March 17, 2026 • 21 mins
Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has acknowledged he considered his future in politics, in the wake of his ex-wife's allegations.
She made a series of claims in a now deleted private social media post on Sunday.
None of which alleges unlawful conduct.
Being a politician is one of the most public facing roles in our society, but where should the line be drawn between public and private?
Today on The Front Page, political commentator Grant Duncan is with us.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
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Producer: Jane Yee
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Labor
leader Chris Hipkins has acknowledged he considered his future in
politics in the wake of his ex wife's allegations. She
made a series of claims in a now deleted private
(00:28):
social media post on Sunday, none of which alleges unlawful conduct.
Being a politician is one of the most public facing
roles in our society, but where should the line be
drawn between public and private life? Today on the Front Page,
political commentator Grant Duncan is with us. First off, Grant,
(00:52):
how do you think Chris Hipkins has handled this whole
situation thus far?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, I think he's handled as well as he could
be expect. This is clearly an emotionally difficult time for him,
and it's come as a bit of an unexpected bombshell.
The message that was put on Facebook by his ex wife,
he probably wasn't expecting. And so you know, if I
put myself in his shoes, I would not be feeling
(01:17):
good about it. And so, yeah, you know, with a
bit of empathy for him, I think, yeah, he's handled
it pretty well. He has said, for instance, that somewhere
that he had thought about standing down and so forth,
and that seems to me a pretty reasonable human thing
to say out loud, although politicians rarely admit to that
(01:41):
kind of weakness or vulnerability. He had a little bit
of a tearing up there and so forth. But there's
still some ways to go though.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I feel here, yeah, well, what do you think that
he should do next, or even labor should do next.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, it's very very tricky because you see the problem
that they face, Chelsea is that labor is heavily dependent
on women voters, and you know they're save if they're
thirty percent in a poll, thirty five percent of women
and twenty five percent of men will be supporting labor
(02:18):
and that's a big gap. So that gender gap and
party support is really significant at the moment. And you know,
there's a range of opinion out there, and obviously I
can't speak for other people's opinions, but there is a
range of opinions. So there are some people who will
strictly want to strictly separate private life and public office,
(02:40):
but in reality, in New Zealand, we don't do that.
We have seen people hounded out of office for often
quite minor private slip ups in private life. And I
think for example of Michael Woods and his privately owned
shares in Auckland International Airport that gotom removed from office
by Chris Hipkins when he was minister. So that was
(03:01):
a private matter that the minister hadn't tied it up
in his private life. He should have, he didn't do it,
So private life doesn't actually matter. Yeah, there's a long
way to go here, and I think I think generally
reporters journalists have been pretty respectful. Actually, you know, Hipkins
asked for privacy for his family. That's been respected. They
(03:23):
would put his easy going with him in the stand
up yesterday, I thought, realizing he was going through an
emotional time. But this is not over yet. And as
I say, I think a lot of a lot of
women voters in particular, really do see this personal stuff
as being political. They don't separate. They don't want to
separate out the concert or they don't want to see
(03:45):
the woman's voice being silenced by a powerful man, basically,
and they don't separate the personal and the public. And
certainly what the ex wife was doing in her Facebook
post was to draw direct direct comparison between private behavior
and public statements and policies and values.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, it is important, especially of a party leader and
a former prime minister and a hopeful prime minister again to.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Have a good character.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
So I suppose that's where we, you know, look into
the private lives of these people and say, hey, this
is an actual you know.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
We do care. Will this go away for him?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Do you think is this the end of him being
a labor leader?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I don't think it goes away in the sense that
is the sort of thing that many voters won't forget.
