Damien Grant: Chris Hipkins fails the moral and competence tests to be PM

In his maiden speech, the 30-year-old Chris Hipkins reached across the Pacific for inspiration, quoting former US vice-president Hubert Humphrey: “…the moral test of a government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick and the needy.”

Consider those words and recall that it was the same gentlemen who played politics with Charlotte Bellis as she languished in Afghanistan, pregnant and abandoned by her government.

Consider those words and recall Hipkins was Minister of Covid 19 Response when hundreds of citizens were denied the chance to see their dying relatives in an ultimately futile attempt to prevent the virus entering our shores.