Tim Dower: Time for Hipkins to show us what he's made of

Time now for Chris Hipkins to show us what he's made of.

He's done what was required of him and showed up in Auckland over the weekend, now his role is to butt out and leave the rest of the job to the people who know what they're doing.

What the Prime Minister has to get stuck into now is the more serious business of getting the country back on track.

Or as he'll see it, getting Labour back on track to give it a fighting chance at the election in October.

And how does he do that?

Well, one thing his predecessor just couldn't accept was how deeply unpopular Three Waters is.

Not just for the stealing of local assets, not even for the creation of four massive new bureaucracies and the crap that'll come with them.

But mostly with co-governance. Unelected people calling the shots, accountable to no-one.

It's just not the way you do things in a democracy.

I think people now know that putting Three Waters on the back burner doesn't go anywhere near far enough. He needs to draw a definitive line under what's already been done. No more until the whole thing can be taken back and rewritten. Maybe just scrapping it all would be a better idea.

The media merger. People see that as an effort to gag state media and use funding tools to whip it into compliance. Drop it.

Something else you don't do in the middle of a cost of living crisis is slap an extra tax on people and businesses.

So the unemployment insurance scheme has to go.

And much as it'll stick in the throat of a lot of Labour's current caucus, he has to demonstrate he's heard what he was told by business leaders.

They need workers and if our own people don't want the jobs? Let business get people who do want them in from overseas.

Oh and one more thing: 

Sack the Health Minister please.

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