quickymart:
Yep, this is something Hipkins won't be inheriting - I daresay we won't be seeing lockdowns again anytime soon. IMO they've served their purpose, we have a vaccine now (which we didn't in 2020) and 96%(?) of us are double vaccinated, so not much to be gained from a lockdown, and I don't think he'll be doing any while he's PM anyway.
Yes, Labour will be hoping against all hope that the decisions they made will be all forgotten because they have a new Leader. That doesn't seem reasonable. The Labour party is a group of people who make decisions and set policies. Hipkins was involved in that. He doesn't get to pretend that under him they would have done things differently/better. Also, reasonably voters should see that he won't magically fix what is broken inside the Labour party that has prevented them from delivering for 5+ years and continued to set themselves unreasonable goals and then get all slippery when asked why things weren't happening.