I can recall a conversation I had about a month ago with Labour leader and former Covid-19 Minister Chris Hipkins about Part 2 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into his government’s pandemic response.  

And he was saying that he was waiting to be invited to appear, and wouldn’t be asking for an invite, and wouldn’t be gate-crashing. That was around the time that he was also saying the Inquiry was a platform for conspiracy theorists. 

And I said at the time that, if Chris Hipkins was eventually invited and he declined, then he could forget about being Prime Minister again. 

Since then, it turns out he has been asked to front-up to the inquiry in person - and he has declined.  Dame Jacinda Ardern, former finance minister Grant Robertson and former health minister Ayesha Verrall have also been asked to appear. And they've all declined as well.  

All of them, on the basis of advice from lawyers who are being paid by the taxpayer, that appearing at the Inquiry could attract abuse towards family members and that images and recordings from the Inquiry hearings could be “tampered with and misused”.  

All of that’s probably true. But, even then, this is nonsense.  

Maybe Hipkins, Dame Jacinda, Robertson, and Verrall need to be reminded that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson fronted up in person to the Covid Inquiry in Britain.  

He didn’t hide behind written responses. Which, as we know, are always full of weasel words that go unchallenged. It wasn’t a holiday for Boris, but he fronted.  

And because Chris Hipkins, especially, isn’t fronting, he is political toast.   

Imagine if he had said to the others, “Okay, you guys aren’t going, but I’m still the leader of the Opposition, so I am going to front”. If he’d taken that approach, he would’ve had a few days where it might have been uncomfortable for him, but it would be over and done with.  

Because if you have a very low opinion of the way Labour handled the pandemic, your low opinion isn’t going to get any worse if Hipkins is grilled in-person at the Inquiry, is it?  

In fact, you might even admire him for fronting up. You might even give him credit for it. 

But he's not. And in doing so, he's written-off whatever he chance he had of leading Labour to victory next year. 

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