And I'm thinking, particularly, as I say, of those women
voters who may be, you know, thinking do I trust
this guy? Because a lot of voters are thinking about
trustworthiness and character, as you put it, and they're looking
(04:53):
at the leader and weighing up his merits and trustworthiness, promise,
keeping ethical behavior in private life. All of this matters
to many voters much more than others. And so no,
it's not over because you know that you can sweep
this under the carpet, but the doubt is now there
in people's minds and that doesn't go away.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Ari, how do you think the opposition parties have handled
this so.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Far pretty well in the sense that they, as far
as I can tell, have said nothing about it, and
they should say nothing about it. It would be really
inappropriate if any opposing party was to somehow even appear
to be trying to take advantage of this, and so
it's really important that they just clam up about it
and say, no, we don't comment on this at all.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It would go down the dirty politics route, wouldn't it,
And that wouldn't be a good look.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That would backfire immediately in this day and age.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, but the thing is you have to look ahead though,
to suppose, for instance, a scenario where next year Chris
Hopkins is Prime Minister and he's going to get asked
across the floor of House some difficult questions about matters
to do with family policy, with school lunches or something
(06:08):
like this, and do you know what I mean? Is
it just going to shake his confidence and make everyone
go hmmm, you know, And then the possibility that someone
and another party says something under parliamentary privilege and it's
all on again.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
My kids are with my kids are with yours.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I don't know, No, she's not in the country.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Do you accept that the situation could be damaging for labor?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Public scrutiny over the private lives of politicians really isn't
anything new, is it.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What are some that come to mind for you?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Was there? I think we need to look back to
the Don Brash incident, and I it's going back over
twenty years now, two thousand and five, when he was
the leader of the National Party and he was unsuccessful
in that two thousand and five election. There were a
number of scandals the Breath so called Brethren scandal for instance,
that were affecting National at that time. But certainly Don
(07:23):
Brash was pursued by media quite vigorously about former relationships
that he that he had had some time before that,
and there was no holds barred, you know, it was
treated as fair game by media and people. I think
the average New Zealander watching was thinking, yeah, this is
(07:43):
I do think this matters to my confidence in this
person as a leader. He has since fessed up those
about those past relationships, so the information about it now
is pretty public, but at the time, yes, it was.
It was a pylon onto Don Brash. Lenn Brown, the
former mayor of Auckland is another case. In this case,
(08:09):
it was an affair and it was outed by some
right wing political activists. There was you know, there was
a known affair. He was a married man. He did
have an affair. He used council resources in pursuit of
that affair, notoriously. But my point here really is that
(08:29):
that happened early on, that was outed early on in
his second term as mayor. By the end of his
three year that three year term, he was unelectable. People
had not forgotten, is my point, Okay, and many Auckland
is that I spoke to around the traps. Not everyone
thought it this way, I know, but many Auckland just said, look,
(08:51):
if his wife and family can't trust him, I can't
trust him. It was as simple as that for many people.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
When I was looking back as well, I remember, you know,
the likes of Ian Lee Galloway. He had an inappropriate
relationship with the former staff You've got Andrew Falloon of
the National Party. He resigned after sending unsolicited images to
young women.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Dare I mention Colin Craig as well.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So are the stakes different do you think when these
kind of allegations and peering into somebody's personal life when
they are sexual or lurid or immoral in the eyes
of the public.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes, And of course different people have different morals here
about sexual conduct. And you know, keep in mind it's
not just the conservative end of the political spectrum that's
concerned about this. There's also on the left a strong
feminist point of view as well about powerful men having
relationships with younger women and or you know, dare i
(09:50):
mention the former Prince Andrew and so forth. But so,
you know, this is something that's very prominent politically for people,
and they are concer earned about it. And so I
think that the argument that goes which is a reasonable argument,
you know that Okay, private lives do get messy sometimes.
Who can put their hand up and say I've never
(10:11):
had a problem. Maybe some people, but yeah, we all
understand that. But we and so we can tolerate that
up to a certain point, I think. And as I say,
you know, New Zealanders will view this in different ways.
