President Ronald Reagan’s successful campaign theme in 1984 was “It’s morning again in America.” It was a theme of optimism and hope for the future. Today, as America awakes after one of the most tumultuous Presidential election campaigns in its recent history, the sight is a far less positive one.

This year’s protracted election campaign, accompanied by intimidation and bullying across the spectrum, a complete aversion to seek the middle ground, and the threats to immediately proceed to Court if results did not go the way candidates wanted, has left the nation that proclaims itself as the world’s greatest democracy, looking in a very shabby state.

Lincoln’s dream of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” seems a long way away in the wake of this year’s election circus. Just as forlorn was the American Ambassador to New Zealand’s social media post that “Elections remind us that our system, with all its debates and differences, ultimately brings us together.”

 America today is deeply divided on political, economic and cultural grounds. The expectation that either of the two candidates for President would be capable of healing these divisions within a single four-year term was completely unrealistic. The best to be hoped for is that America does not become more divided because of the election outcome.

Unfortunately, the re-election of President Trump has diminished that hope. His return will likely exacerbate these divisions, especially since he has vowed a programme of revenge on all those whom he considers responsible for costing him the 2020 election, and not bending to his will to subvert the electoral process to keep him in power then. Moreover, his subsequent determination to exact vengeance on those judicial authorities that have brought about his conviction on several fraud-related charges further suggests his second term as President will be one of revenge, rather than taking America forward.

Aside from his flagship policies, like completing the wall with Mexico, expelling illegal immigrants and imposing new blanket 20% tariffs on all imports, much of Trump’s agenda in the coming term will focus on rolling back many of the Biden Administration’s social and environmental reforms. During the next four years, there are approximately 100 judicial appointments becoming vacant which Trump will have to fill, meaning the prospects of the judiciary at several levels being stacked with loyalists, unlikely to hold the President and his cronies to account for any of the charges that have so far been laid against them.

Trump is constitutionally barred from standing again in 2028. However, given the apparent disregard he has shown for the United States Constitution on other matters, it would be no surprise if he were to challenge this before the next election. After all, it is exactly the trick Vladimir Putin, whom Trump admires greatly, has pulled in Russia to stay in power almost indefinitely. America’s Constitution and institutions of government are in a for a battering over the next four years as Trump seeks to entrench his own absolutist form of rule.

The upshot is that America faces at least for more years of upheaval and uncertainty. Amidst all this sit hundreds of thousands of decent American families, with the same concerns that face many families in this country. They will be worried, as New Zealand families are, about how they will make ends meet, get access to quality healthcare, pay for their children’s education and secure their futures. Generally, they are not interested in the political divisions or games around them – they simply want to be able to vote for people they can trust to do the best for them.  They will feel equally let down by the campaign of the last few months and will at best have limited expectations about what might lie ahead.

For all the pious talk, this election cycle has not been the showcase for democracy Americans might wish. It has left the United States more divided than at any point since the end of the Civil War in 1865. Contrary to the United States Ambassador’s hope that the election will bring people together, it is in fact far more likely to have driven them further apart.

In many ways, the last eight years have seen the demolition of Lincoln’s wish for “government of the people, by the people, for the people” as the American model, because excessive partisanship has destroyed the balance that once regulated America’s complex and multi-layered political system. The next four years now seem set to severely test the validity of Lincoln’s other famous statement (albeit a plagiarising of the biblical evangelist, Matthew) that “a house divided against itself cannot stand”.

 

The 146^th Annual General Meeting and conference of the United Fire Brigades Association will take place in Christchurch this weekend. The United Fire Brigades Association is one of New Zealand’s largest voluntary organisations, and over 600 delegates will attend the weekend’s events.

The United Fire Brigades Association (UFBA) represents the country’s more than 12,000 urban and rural volunteer firefighters and emergency workers. Volunteers account for around 86% of all firefighters and cover 93% of the national landmass. That means most New Zealanders, whether they live in large cities, towns or small rural communities are covered by volunteer firefighters, and that the firefighters they see out and about in their communities are most likely to be volunteers. When Guy Fawkes night occurs next week, volunteer firefighters across the country will be on standby to deal with any incidents that might arise.

