ℂ𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕤 ℍ𝕚𝕡𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕤 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕤 𝕓𝕪 𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕒𝕝 ℂ𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕕 𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕡𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕖, 𝕓𝕦𝕥 𝕒𝕕𝕞𝕚𝕥𝕤 𝕞𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕜𝕖𝕤 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕞𝕒𝕕𝕖

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.

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ppearing 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.

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Related:

𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟'𝕤 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕝𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕝𝕖𝕘𝕒𝕔𝕪 𝕚𝕟 ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕

𝔽𝕚𝕧𝕖 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕤 𝕒𝕘𝕠 𝕥𝕠𝕕𝕒𝕪: ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕚𝕥 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕕 𝕝𝕠𝕔𝕜𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟

𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕥 𝔾𝕝𝕠𝕓𝕒𝕝 ℙ𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕞𝕚𝕔 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕤 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕕

𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪 𝕠𝕗 ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕'𝕤 ℂ𝕆𝕍𝕀𝔻-𝟙𝟡 ℝ𝕖𝕤𝕡𝕠𝕟𝕤𝕖

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"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." 

 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."

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Related:

𝟡 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝟙𝟘 𝕙𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕗𝕦𝕝 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕥𝕤 𝕥𝕠𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕕𝕤 𝕛𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟 𝕨𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕕𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝕤𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕖𝕥 - ℕ𝕖𝕨 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕕𝕪

ℍ𝕚𝕡𝕜𝕚𝕟𝕤 ‘𝕣𝕒𝕪 𝕠𝕗 𝕤𝕦𝕟𝕤𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕖’ 𝕒𝕞𝕠𝕟𝕘 𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕥 𝕒𝕥 𝕎𝕒𝕚𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕚, 𝕤𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕙𝕠𝕤𝕥

𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟'𝕤 '𝕕𝕖𝕖𝕡𝕝𝕪 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝' 𝕞𝕖𝕞𝕠𝕚𝕣 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕚𝕥 𝕤𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕧𝕖𝕤 𝕚𝕟 𝕁𝕦𝕟𝕖

𝔻𝕒𝕞𝕖 𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟 𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕝𝕝 𝔸𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕒'𝕤 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕡𝕣𝕖𝕗𝕖𝕣𝕣𝕖𝕕 ℙ𝕄

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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."

𝐑𝐍𝐙

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