Some will be more concerned about the connection between the
private and the public than others. Others will want to
(10:32):
will be happy to compartmentalize and separate them. But yeah,
and with social media, of course that this is becoming
just so much more exposed, so much, so much more
easily exposed. That's part of the problem.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Where should the line be drawn, do you think, because
it's a different you know, it's different when say, a
man in a powerful position is having a relationship with
a younger staffer for example, versus you know, when Justice
minister crashes her car and after emotional distress from a breakup.
(11:06):
There is all different ends of the spectrum here, and
the right for the public to know.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
But where should that line be drawn? Maybe when children
are involved, but they're involved anyway. I mean, I'm sure
that Brown's children were affected.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yep, absolutely they were, and so look, but generally I
think journalists are pretty responsible. They leave the children out
of it as much as possible, obviously, and so that's
just a standard ethical thing. Look, every scandal is uniquely
scandalous in its own way. It's its own story, and
so one has to use judgment. And I think generally
(11:43):
journalists in this country are not generally prying for personal
sort of dirt. It's usually only when it comes out,
and certainly in this case, it's the ex wife herself
who has put it out there. I mean, the journalists,
we're not digging and in fact, so far they've been
pretty gentle about the whole thing, really, you know, to
(12:06):
give you guys a bit of a compliment that our
journalists are pretty respectful and ethical about this. But yeah,
and it's a matter of judgment as to when a
situation has crossed the line that this does reach a
public interest level, and I think in this case it
did for two reasons. One, the affected person, the ex wife,
(12:26):
put it out there herself. There was no journalist digging in.
And secondly, she was making statements that related to public
policy and party values and so forth, so she made
a political statement. And now that it was although she
deleted that post, it is in the wild now on
(12:49):
social media, and so I think it does now reach
that public interest criterion and it is fair game for journalists.
But credit to the journalists, they haven't been repeating her
claims the batim.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And people may wonder why that is the case, where
they've seen it on readit or on the women's group
on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
They've seen the posts, they've read the claims.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But there are responsibilities in terms of you know, everyone's
innocent until proven guilty, and he hasn't been accused of
any illegal activity.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
At least he absolutely so. And also there's, let's face it,
the fear of the defamation action. But probably I think
news media have been responsible and not repeating the claims verbatim,
partly because the person herself removed them from social media.
She must have done that for a reason. But members
(13:48):
of the public I think are sort of saying, why
are you covering this up? Why aren't you so it's
so difficult. It's a tricky point for media, there isn't it.
But I think generally, probably you've been making the right choice.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
As regards his claim. Just play the claim one more
time for me, Glenn. The claim at the beginning of
yesterday's press conference was the time that.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
I've been in politics, I've made a very conscious effort
to keep my private life private and to keep my
family out of the spotlight, particularly my children. You won't
find photos of my kids anywhere on social media. You
won't find me talking about them beyond generic references to
being a parent anywhere in public.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It's simply not true. I'm afraid to tell you the photos. Yes,
he's correct social media, I'm assume he's correct. I'm not
on social media. I don't care. My favorite thing to
do I reference Sir PM's private passions Welcome to My
Home Woman's Weekly of October twenty three. My favorite thing
to do with them is sitting down on the floor
with Lego for a couple of hours, and it goes on.
There are other references, so I think he's probably misled
(14:53):
us slightly.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I saw comparisons to Hepkin's comments about not talking generally
about his kids in the public sphere to some comments
he made, perhaps in a woman's magazine about them and
about being a father.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
They were pretty generic, though, but the last they were there.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But politicians, especially in an election year, do need to
appeal to voters, and that most of the time does
mean a glossy photo shoot in your kitchen or in
your backyard with your kids or your dog or something.