567 of the New Zealand’s 647 fire stations are fully volunteer, a further 34 are operated jointly with employed firefighters, leaving just 46 stations, principally in the heart of the main centres, operated entirely by employed staff. Volunteers are the first responders to 42% of all structure fires, 70% of all motor vehicle accidents, 71% of all medical emergencies, and 85% of all vegetation fires.

They also play an increasingly important role in responding to natural disasters. For example, much of the response to the cyclones that devastated the upper North and East Coast of the North Island last year was led by volunteer firefighters. Sadly, the two emergency response workers who were killed responding to the cyclones were volunteer firefighters.

Earlier this year, the UFBA’s Board commissioned a report from Esperance Capital on the monetary value of the contribution volunteer firefighters make to fire and emergency services around the country. According to Esperance Capital, that value was $823 million in the year to June 2023. Significantly, the report showed that the value of the contribution of volunteers has been increasing – up just over 16% from the $619 million figure assessed in 2019, the last time such a study was undertaken.

The immediate conclusion from the Esperance Capital report and the increasing contribution of volunteer firefighters is that New Zealand’s emergency services could not survive without them. Nor, given the breadth of that contribution, could any government ever afford to replace volunteers with fully employed staff.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand – the operational body which manages fire and emergency services throughout New Zealand – the government, and the wider community need to take this point on board. Right now, the government is considering various reports commissioned after the cyclones about the best organisational response to similar events in the future.

To date, there has been no discussion with the UFBA about the contribution of volunteer firefighters in such circumstances, despite the reality that without their active involvement, New Zealand lacks the resources and the personnel for any form of effective response to natural disasters. Ignoring what volunteers may have to say seems extremely blinkered and short-sighted.

The commitment and skill of New Zealand’s volunteer firefighters is recognised world-wide. When teams of firefighters go to assist fighting major bush or forest fires in places like Australia or Canada, most of the participants are volunteers, leaving their families and taking time off from their day jobs to do so. New Zealand’s fire and urban rescue services received a special United Nations commendation for their work, again heavily involving volunteers, in the wake of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

As the chair of the UFBA’s Board, I hear often of the respect that the public has for our volunteer firefighters. At the same time, many people are still amazed to learn that most firefighters in our cities and towns are volunteers, because of the quality of the public service they provide. I regard this as a tribute to their professionalism and commitment to service, and it is little wonder that they rank amongst our most highly respected public services.

In many ways, volunteer firefighters typify community life in New Zealand. It has been often said that the two best ways to get known in a new community are to join the local volunteer fire brigade, or the school committee. Our volunteers come from all walks of life, and backgrounds. The resilience of the UFBA over the last almost 150 years stems from this. This weekend’s events will be an opportunity to both recall and celebrate past achievements, and to focus on the challenges the ever-changing world of emergency services will pose in the future.

But while the delegates gather, the country’s 567 volunteer stations and the 34 joint volunteer/employed staff stations will still remain on call to meet their community’s needs, just as they are, every hour of every day throughout the year, since the first volunteer brigades were established 146 years ago.

 

The only thing missing when Speaker Gerry Brownlee solemnly announced Darleen Tana’s political execution this week was the Black Cap Judges used to wear in the days of capital punishment when sentencing some hapless criminal to death.

While there will be little sympathy for Tana’s plight, because of the way it was played out, and she herself seems relieved that after more than seven months the saga is over, questions remain about whether the Electoral Integrity Act is fit for purpose and desirable.

Whatever else she did, Tana did not vote against the Green Party in Parliament, nor take positions contrary to the policies of the Green Party. She was held to have breached proportionality because by leaving the party she deprived it of one-fifteenth of its resources and allocated speaking time in Parliament. Her actions had no effect on the stability of government, nor did they reduce the number of votes available to the Opposition in the House.

Tana was expelled because an internal argument with the Green Party over her family’s business affairs led her to resign from the party.

This dispute led the Green Party to invoke the Electoral Integrity Act’s provisions, despite its previous long-standing, principled opposition to such legislation. When the crunch came, the party showed that regaining access to the financial resources and speaking slots in the House it lost through Tana’s departure was ultimately more important than the principles it had paraded for so long.

Tana’s private affairs and how truthfully she may have explained those to the Green Party certainly deserved investigation and raised questions about her suitability as a Member of Parliament. But they were matters for the Green Party to resolve directly with Tana, rather than rely on a piece of dubious legislation.

