Chris Hipkins confirmed as New Zealand’s next PM
New Zealand’s former minister for Covid-19, Chris Hipkins, has been confirmed as the country’s next prime minister.
Hipkins got the unanimous support of legislators from the ruling Labour Party on Sunday after he was the only candidate to replace the charismatic Jacinda Ardern, who shocked the nation last week when she announced she was resigning after more than five years as prime minister.
Hipkins, 44, will be officially sworn into his new role on Wednesday.
He will have less than nine months before contesting a tough general election, with opinion polls indicating his party is trailing its conservative opposition.
“This is the biggest privilege and biggest responsibility of my life,” Hipkins said at a news conference announcing his appointment. “I am energised and excited by the challenge that lies ahead.”
Hipkins immediately acknowledged Ardern’s leadership, who he called one of New Zealand’s greatest prime ministers and an inspiration to women and girls everywhere. “She gave voice to those often overlooked in times of challenge and purposefully went about doing politics differently,” he said.
But some of the hate Ardern faced during her term is a reminder that “we’ve got a way to go to ensure women in leadership receive the same respect as their male counterparts”, he added.
Known as “Chippy”, Hipkins built a reputation for competence in tackling COVID and was a troubleshooter for Ardern when other cabinet ministers were struggling.
First elected to parliament in 2008, he became a household name fronting the government’s response to the pandemic. He was appointed health minister in July 2020 before becoming the COVID response minister at the end of the year.
Hipkins named Carmel Sepuloni as deputy prime minister, New Zealand’s first deputy prime minister of Pacific origin.
Sepuloni, 46, is of Samoan, Tongan and New Zealand European descent and lives in Auckland. She holds a number of portfolios, including social development and employment as well as arts, culture and heritage.
She said it was “very hard to fathom that a working-class girl” from a small New Zealand town could end up as deputy prime minister.
“I want to acknowledge the significance of this for our Pacific community,” Sepuloni said. “I am proudly Samoan, Tongan, and New Zealand European, and represent generations of New Zealanders with mixed heritage.”
Sepuloni said she’d already been receiving lots of humbling messages about another glass ceiling being smashed. Hipkins said the rest of his team would be announced later. - Agencies
The new leader said he has seen the media focus on Ardern’s personal life, and wants to keep his two young children and his family out of the limelight.
He said a year ago he and his wife decided to live separately.
“She’s still my best friend but we have made that decision in the best interest of our family,” he said.
ome library from his time as vice president, and nearly three months after lawyers found a small number of classified records at his former offices at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC.
It came a day after Biden maintained that “there’s no there there” on the document discoveries, which have become a political headache for the president and complicated the DOJ’s probe into former President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents and official records after he left office.
The president offered access “to his home to allow DOJ to conduct a search of the entire premises for potential vice-presidential records and potential classified material,” Bauer said.
Neither Biden nor his wife was present during the search, the lawyer said. They were in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for the weekend.
It remains to be seen whether additional searches by federal officials of other locations might be conducted. Biden’s personal lawyers previously conducted a search of the Rehoboth Beach residence and said they did not find any official documents or classified records.
Bauer said the DOJ requested that the White House not comment on Friday’s search before it was conducted, and that Biden’s personal and White House attorneys were present. The DOJ, he added, “had full access to the President’s home, including personally handwritten notes, files, papers, binders, memorabilia, to-do lists, schedules, and reminders going back decades”.
The DOJ, he added, “took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President’s service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President”.
The DOJ also took some notes that Biden had personally handwritten as vice president, he added.
Friday’s search shows investigators are swiftly moving forward with a probe into classified documents found in Biden’s possession.
This month, US Attorney General Merrick Garland named a special counsel to probe the matter.