So where does where is the line drawn in as
to how much a politician should or has to or
you know, has to divulge.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, well, the most outstanding example has to be to
Sinda Adurn taking her baby into the UN General Assembly
for the whole world to see. And this was a baby,
an infant, you know, and everyone kind of got gooey
eyed about that. But you know, to someone extent, it's like, oh, okay,
(15:54):
you know that was a good thing to do, maybe
a cute thing to do. The baby was not able
to give consent. You know, if you're going to do
that kind of thing, you then have to be prepared
for the moments when it doesn't look so good, when
there's a slip up and suddenly you've involved the children.
So but to give you another example, I mean, you
(16:15):
can go to I think Christopher Luxen's website. On the
page on the National Party website, you'll find photographs often
with his family. That's fine because I think, you know,
we do want to see the real person to some extent,
don't we, And so really really tricky. So politicians are
(16:37):
constantly using the family or their good family record. And
Len Brown did this too, by the way, I'm a
good family man and all the rest of it. So
they do this when it suits them. But then if
you're going to complain when it blows up in your face, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, there is kind of like a double standard. Hey,
when politicians use social media to connect with voters to
humanize themselves, but then shut up shop when questions are
asked about their personal lives.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sometimes I don't know, it's really really tricky, and I
think but you generally I would say media keep children
out of it, but the politicians themselves are pushing their
children forward when it suits them from infancy in some cases,
as we see, you know, if those children are sort
of like, you know, relatively grown up, like I think
(17:28):
mister Luxeon's are, you know, they're in a situation where
they know what's going on, they can they can consent
and all the rest of it, and they support their
dad fully, I'm sure. So, you know, I just sort
of think there's there's obviously a spectrum of judgment. Everyone
will see it differently. But if politicians are going to
(17:49):
live by the sword, they're also going to die by
the sword, and so if they and also I guess
it needs to be said it's context here in the
Hipkins case that he did ask clearly for privacy for
his family. I think from the moment that he became
labor leader, and that's right twenty twenty three, So he
did ask for that, and as far as I can see,
(18:10):
journalists really respected that. And so I think that's great.
But Unfortunately, we now know what we know. You know,
we can't unknow it, and it was put out there
by an affected party, so we have to deal with
that now it's now public knowledge effectively.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Do you think, given the level of scrutiny that politicians
have now and I know that they've always had this
level of scrutiny, but now I suppose it's intensified with
the introduction of social media, if the bar of social
responsibility and the responsibility to be a moral good person,
(18:51):
if those expectations are too high, do you think that
we're going to get to a point where people are
going to be like, I do not want to run
for office. I care about democracy, I care about changing
the country, but you know what, I don't want anyone
to see my Facebook posts from two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's a really good point you make, Chelsea, because what's
going to happen. You know, with the generation that's grown
up in social media, on social media, they're going to
reach office holding age soon, if not already, and so
people will trawl through their past. I think what's going
(19:27):
to happen, though, is people will just go h man, Okay,
I did that when I was young and another, do
you see what I mean. I think it'll create a
certain kind of toleration. But on the other hand, getting
back to what we just started there, certainly, I mean
I have from time to time thought for sort of
like half a minute about whether I would like to
(19:49):
be a politician or not. And one of the reasons,
certainly is that, No, I do not want my private
life being scrutinized, thank you very much. And yeah, I
just couldn't stand it. And so I'm a fairly private
person in a certain way, So no, I don't want that,
and I don't want to have to pretend I'm a
stand up guy who's you know, has a beautiful family
(20:12):
and all that kind of thing. So no, I the
scrutiny would be too much for me, And I would
totally understand if there are other people who feel the
same way. But social media has made it tougher. But
on the other hand, I wonder whether in the long run,
we'll all just have to forgive one another for embarrassing
(20:33):
posts on Instagram that have us doing something that doesn't
look very good.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Well, hopefully nobody trulls through ours. Grant that's right, Thanks
for joining.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Us, Hey, thank you, Chelsea, has been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzid Herald dot cod end z. The Front Page
is hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine. Dicky
is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor,
and our executive producer.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Is Jane Ye.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Follow the Front Page on the iheartapp or wherever you
get your podcasts, and join us next time for another
look beyond the headlines.