It should never be forgotten that the Electoral Integrity Act was utu legislation dreamed up by New Zealand First after the break-up of the coalition with National in 1998, and the subsequent defection of many of its MPs to the short-lived Mauri Pacific Party. New Zealand First has insisted on the legislation being part of every coalition or government support arrangement it has been part of since then. It has nothing to do with democratic or Parliamentary principle, and everything to do with being a mechanism for keeping potentially dissident members of the New Zealand First under control. The Green Party, ACT and, in its day, UnitedFuture were right to oppose it as anti-democratic and unnecessary.

The legislation is anti-democratic because it turns MPs into mere ciphers, slaves to the dictates of their party, and unable to express contrary opinions or views of their own, lest they be expelled from Parliament for breaching proportionality. Until the politically awkward Tana situation arose, the Green Party had been consistently the most strident opponent of the legislation, arguing that the right to freedom of speech and opinion should always be upheld for Members of Parliament. It is an unremovable stain on its integrity that it should so readily abandon its principles the way it has done in the Tana case.

From what we know now, the blunt truth is that the skeletons rattling around in Tana’s cupboard meant she should never have been selected as a candidate by the Green Party in the first place. Proper due diligence by the party during its internal selection process should have identified the potential risks Tana posed, long before she was selected. Proper scrutiny at that stage would have identified the issues that were to sink her career and should have prevented her selection in the first place. That they were not, is as much an indictment on the way the Green Party went about things as it is on Tana.

The wider question this whole situation raises is the appropriateness of the Green Party relying on legislation to resolve an internal situation largely of its own making. Legislation should focus on broad areas of policy or principle, and not be a device for helping political parties to patch up their internal mistakes.

Tana is undoubtedly a major loser from these events. Her Parliamentary career was abruptly ended before it really started, and her reputation has been shattered. It will take a long period away from the public eye for her to recover that. But she is not the only one – the Green Party is also a big loser. Its actions have shown it to be just as craven and opportunistic as it accuses its political opponents of being. They have destroyed forever its unctuous, self-righteous claim to be the only party of principle in Parliament.

The process has shaken the notion that Members of Parliament are chosen by the people, not anonymous party delegates doing their leadership’s bidding. It has left a tawdry shadow over Parliament, which the sombre discomfort detectable in Brownlee’s announcement reflected. To recover the mana it has lost, Parliament should now move to dump the repugnant and draconian Electoral Integrity Act, as unceremoniously as Tana was.

The last thing the beleaguered public health system needs right now is a distracting debate about which language hospital staff should use when communicating with patients.  There should be no argument that English, the most widely used language in New Zealand, is the one that should be used in all communications with or about patients, unless they do not speak English and need to be communicated with in a different language. But, at the same time, how, and in what language, hospital staff talk privately to each other, away from their patients, should be their own business. This is not a question of cultural respect, but simply a matter of practicality. As such, it does not deserve the attention it is currently receiving.

At a broader level, it is symptomatic of the wider problems facing the health system where the focus has too often been on side-issues, ahead of more critical matters like access to, and quality of, services provided, and secure funding.

Labour’s bold health reforms, announced three and a half years ago, have long since been dead in the water.  In fact, they were virtually stillborn when Labour refused to commit to the long-term funding that its plans would require to be implemented.

I well recall attending a briefing shortly after the reforms were announced. Promises were made then there would be substantial increases in nursing and medical staff numbers, although there was no indication of where all these new staff would come from, or how their positions would be funded. When I raised questions along these lines, there was no answer. 

The recent debacle over nursing positions is a direct and tragic consequence of this woolly thinking.  Labour’s mid-2023 decision to boost nursing numbers, without adequate future funding, has caused two immediate crises. The lack of long-term funding has led to understandable fears of significant nursing cutbacks in hospitals to meet budget shortfalls. At the same time, the climate of expectation the projected increase in nursing positions created led to a substantial glut of overseas nurses being lured to New Zealand who are now unable to find work here and seem set to join the job exodus to Australia.

So, instead of the bold, new 21^st century, fit for purpose health system that Labour promised in 2021, we are now faced with a hurried patch-up job on the current dysfunctional system, before any substantial reforms can be even considered. Health Minister Reti’s quiet tones of reassurance sound more and more despondent as each week goes by. For his part, Health Commissioner Levy is becoming increasingly bogged down firefighting the health system’s day-to-day problems, leaving him less time to focus on the strategic and organisational future of health services that he was appointed to oversee. Those on the Health New Zealand Board who were pushed aside to make way for the Commissioner might now be forgiven a quiet feeling of “I told you so.”

