Watch: Jack Tame presses Chris Hipkins over Labour\u2019s free GP promise – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\nThe coalition\u2019s changes to electoral law ended same-day enrolment and also during the two-week advance voting period, which begins October 26.<\/p>\n
Voters have until midnight next Sunday to enrol or update their details, including their address. Those who have moved but miss the deadline risk having their electorate vote thrown out, although their party vote will still count.<\/p>\n
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith said when the law passed in December that late enrolments had \u201cplaced too much strain on the system\u201d.<\/p>\n
‘Some very angry people’<\/p>\n
But Hipkins said today the result of the change would be “some very angry people who feel like they\u2019ve had their vote taken away from them”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was a reckless decision by the current government to change enrolment laws so that, 10 days out from the election, a whole lot of people are going to find that their vote\u2019s not going to count,” he told Q+A.<\/p>\n
Interviewer Jack Tame asked whether the changes risked undermining the election\u2019s legitimacy. Hipkins said he would not follow the path taken by some politicians overseas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get into the territory that we\u2019ve seen overseas, where a party that doesn\u2019t do as well as they hoped in the election starts to scream about the illegitimacy of the elections. That\u2019s not a territory that I want to get into,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I am concerned that there\u2019s going to be a whole lot of people after this election who are concerned that their vote wasn\u2019t taken, or even if it was taken, didn\u2019t count, and that\u2019s not going to be good for confidence in the overall electoral system that we have”.<\/p>\n
He said Labour would accept the result: \u201cOh yes, absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hipkins said the commission \u201cprobably haven\u2019t had the resources\u201d, but that it had been \u201cprogressively doing less and less\u201d during his time in politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first started as a political candidate, I\u2019d be out door knocking, and the Electoral Commission would be out door knocking too. They were sort of one street ahead of me, making sure everyone was on the roll,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGetting the electoral roll up to date is a critical precursor to there being a good, robust election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Social Investment Agency may move to PM’s department<\/p>\n
Hipkins also said he wanted to look at folding the Social Investment Agency into the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that I want to look at is whether it should be part of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet rather than a separate agency, because I think the social investment approach is actually one that could deliver much better outcomes from government spending,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to see that analytical capability that they\u2019ve developed applied right the way across government.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described the idea in simple terms.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt its heart, social investment\u2019s about saying if we spend $1 now, how much does that save us further down the track?\u201d Hipkins said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe same applies in reverse. If you cut $1 of spending now, you can actually be incurring $4 or $5 extra spending further down the track.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the Labour leader stressed no decision had been made on the party’s position. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that I want to look at, but I\u2019m strongly supportive of the work they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour had earlier pointed to staffing problems in Starship Hospital\u2019s oncology department as evidence of an under-resourced health system. <\/p>\n
Asked about overseas systems, Hipkins said the party was \u201cvery open\u201d to legislated minimum staffing levels in hospitals, like those in Victoria and Queensland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that you\u2019d have minimum levels of staffing, minimum levels of safe staffing, clearly articulated, is something we\u2019d be very open to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
‘Enjoying it more this time’<\/p>\n
Asked what he had learned from Labour\u2019s 2023 defeat, Hipkins accepted that criticism of his campaign\u2019s energy had been \u201cprobably a fair criticism\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve structured our campaign quite differently. It\u2019s a higher energy campaign,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we probably didn\u2019t convey to the public the energy that was going on behind the scenes in our campaign. It was the first time I\u2019d ever run a nationwide campaign, and I learned a lot from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m enjoying my campaign this time much more than I did last time, so that probably tells you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the campaign was \u201cmore focused around the things that I enjoy doing on the campaign trail, and I\u2019ve been having a great time\u201d.<\/p>\n
For the full interview, watch the video above<\/p>\n
Q+A with Jack Tame is made with the support of New Zealand On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of New Zealanders could feel their vote has been taken from them,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":633941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[44152,42,8028,43,135,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-633940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chris-hipkins","tag-headlines","tag-labour-party","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633940","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=633940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/633940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/633941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=633940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=633940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=633940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}