Kiyota.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I am Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. Labor
leader Chris Hipkins has acknowledged he considered his future in
politics in the wake of his ex wife's allegations. She
made a series of claims in a now deleted private
(00:28):
social media post on Sunday, none of which alleges unlawful conduct.
Being a politician is one of the most public facing
roles in our society, but where should the line be
drawn between public and private life? Today on the Front Page,
political commentator Grant Duncan is with us. First off, Grant,
(00:52):
how do you think Chris Hipkins has handled this whole
situation thus far?
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, I think he's handled as well as he could
be expect. This is clearly an emotionally difficult time for him,
and it's come as a bit of an unexpected bombshell.
The message that was put on Facebook by his ex wife,
he probably wasn't expecting. And so you know, if I
put myself in his shoes, I would not be feeling
(01:17):
good about it. And so, yeah, you know, with a
bit of empathy for him, I think, yeah, he's handled
it pretty well. He has said, for instance, that somewhere
that he had thought about standing down and so forth,
and that seems to me a pretty reasonable human thing
to say out loud, although politicians rarely admit to that
(01:41):
kind of weakness or vulnerability. He had a little bit
of a tearing up there and so forth. But there's
still some ways to go though.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I feel here, yeah, well, what do you think that
he should do next, or even labor should do next.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Well, it's very very tricky because you see the problem
that they face, Chelsea is that labor is heavily dependent
on women voters, and you know they're save if they're
thirty percent in a poll, thirty five percent of women
and twenty five percent of men will be supporting labor
(02:18):
and that's a big gap. So that gender gap and
party support is really significant at the moment. And you know,
there's a range of opinion out there, and obviously I
can't speak for other people's opinions, but there is a
range of opinions. So there are some people who will
strictly want to strictly separate private life and public office,
(02:40):
but in reality, in New Zealand, we don't do that.
We have seen people hounded out of office for often
quite minor private slip ups in private life. And I
think for example of Michael Woods and his privately owned
shares in Auckland International Airport that gotom removed from office
by Chris Hipkins when he was minister. So that was
(03:01):
a private matter that the minister hadn't tied it up
in his private life. He should have, he didn't do it,
So private life doesn't actually matter. Yeah, there's a long
way to go here, and I think I think generally
reporters journalists have been pretty respectful. Actually, you know, Hipkins
asked for privacy for his family. That's been respected. They
(03:23):
would put his easy going with him in the stand
up yesterday, I thought, realizing he was going through an
emotional time. But this is not over yet. And as
I say, I think a lot of a lot of
women voters in particular, really do see this personal stuff
as being political. They don't separate. They don't want to
separate out the concert or they don't want to see
(03:45):
the woman's voice being silenced by a powerful man, basically,
and they don't separate the personal and the public. And
certainly what the ex wife was doing in her Facebook
post was to draw direct direct comparison between private behavior
and public statements and policies and values.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, it is important, especially of a party leader and
a former prime minister and a hopeful prime minister again to.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Have a good character.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
So I suppose that's where we, you know, look into
the private lives of these people and say, hey, this
is an actual you know.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
We do care. Will this go away for him?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Do you think is this the end of him being
a labor leader?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I don't think it goes away in the sense that
is the sort of thing that many voters won't forget.