Commissioner Levy’s staunch commitment to retain key frontline services is admirable but is likely to become increasingly difficult to sustain. While nursing and medical staff have shown extraordinary patience, commitment and professionalism over the years, as the uncertainties around them have unfolded, their confidence is being stretched. Many are now threatening to leave the system altogether because they are exhausted and frustrated. The strictures the system is already facing mean there is no guarantee that adequate replacements could easily be found for those choosing to move on. And the dire warnings the government has been receiving from the Treasury and other key advisers that New Zealand’s budget deficit is structural and unlikely to be overcome in the short term bluntly mean that the health system cannot rely on hefty annual funding increases indefinitely.

Reti’s and Levy’s immediate priority is therefore to rescue the public health system and restore an air of stability within it, before they can even begin to think of what the best structure for the future might be. That may not be as dramatic or exciting as the bold mission of reform Labour imagined it was starting on in 2021, but in its own way, it will be just as challenging an assignment. A key part of getting the health system “back on track” will be restoring confidence and trust within it. That may not have been the role both Reti and Levy thought they were signing on for, but it is the outcome they are now both expected to deliver.

Labour hoped that the prospect of bold health reforms would pay a political dividend in 2023, but they were wrong. Today, National hopes its more limited objectives will work for it in 2026.

How times change!

In the early days of the fourth Labour Government then Finance Minister Sir Roger Douglas frequently described the government’s sweeping reform approach as moving so quickly on a variety of fronts that it was impossible for the Opposition to keep up with the pace of change. But a few months later, then Deputy Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer was acknowledging that the government was suffering from “speed wobbles.”

When it took office at the end of last year, the current National-led coalition government swiftly set about dismantling as many of the cornerstone policies of the last Labour government as quickly as it could in what looked like a none-too-subtle attempt to remove as many vestiges of Ardernism as possible from the national political landscape. What had been known as “blitzkrieg” under 1980s Labour became “scorched earth” under 2020s National.

Both approaches were panned by critics of the day and sparked typically circular debates about the need to curb the executive powers of governments to act this way. Predictably, these calls died down as those governments settled into their work and people adjusted to the changes being made. Equally predictably, Opposition parties of the time promised not to behave that way when they next came to office.

However, in a recent interview, Labour’s finance spokesperson (and potential future leader) Barbara Edmonds showed a refreshing honesty. In a remarkable affirmation of the French maxim “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they stay the same) she said Labour has learned from the current government when it comes to managing economic reform. She said “‘do it early is probably a lesson”. In her view, an incoming Labour-led government should go early and go hard, so there is time for things to settle in before the public next heads to voting booths. Her candour was reminiscent of Douglas’s approach forty years ago.

So, those looking to a future Labour-led government to slow down the pace of change seem set to be disappointed if Edmonds has her way. She clearly intends to be just as ruthless in quickly clearing the decks should she become Finance Minister as Douglas, Ruth Richardson and now Willis were before her.

However, Edmonds was somewhat less specific about her policy intent. That is hardly surprising at this stage of the electoral cycle, nor is it inconsistent with past practice. After all, Douglas did not reveal his full hand until after the 1984 election, arguing the sudden calling of the “Schnapps” election and the largely concealed parlous state of Muldoon’s controlled economy prevented a full election policy roll-out before the election. Likewise, Willis argued that she was constrained by potential coalition negotiation concessions, although she was adamant her tax cuts programme would proceed in some form.

The only clear policy hint Edmonds has given – in contrast to the waffling coyness of her leader Chris Hipkins – is that the capital gains tax Labour has previously campaigned on unsuccessfully in 2011 and 2014 (and which both Ardern and Hipkins ruled out as Prime Minister) is firmly back on Labour’s agenda. After all, why else would she in the same interview have claimed that many business leaders privately support ANZ Bank CEO Antonia Watson’s recent public call to introduce a capital gains tax, and pleaded that she now needs them “to say that publicly”?

