First weeks on the job are rarely as testing as what the Prime Minister is dealing with now.
Just days after being chosen as Labour’s leader and then being sworn in to run the country, Chris Hipkins has had a baptism of muddy waters.
After suddenly having to deal with a natural and political disaster in the country’s biggest city, the challenge has increased, with storms moving up and down the country.
The Coromandel Peninsula has been cut off, a state of emergency declared in Waitomo, a landslide in Tauranga has damaged houses, a train has derailed near Te Puke and rivers have turned to torrents.
Another major storm was expected today and tomorrow, MetService meteorologist Georgina Griffiths said. Niwa Weather forecaster Ben Noll said “it looks like we could be in for another intense atmospheric river event for the North Island”.
In Auckland, a city under milky white skies for days, the rain has continued to pour on saturated land as the damage to thousands of properties across the city from Friday is assessed and the clean-up continues.
The clean-up is in part political, with the disaster response in Auckland simply not being proactive or urgent enough on Friday before the worst of the storm hit that night. Communication with the public was noticeably well short of what it should have been.
Over the weekend, the involvement of Hipkins, Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni, Emergency Management Minister Kieran McAnulty, and Transport Minister Michael Wood steadied the official response and provided direction.
Agencies, emergency and transport officials, community groups, local MPs, councillors, and volunteers also stepped up.
The response was more visible to the public: There were press conference updates; social media communication on the disaster improved; officials visited support centres; and there was a major focus on getting help to people in need. It became reassuring and methodical in the way New Zealanders expect after various sudden crises in the past decade.
Hipkins did not dominate attention while dealing with this crisis in the way Jacinda Ardern used to as prime minister.
However, the Government’s input was a team effort, with Sepuloni and Wood on Sunday providing updates and outlining efforts going on to deal with the emergency.
Essentially the Auckland-level leadership dysfunction on Friday was swept aside. Yesterday, Mayor Wayne Brown attempted a reset with the media and public via a press conference but still appeared to blame officials.
Auckland’s troubles add another costly problem to Hipkins’ in-tray, and provide more evidence of the need for climate, transport and water system reforms.
The Prime Minister’s stated aim to concentrate on inflation and the cost of living has been rained off course at present, after he met business leaders last week.
He has tasks ahead such as deciding on a Cabinet reshuffle and a re-worked policy agenda which will involve trying to improve perceptions about the Government among the voting public. That’s expected to involve some pruning of policies.
Hipkins will be heartened by the first public opinion poll reaction to the leadership change. The hard decisions are ahead.
He and his team have to, in particular, win over voters in much of Auckland to win October’s election.
Deciding how to deal with Three Waters and Auckland’s infrastructure may have just become more complicated.