And I'm thinking, particularly, as I say, of those women
voters who may be, you know, thinking do I trust
this guy? Because a lot of voters are thinking about
trustworthiness and character, as you put it, and they're looking
(04:53):
at the leader and weighing up his merits and trustworthiness, promise,
keeping ethical behavior in private life. All of this matters
to many voters much more than others. And so no,
it's not over because you know that you can sweep
this under the carpet, but the doubt is now there
in people's minds and that doesn't go away.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Ari, how do you think the opposition parties have handled
this so.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Far pretty well in the sense that they, as far
as I can tell, have said nothing about it, and
they should say nothing about it. It would be really
inappropriate if any opposing party was to somehow even appear
to be trying to take advantage of this, and so
it's really important that they just clam up about it
and say, no, we don't comment on this at all.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It would go down the dirty politics route, wouldn't it,
And that wouldn't be a good look.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
That would backfire immediately in this day and age.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, but the thing is you have to look ahead though,
to suppose, for instance, a scenario where next year Chris
Hopkins is Prime Minister and he's going to get asked
across the floor of House some difficult questions about matters
to do with family policy, with school lunches or something
(06:08):
like this, and do you know what I mean? Is
it just going to shake his confidence and make everyone
go hmmm, you know, And then the possibility that someone
and another party says something under parliamentary privilege and it's
all on again.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
My kids are with my kids are with yours.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I don't know, No, she's not in the country.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Do you accept that the situation could be damaging for labor?
Speaker 1 (06:47):
I hope not.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Well.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Public scrutiny over the private lives of politicians really isn't
anything new, is it.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
What are some that come to mind for you?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
Was there? I think we need to look back to
the Don Brash incident, and I it's going back over
twenty years now, two thousand and five, when he was
the leader of the National Party and he was unsuccessful
in that two thousand and five election. There were a
number of scandals the Breath so called Brethren scandal for instance,
that were affecting National at that time. But certainly Don
(07:23):
Brash was pursued by media quite vigorously about former relationships
that he that he had had some time before that,
and there was no holds barred, you know, it was
treated as fair game by media and people. I think
the average New Zealander watching was thinking, yeah, this is
(07:43):
I do think this matters to my confidence in this
person as a leader. He has since fessed up those
about those past relationships, so the information about it now
is pretty public, but at the time, yes, it was.
It was a pylon onto Don Brash. Lenn Brown, the
former mayor of Auckland is another case. In this case,
(08:09):
it was an affair and it was outed by some
right wing political activists. There was you know, there was
a known affair. He was a married man. He did
have an affair. He used council resources in pursuit of
that affair, notoriously. But my point here really is that
(08:29):
that happened early on, that was outed early on in
his second term as mayor. By the end of his
three year that three year term, he was unelectable. People
had not forgotten, is my point, Okay, and many Auckland
is that I spoke to around the traps. Not everyone
thought it this way, I know, but many Auckland just said, look,
(08:51):
if his wife and family can't trust him, I can't
trust him. It was as simple as that for many people.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
When I was looking back as well, I remember, you know,
the likes of Ian Lee Galloway. He had an inappropriate
relationship with the former staff You've got Andrew Falloon of
the National Party. He resigned after sending unsolicited images to
young women.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Dare I mention Colin Craig as well.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So are the stakes different do you think when these
kind of allegations and peering into somebody's personal life when
they are sexual or lurid or immoral in the eyes
of the public.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yes, And of course different people have different morals here
about sexual conduct. And you know, keep in mind it's
not just the conservative end of the political spectrum that's
concerned about this. There's also on the left a strong
feminist point of view as well about powerful men having
relationships with younger women and or you know, dare i
(09:50):
mention the former Prince Andrew and so forth. But so,
you know, this is something that's very prominent politically for people,
and they are concer earned about it. And so I
think that the argument that goes which is a reasonable argument,
you know that Okay, private lives do get messy sometimes.
Who can put their hand up and say I've never
(10:11):
had a problem. Maybe some people, but yeah, we all
understand that. But we and so we can tolerate that
up to a certain point, I think. And as I say,
you know, New Zealanders will view this in different ways.
Some will be more concerned about the connection between the
private and the public than others. Others will want to
(10:32):
will be happy to compartmentalize and separate them. But yeah,
and with social media, of course that this is becoming
just so much more exposed, so much, so much more
easily exposed. That's part of the problem.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Where should the line be drawn, do you think, because
it's a different you know, it's different when say, a
man in a powerful position is having a relationship with
a younger staffer for example, versus you know, when Justice
minister crashes her car and after emotional distress from a breakup.