Shortly after he became Finance Minister in 1999, Sir Michael Cullen described the role as akin to that of a managing director. Other Ministers were like branch managers, he said, with the Prime Minister being like the Board Chair. Over the years, governments of whatever political hue have become defined by the policies of their Finance Minister. From Rogernomics to Sir Bill English’s “compassionate conservatism”, it has always been the same. It is the Finance Minister who puts the stamp on a government’s policy style and approach. In that regard, it could be argued that Edmonds’ interview comments were as much about making this point clear to her own colleagues, as they were remarks for the wider public.

While Edmonds’ comments have revealed how she would approach the role of Finance Minister were it ever to come her way, they have also made it more difficult in the short-term for Labour to criticise the government’s pace of change. And her acknowledgment that Labour did not always get it right on key policies – like fair pay agreements which she says Labour remains committed to reintroducing, although not in their original form, or social insurance that she is silent on – makes it that much more difficult to criticise National’s abandonment of those policies.

But overall, Edmond’s admiration of the speedy way the current government went about its early changes simply confirms that a future Labour-led government will perform just the same as the current government. Therefore, the National-Labour political merry go-round looks set to carry on, the way it always has done.

 

Darleen Tana’s extraordinary run as a Member of Parliament looks set to continue for some time yet. Now that the High Court has dismissed Tana’s application for an injunction to prevent the Green Party invoking the so-called party-hopping legislation, the party will be able to proceed with their proposed meeting to determine her fate.

That meeting is now scheduled for 17 October – just over a year after the general election at which Tana was elected to Parliament. If more than three-quarters of the participants agree, the Green Party will then seek to apply the legislation to finally oust Tana from Parliament.

But it may not be quite that simple, nor a resolution of this distraction that rapid. For a start, there must still some doubt that the planned 17 October meeting will in fact occur. Tana is reportedly considering whether to appeal the High Court’s decision and has until 2 October to decide whether to do so. If previous practice is any guide Tana will delay that decision until as late as possible. Should an appeal be lodged, it is unlikely that it will be disposed of in time for the Green Party’s proposed 17 October meeting to proceed, further slowing down an end to the saga that has already been dragging on since March.

But even if the meeting does proceed as planned, and the 75% support threshold the Green Party’s rules require for seeking to evict Tana from Parliament is achieved, there are still more steps to be taken before Tana’s political execution can be carried out.

Under the Electoral Integrity Act 2018, there is a deliberate process for expelling a Member of Parliament who has left the party for which they had originally been elected. It is triggered by a letter from the Member’s party leader to the Speaker formally advising that they have left the party for which they had been elected.

The Act requires that notice to the Speaker to state “that the parliamentary leader reasonably believes that the member of Parliament concerned has acted in a way that has distorted, and is likely to continue to distort, the proportionality of political party representation in Parliament as determined at the last general election.” The letter must also confirm that the party leader has written to the Member of Parliament, advising them that the party is seeking to apply the legislation, and setting out the specific reasons for its decision to do so. The Member of Parliament then has 21 working days to respond to the party’s charges. The party leader is then required to advise the Speaker that the party’s caucus has considered the Member’s response and that a minimum of two-thirds of its membership has supported the application for the Member’s expulsion proceeding. It is then over to the Speaker to determine the outcome.

Therefore, should the Green Party meeting scheduled for 17 October proceed and give the party the mandate it requires to seek Tana’s expulsion, the party leadership will then need to apply the processes set out above. Assuming no slippage, the absolute earliest date on which the party will be able to confirm with the Speaker that it has followed the procedures set out in the Act and that Tana should be expelled from Parliament is 18 November.

However, given the history of this case so far, that deadline seems extremely unlikely to be met. From the outset, Tana’s entire strategy has been to drag things out for as long as possible to inflict maximum embarrassment on the Green Party, while continuing to collect her Parliamentary salary and allowances.

That approach hardly seems likely to change at this late stage. Even if Tana decides not to appeal the recent High Court decision, there remains the likelihood of further Court action at any point from here on, especially if the Green Party does not tick correctly all the provisions of the Electoral Integrity Act. There is also the more unlikely possibility that the Speaker may feel unconvinced in part or in whole by the submission the Green Party eventually makes to him.

If the 2003 case of Donna Awatere-Huata’s expulsion from the ACT Party is any guide, the Tana case may therefore only be at its middle stages. In July 2003, the ACT Party leader advised the Speaker of his party’s wish to invoke the Electoral Integrity legislation then in place to expel Awatere-Huata from Parliament. Subsequent legal action from Awatere-Huata challenging this move went through several Court processes, before being finally resolved in ACT’s favour by the Supreme Court over a year later in November 2004.

