households facing real and escalating economic pressure — the Leader of the Opposition opened his mouth and produced precisely zero policy ideas.

Not one.

Instead, he did what the modern Left does best: he criticised, he gestured vaguely at incompetence, and then, when pressed for substance, he retreated behind a wall of excuses so flimsy it would embarrass a first-year politics student.

“The Government needs to come up with a plan,” Hipkins told the Herald when asked what should be done to help struggling households.

That’s it. That’s the contribution. That is the sum total of alternative thinking from a man who wants to be Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Even during and after the election, not a lot has changed and two recent examples provide further evidence that establishes Hipkins’ unfitness for the role of Prime Minister. Both these examples seem to demonstrate a failure of memory or a convenient lapse thereof.

The first surrounds comments that he made about the results of the election and the overhang of seats obtained by National.

Jamie Ensor in the Herald reports that speaking to reporters ahead of Labour’s first post-election caucus meeting on Tuesday, Hipkins said

“National has lost the party vote”

and

“they’re only holding on to the prospect of power because they’ve manipulated the electoral system”.

“In a position where they weren’t manipulating the electoral system, they would be gone at this point,”

That is a very clear statement. The accusation was that National had manipulated the electoral system.

This comment is not unexpected. I suggested in my article “Vox Populi” that the Left would challenge the legitimacy of the election. Helen Clark was quick out of the blocks to make that suggestion and now Hipkins has suggested electoral skullduggery.

The only problem is that he is categorically wrong. Christopher Luxon on the hustings said time and time again – in that inimitable quality of focus on the message that he brings to his public pronouncement – “two ticks National”.

There is no way that National had manipulated the system. The problem lay within the system itself that allowed the outcome achieved on 7 November.

Ensor then reports:

“A couple of hours after Hipkins’ remarks, the Herald asked him as he walked through Parliament whether he stood by saying National was “manipulating the electoral system”.

Hipkins said: “That’s not what I said.” He walked off and didn’t answer a further question.”

Hipkins categorically stated that National had manipulated the system. Then a few hours later he claims that is not what he said.

Clearly there is a problem with short term memory or Hipkins tells untruths if indeed he is acquainted with the truth.

If he cannot recall what he said – especially when the allegation that he makes is one that goes to the foundation of the legitimacy of the electoral system – he has a problem.

But, as they say on the TV commercials, wait, there’s more.

Readers may recall my article Revisiting Hate Speech published on Substack on 28 October 2026.

In that article I discussed whether or not discriminatory remarks about religion should fall within the offence provisions of the Human Rights Act. I suggested that it was arguable that the prosecution against Brian Tamaki for remarks that he made could well widen the scope of ethnic identity in that Act to include Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims.

I argued that there should be a specific exception for religious speech, similar to provisions in the law in the UK Public Order Act 1986.

I began the article by observing

In 2022 the then Minister of Justice announced that the Human Rights Act would be amended. At that time it was illegal to publish or distribute threatening, abusive, or insulting words likely to ‘excite hostility against’ or ‘bring into contempt’ any group on the grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins.

Those categories were to be expanded by the addition of religious belief.

The amendment did not happen. When Chris Hipkins became Prime Minister he withdrew the proposals as part of his “policy bonfire”.

Clearly Hipkins at that time wanted to distance himself from the identitarian culture malaise that infected the Left. It was a realistic stance.

In the meantime the Law Commission recommended that there be no separate category of “hate crime” as recommended by the Royal Commission into the Christchurch massacre, and that the sentencing provisions providing an aggravating circumstance in sentence for offending motivated by hostility towards a group having a common characteristic such as race, colour, nationality, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability remain with certain changes.

Well and good.

But then on the Friday before the election Hipkins visited a mosque in Kilbirnie during Friday prayers.

He told the congregation that Labour would take a more assertive stance in condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza, which he described as “unfolding genocide”. Furthermore, a Labour Government would recognise Palestine as a state.

Music to the ears of a certain keffiyah-wearing coalition partner.

He also said that Labour would implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission of inquiry into the Christchurch mosque shootings, saying this had been abandoned by the Coalition Government.

Those recommendations included provisions in the law about hate speech – provisions that Hipkins had previously dispatched to the policy bonfire.

The situation becomes even more interesting when in 2017 Parliament refused to scrap the old laws about blasphemy. At the time Hipkins described this as a sad day for freedom of speech, yet now he would adopt the Royal Commission recommendations.

In July, RNZ asked the parties where they stood on hate speech law. National said it didn’t support new hate speech law. ACT said the existing laws were enough. The Greens wanted to extend them. Labour said it was still working on its position and would share it “in due course”.

In the last week in its campaign, Labour released its Manifesto – all 101 pages of it. Nothing in the Manifesto about hate speech.

But it would seem that the “due course” escape clause adopted by Labour in response to the RNZ query was in fact Friday 6 November when Hipkins made statements that did not form part of the Manifesto and that were directly contrary to earlier pronouncements and actions made and done by him.

And to make it worse these statements were made when 1.4 million voters had cast their votes.

The question must then be asked whether or not a person with such a short memory or a deficient recall can be trusted to be Prime Minister.

It would seem that the position is fluid as far as recall is concerned. And one wonders whether or not there is a plan. And if so what that plan might be.

It seems that Hipkins’ chair that was empty in March remains vacant.

David Harvey is a former District Court Judge and Mastermind champion, as well as an award winning writer who blogs at the substack site A Halflings View - Where this article was sourced.