Summarised by Centrist
Mike Hosking dismantled Labour leader Chris Hipkins on air in a searing Newstalk ZB interview focused on the former prime minister’s refusal to front the COVID Royal Commission in public.
“Do you realise how shocking this looks?” Hosking opened, bluntly. Hipkins replied, “Well, I have turned up. I’ve answered every question they’ve asked. They ran out of questions,” he claimed. But Hosking kept pressing.
“You’ve not appeared publicly before the Commission. That’s the fact,” Hosking shot back.
Hipkins repeatedly tried to spin his previous private and written responses as public accountability, but Hosking cut him off, “Just for future reference, for the rest of the questions in this interview, I’m referring to you appearing publicly.”
Hipkins also attempted to skirt questions regarding Dentons, the global law firm hired to advise him, Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson, and Ayesha Verrall.
When asked a direct yes/no question, “Did Dentons advise you not to appear publicly?” Hipkins sidestepped the issue of whether his taxpayer-funded lawyers actively advised secrecy.
“So the spin doctors advised you not to appear publicly and you went ‘thanks very much, I’ll take that advice’,” Hoskings summarised.
Hipkins then attempted to claim regular media appearances were equivalent to sworn public testimony: “I’m here now… every day I appear in media and answer the questions that people can ask.”
But as Hosking made brutally clear, being grilled by a talkback host is no substitute for sworn public accountability.
“So we don’t need an inquiry? Just turn up on the media?” he said.