A repeat of that legal marathon might appeal to Tana but is the last thing both the Green Party and the public would want. Nevertheless, based both on experience and Tana’s conduct to date, it is a potential outcome both should brace themselves for.

After all, political revenge is at its best when it is drawn out!

It is often said that timing is everything in politics. Sometimes the timing is fortuitous, a case of being in the right place at the right time, and sometimes it is the precise opposite.

This week, the Labour leader heads off to Britain, taking up the traditional annual taxpayer funded overseas study trip, available to the Leader of the Opposition. He will be away until the start of October, attending the annual conference of Britain’s new governing Labour Party and “meeting with think-tanks, economists and writers both in Liverpool and London”. Hipkins says it is an opportunity “to take stock of what is happening internationally and discuss our direction with other policymakers.”

It all sounds very reasonable and plausible and not likely to be in any way controversial or newsworthy to anyone but the most ardent Labour aficionado.

However, the timing of this trip might come to prove awkward for Hipkins. Earlier this week, a Taxpayers Union-Curia poll showed support for his leadership plummeting. According to the poll, Hipkins’ net favourability rating with voters has suffered a large fall of 16 points to -10%, since July. The net favourability rating is the gap between those poll respondents who like a leader, and those who do not. In this poll, just 31% of respondents said they had a positive view of Hipkins, while 41% said they had an unfavourable view, a difference of -10%.

Whenever there is concern within a political party about its leadership, the absence of the leader abroad always seems to prompt the opportunity for discontent with that leader to come to the surface. The infamous, but ultimately unsuccessful “Colonels’ Coup” against Sir Robert Muldoon in 1980 was hatched while he was out of the country. It failed because Muldoon aggressively and forcefully stared down his critics upon his return to New Zealand.

In 1997, supporters of Dame Jenny Shipley worked during the absence overseas of Jim Bolger to secure the numbers for her to replace him as leader of the National Party and Prime Minister. Senior Minister, Sir Douglas Graham, was then deputed to meet Bolger at the airport upon his return to acquaint him with this unpleasant new reality. Bolger stood down a few days later, without provoking a direct contest with Shipley.

There was another feature of the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll that should be of concern to Hipkins as he sets off overseas. The poll showed the governing parties increasing their lead over the Opposition, with the Labour Party going slowly backward, now polling marginally less than its percentage at last year’s General Election. The combination of this, and Hipkins’ plummeting personal support, will undoubtedly have set some alarm bells ringing within the Labour Caucus.

Of course, it is unwise to read too much into one poll – the longer trends are more important – but the Taxpayers Union-Curia poll confirms a trend that has been apparent since the election ten months ago.

Under Labour’s Caucus Rules, the position of party leader must be considered at the first Caucus meeting of the year preceding a General Election. So, Hipkins’ position is up for review next February anyway. Normally, this is a formality if the leader is seeking to carry on – the last time Labour voted out a sitting leader was in 1965 when Norman Kirk replaced Arnold Nordmeyer by 25 votes to 10.

But Hipkins, given Labour’s currently indifferent performance and his own declining public support, will be under pressure to make his intentions clear well before then. Since last year’s election defeat, he has been adamant that he wants to lead Labour into the next election campaign, and there have been no apparent challenges to that. Two names frequently mentioned as leadership contenders, Kieran McAnulty and Barbara Edmonds, have both persistently and emphatically (at least so far) ruled themselves out of contention.

Hipkins’ forthcoming absence overseas will give the Labour Caucus – and Hipkins himself for that matter – an opportunity to reflect on the party’s poor performance of recent months and the extent to which Hipkins as leader is responsible for that. It will give each the chance to consider whether it is credible for things to carry on as they are, or whether Labour’s prospects might improve if someone else was at the helm.  

If there is a move afoot within the Caucus for change, Hipkins’ absence will give any challengers the opportunity to quietly canvass Caucus support and then to assess the mood of the Party overall. Whatever outcome is reached, nothing is likely to happen publicly before next February’s first Caucus meeting.

However, an early clue might be provided by who – if anyone – turns up to meet Hipkins at the airport when he returns on 1 October.