(11:06):
There is all different ends of the spectrum here, and
the right for the public to know.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
But where should that line be drawn? Maybe when children
are involved, but they're involved anyway. I mean, I'm sure
that Brown's children were affected.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Yep, absolutely they were, and so look, but generally I
think journalists are pretty responsible. They leave the children out
of it as much as possible, obviously, and so that's
just a standard ethical thing. Look, every scandal is uniquely
scandalous in its own way. It's its own story, and
so one has to use judgment. And I think generally
(11:43):
journalists in this country are not generally prying for personal
sort of dirt. It's usually only when it comes out,
and certainly in this case, it's the ex wife herself
who has put it out there. I mean, the journalists,
we're not digging and in fact, so far they've been
pretty gentle about the whole thing, really, you know, to
(12:06):
give you guys a bit of a compliment that our
journalists are pretty respectful and ethical about this. But yeah,
and it's a matter of judgment as to when a
situation has crossed the line that this does reach a
public interest level, and I think in this case it
did for two reasons. One, the affected person, the ex wife,
(12:26):
put it out there herself. There was no journalist digging in.
And secondly, she was making statements that related to public
policy and party values and so forth, so she made
a political statement. And now that it was although she
deleted that post, it is in the wild now on
(12:49):
social media, and so I think it does now reach
that public interest criterion and it is fair game for journalists.
But credit to the journalists, they haven't been repeating her
claims the batim.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
And people may wonder why that is the case, where
they've seen it on readit or on the women's group
on Facebook.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
They've seen the posts, they've read the claims.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
But there are responsibilities in terms of you know, everyone's
innocent until proven guilty, and he hasn't been accused of
any illegal activity.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
At least he absolutely so. And also there's, let's face it,
the fear of the defamation action. But probably I think
news media have been responsible and not repeating the claims verbatim,
partly because the person herself removed them from social media.
She must have done that for a reason. But members
(13:48):
of the public I think are sort of saying, why
are you covering this up? Why aren't you so it's
so difficult. It's a tricky point for media, there isn't it.
But I think generally, probably you've been making the right choice.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
As regards his claim. Just play the claim one more
time for me, Glenn. The claim at the beginning of
yesterday's press conference was the time that.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
I've been in politics, I've made a very conscious effort
to keep my private life private and to keep my
family out of the spotlight, particularly my children. You won't
find photos of my kids anywhere on social media. You
won't find me talking about them beyond generic references to
being a parent anywhere in public.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
It's simply not true. I'm afraid to tell you the photos. Yes,
he's correct social media, I'm assume he's correct. I'm not
on social media. I don't care. My favorite thing to
do I reference Sir PM's private passions Welcome to My
Home Woman's Weekly of October twenty three. My favorite thing
to do with them is sitting down on the floor
with Lego for a couple of hours, and it goes on.
There are other references, so I think he's probably misled
(14:53):
us slightly.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
Well.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
I saw comparisons to Hepkin's comments about not talking generally
about his kids in the public sphere to some comments
he made, perhaps in a woman's magazine about them and
about being a father.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
They were pretty generic, though, but the last they were there.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
But politicians, especially in an election year, do need to
appeal to voters, and that most of the time does
mean a glossy photo shoot in your kitchen or in
your backyard with your kids or your dog or something.
So where does where is the line drawn in as
to how much a politician should or has to or
you know, has to divulge.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, well, the most outstanding example has to be to
Sinda Adurn taking her baby into the UN General Assembly
for the whole world to see. And this was a baby,
an infant, you know, and everyone kind of got gooey
eyed about that. But you know, to someone extent, it's like, oh, okay,
(15:54):
you know that was a good thing to do, maybe
a cute thing to do. The baby was not able
to give consent. You know, if you're going to do
that kind of thing, you then have to be prepared
for the moments when it doesn't look so good, when
there's a slip up and suddenly you've involved the children.
