Hipkins said Labour would not push ahead with proposed cuts, saying the party would set out the details of its public service plan, and what it would do differently, after the Government opens its books for the pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update on September 29.<\/p>\n
Caroline Mareko, a candidate in Porirua City Council\u2019s upcoming byelection, asked Hipkins about the Government\u2019s \u201cstupid announcements\u201d in education, to which he said he would take politics out of the curriculum by introducing an independent curriculum centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n He noted the presence in the room of former Labour ministers Marian Hobbs and Trevor Mallard, who oversaw previous education reforms.<\/p>\n Another question came from a young supporter decked out in red, asking what Hipkins\u2019 position was on recognising Palestine<\/a>, and condemning what they considered the Government\u2019s \u201cdisgraceful\u201d lack of action on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is an unfolding genocide happening in Palestine at the moment,\u201d Hipkins said.<\/p>\n \u201cNew Zealand is a signatory to the convention against genocide, and under that convention, we are obliged to call out an emerging genocide when it\u2019s taking place and it is taking place and our Government isn\u2019t upholding its responsibility under that convention to say so,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cWe need to recognise Palestine as a state and we will do that under a Labour Government, we need to send a very clear message to Israel that what they\u2019re doing is wrong and so sanctions are one way that we can do that.\u201d <\/p>\n Asked later about the threat of climate change, Hipkins took aim at what he sees as a \u201cnonsense\u201d concept that environmental and economic ideals are at odds.<\/p>\n \u201cGood environmental policy is good economic policy,\u201d he said, \u201cthe idea that it\u2019s a balance, you know, that you can somehow balance those two things against each other is nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n Hipkins faced another question from an attendee who argued New Zealand has \u201cone of the easiest tax regimes in the world\u201d for the wealthy, and questioned why he wasn\u2019t campaigning on raising taxes on the rich.<\/p>\n Hipkins deferred to Edmonds, who said \u201cwhat you and I believe is the fairness of the tax system will also be very different from what someone else says\u201d.<\/p>\n She pointed to the party\u2019s capital gains tax policy<\/a>, which she said she designed alongside fellow MP Deborah Russell with the objective of keeping it simple to \u201cmake it stick\u201d.<\/p>\n The last question came from a man in the audience concerned about international affairs, asking \u201ccan you tell me why we have a CIA office in Wellington and do they put pressure on the Government?\u201d<\/p>\n Hipkins clarified that the US does have an FBI office in its Embassy<\/a>, as of July last year, but does not have a foreign intelligence office in the form of the CIA.<\/p>\n He defended the FBI\u2019s increased presence, saying \u201cthis might sound unusual coming from a lefty politician like me, but it\u2019s actually quite helpful to us\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the information that we rely on for our own security as a country actually comes from the information that we share with other like-minded countries like the US, Australia, Canada, the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n After the meeting, Hipkins mingled with supporters, taking selfies and being presented with a traditional Rotuman head garland by a member of the public.<\/p>\n Speaking to media later, Hipkins said he has \u201cplenty of public meetings\u201d coming up across the country.<\/p>\n He held his first public meeting of the campaign proper last week, with a crowd of about 150 people plus one cat<\/a> in nearby Naenae.<\/p>\n National leader Christopher Luxon has also been holding public meetings around the country<\/a> as part of his \u201cBuild the Future\u201d tour, which wrapped up last week.<\/p>\n New Zealand First\u2019s Winston Peters and Shane Jones have been touring the country for months. Act\u2019s Paul Henry has also been touring extensively.<\/p>\n Asked about the modest crowd size at today\u2019s event, Hipkins said he was \u201cenvisaging the ones in Auckland will be a lot bigger than the ones here in Wellington\u201d.<\/p>\n Asked about the news that investigative journalist Nicky Hager will release a new book<\/a> next week, just weeks before the election, Hipkins said he was excited to see what it would reveal.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what this book is on, but I\u2019ll look forward to seeing what he\u2019s come up with.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ll be fascinated to see what he\u2019s researched this time, I mean, you can\u2019t fault his thoroughness in terms of his research.\u201d<\/p>\n Ethan Manera<\/a> is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cChippy, I owe you a lot, I trust you, I fully back you, and I know come November…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,95,1975,1738,3276,10666,5903,6119,3566,65838,13480,6721,13489,2374,111,43,139,69,90,14786,29462,4494,117812,29056,3109,17146,33021,22309,1534,12975,13672,7496,223,6382,6730,80],"class_list":["post-605302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-and","tag-at","tag-campaign","tag-chris","tag-cuts","tag-election","tag-faces","tag-fbi","tag-halt","tag-hipkins","tag-labour","tag-leader","tag-meeting","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-palestine","tag-porirua","tag-presence","tag-promised","tag-proposed","tag-public","tag-questions","tag-recognise","tag-retain","tag-saturday","tag-sector","tag-state","tag-tax","tag-the","tag-took","tag-would","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605302","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=605302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Many at Porirua’s Northern United Football Rugby Club wore Barbara Edmonds merch for her public meeting with leader Chris Hipkins today. Photo \/ Ethan Manera<\/p>\n
About 85 members of the public turned out on a grey Saturday in Porirua to hear from the man vying to return to the Beehive’s ninth floor. Photo \/ Ethan Manera<\/p>\n
Labour leader Chris Hipkins fronted a public meeting at the Northern United Football Rugby Club in Porirua today.<\/p>\n