A short YouTube monologue by Chris Hipkins (uploaded/created by James Laughlin) arguing that political contest is essential to democracy. Hipkins reflects on his experience during the COVID‑19 response, describing strong public criticism directed at his political role and explaining his personal strategy of compartmentalising the office ('Chris Hipkins the politician' vs the private individual) to cope with attacks.
Politics should be a vigorous contest. It's not a democracy if it isn't. And so when you're sitting here thinking, why am I doing this? It's quite negative, basically. It is an important part of, you know, democracy is for the government of the day to be challenged. And I never took it personally when I was on the other end of that, you know, during the COVID 19 response period. Some of the stuff that came directed my way from, you know, people was pretty aggressive, but I never took it personally. People were lashing out at my position rather than me personally. Although they don't always express it that way. Sometimes they'll express it very personally. But I always sort of made an effort to compartmentalise that and say, actually, that's Chris Ipkins the politician that they're talking to, not Chris Ipkins the person or the dad or the private individual. Because I think that, again, that helps you to get through what you're doing in politics.