So but to give you another example, I mean, you
(16:15):
can go to I think Christopher Luxen's website. On the
page on the National Party website, you'll find photographs often
with his family. That's fine because I think, you know,
we do want to see the real person to some extent,
don't we, And so really really tricky. So politicians are
(16:37):
constantly using the family or their good family record. And
Len Brown did this too, by the way, I'm a
good family man and all the rest of it. So
they do this when it suits them. But then if
you're going to complain when it blows up in your face, well,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, there is kind of like a double standard. Hey,
when politicians use social media to connect with voters to
humanize themselves, but then shut up shop when questions are
asked about their personal lives.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Sometimes I don't know, it's really really tricky, and I
think but you generally I would say media keep children
out of it, but the politicians themselves are pushing their
children forward when it suits them from infancy in some cases,
as we see, you know, if those children are sort
of like, you know, relatively grown up, like I think
(17:28):
mister Luxeon's are, you know, they're in a situation where
they know what's going on, they can they can consent
and all the rest of it, and they support their
dad fully, I'm sure. So, you know, I just sort
of think there's there's obviously a spectrum of judgment. Everyone
will see it differently. But if politicians are going to
(17:49):
live by the sword, they're also going to die by
the sword, and so if they and also I guess
it needs to be said it's context here in the
Hipkins case that he did ask clearly for privacy for
his family. I think from the moment that he became
labor leader, and that's right twenty twenty three, So he
did ask for that, and as far as I can see,
(18:10):
journalists really respected that. And so I think that's great.
But Unfortunately, we now know what we know. You know,
we can't unknow it, and it was put out there
by an affected party, so we have to deal with
that now it's now public knowledge effectively.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Do you think, given the level of scrutiny that politicians
have now and I know that they've always had this
level of scrutiny, but now I suppose it's intensified with
the introduction of social media, if the bar of social
responsibility and the responsibility to be a moral good person,
(18:51):
if those expectations are too high, do you think that
we're going to get to a point where people are
going to be like, I do not want to run
for office. I care about democracy, I care about changing
the country, but you know what, I don't want anyone
to see my Facebook posts from two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's a really good point you make, Chelsea, because what's
going to happen. You know, with the generation that's grown
up in social media, on social media, they're going to
reach office holding age soon, if not already, and so
people will trawl through their past. I think what's going
(19:27):
to happen, though, is people will just go h man, Okay,
I did that when I was young and another, do
you see what I mean. I think it'll create a
certain kind of toleration. But on the other hand, getting
back to what we just started there, certainly, I mean
I have from time to time thought for sort of
like half a minute about whether I would like to
(19:49):
be a politician or not. And one of the reasons,
certainly is that, No, I do not want my private
life being scrutinized, thank you very much. And yeah, I
just couldn't stand it. And so I'm a fairly private
person in a certain way, So no, I don't want that,
and I don't want to have to pretend I'm a
stand up guy who's you know, has a beautiful family
(20:12):
and all that kind of thing. So no, I the
scrutiny would be too much for me, And I would
totally understand if there are other people who feel the
same way. But social media has made it tougher. But
on the other hand, I wonder whether in the long run,
we'll all just have to forgive one another for embarrassing
(20:33):
posts on Instagram that have us doing something that doesn't
look very good.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Well, hopefully nobody trulls through ours. Grant that's right, Thanks
for joining.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Us, Hey, thank you, Chelsea, has been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at enzid Herald dot cod end z. The Front Page
is hosted and produced by me Chelsea Daniels Caine. Dicky
is our studio operator, Richard Martin, our producer and editor,
and our executive producer.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Is Jane Ye.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Follow the Front Page on the iheartapp or wherever you
get your podcasts, and join us next time for another
look beyond the headlines.
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