{"id":273129,"date":"2026-02-08T01:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/273129\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T01:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T01:37:09","slug":"labour-cosying-up-to-the-greens-makes-them-look-desperate-heather-du-plessis-allan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/273129\/","title":{"rendered":"Labour cosying up to the Greens makes them look desperate \u2013 Heather du Plessis-Allan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which made Labour look desperate.<\/a> That\u2019s what bad ideas generally do, because if the person executing the bad idea is prepared to do even this [insert bad idea], they must be really desperate.<\/p>\n

Desperate to visually cut the M\u0101ori Party out of the equation by not inviting them to the press conference. Desperate to make the Greens sound sensible by having them standing there. Desperate to present a contrast to the coalition Government that Hipkins keeps trying to frame as something of a shambles.<\/p>\n

In the end, it didn\u2019t work because it was never going to. And then it backfired spectacularly.<\/p>\n

Not only because by excluding the M\u0101ori Party and its assembled leaders ensured the media became obsessed with the fact they\u2019d excluded the M\u0101ori Party (who they need in order to form a Government on current polling).<\/p>\n

But also, because of Peeni Henare.<\/p>\n

\"PeeniPeeni Henare’s resignation also derailed Chris Hipkins’ Waitangi unity plan, Heather du Plessis-Allan writes. Photo \/ Sylvie Whinray <\/p>\n

It was during the unity press conference that the Peeni Henare news broke. It broke early, by at least a couple of hours. Clearly, the plan was that Hipkins would do his unity press conference<\/a> and get a couple of hours of happy, positive coverage on the news websites before the Henare resignation was announced. Then, Hipkins \u2013 having got his press conference out of the way \u2013 would have at least a day before he\u2019d be in front of the media again answering questions with puff answers about Henare making his own decisions etc.<\/p>\n

\"ChrisChris Hipkins’ Waitangi “unity” event excluded Te P\u0101ti M\u0101ori entirely. Photo \/ Jason Dorday<\/p>\n

Instead, the press conference turned into a shambles because Hipkins apparently couldn\u2019t think on the spot.<\/p>\n

He refused to confirm what was already confirmed by Henare in a video circulating online. He refused to back Henare. He refused to look like a competent political leader.<\/p>\n

It was awkward and weird. And it blew the unity message out of the water because there\u2019s no point trying to convince voters of unity between parties when there clearly is a lack of unity within the major party.<\/p>\n

And reader, do not be fooled by arguments to the contrary. Clearly, there is bad blood between Henare and the Labour Party<\/a> he\u2019s quitting. If there wasn\u2019t, Hipkins would\u2019ve expressed confidence in his outgoing, popular MP. Plus, you have to wonder how much residual love Henare has for Labour if he\u2019s prepared to blow up their Waitangi outing by quitting at the event, so Hipkins almost certainly faces days of questions about it.<\/p>\n

Happily for Hipkins, the M\u0101ori Party drew attention away from the Henare debacle on the third day of questions by fighting with each other in public.<\/p>\n

It was quite a sight to witness party president John Tamihere\u2019s daughter Kiri challenging ousted MP Mariameno Kapa-Kingi\u2019s son for his speech before Kapa-Kingi (the mum) told her to back off.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Hipkins, even though he\u2019s distanced himself from that sideshow, voters understand that unless he really improves his vote share, he\u2019ll need the party that is blowing itself up in public.<\/p>\n

So, by the end of the week, the unity message was well and truly in tatters and Hipkins probably wished he\u2019d never raised the subject.<\/p>\n

Catch up on the debates that dominated the week by signing up to our Opinion newsletter<\/a> \u2013 a weekly round-up of our best commentary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Which made Labour look desperate. That\u2019s what bad ideas generally do, because if the person executing the bad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[154204,21818,6630,3278,23746,42,10900,6721,13457,5338,43,10901,223,2846,61,40,38,41,39,810],"class_list":["post-273129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-cosying","tag-desperate","tag-du","tag-facts","tag-greens","tag-headlines","tag-heather","tag-labour","tag-look","tag-makes","tag-news","tag-plessisallan","tag-the","tag-them","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-up"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}