As symbolism goes, the start of Prime Minister Chris Hipkins’ day in Dunedin did not bode well.
Mr Hipkins was fresh from news on Monday that the Labour Party he leads was sitting at a historic low in the Newshub-Reid Research poll, and he knew that at some stage yesterday a 1News reporter was going to tell him the numbers in the latest 1News-Verian poll.
For the frontman of a party being eviscerated in the polls, hanging out in the School of Anatomy’s museum and being filmed in front of models depicting disembowelled bodies, Mr Hipkins could have been forgiven for empathising with what some of those stripped-down plastic dummies were feeling.
Mr Hipkins and an entourage of Labour MPs were at the museum to meet a group of medical students and make the big announcement of the day.
"Act naturally and pretend they aren’t here," he advised the surgeons and GPs of tomorrow as the media clambered about, and started to ask why they were studying medicine.
Eventually, one of the students plucked up the courage to ask the obvious question: "Why are you here?".
Which allowed Mr Hipkins to pivot and spruik Labour’s plan to expand the number of places available to medical students, and also to poke holes in National’s plan to open a new medical school in the Waikato.
"You are very expensive to train, I have to tell you," the former minister of health said, watched on by former health minister David Clark and current Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall, back in a room the Otago-trained doctor knows well.
Coincidentally, one of the students just happened to be a former patient of the National health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, a revelation which prompted nervous laughter.
Somehow Mr Hipkins managed to tiptoe through the photo op and subsequent media stand-up without the elephant in the room coming up — one block over striking senior doctors were picketing outside Dunedin Hospital, and by now are no doubt ruing they missed a gilt-edged chance to publicise their unsettled pay claim.
More medical students were next on the menu for Mr Hipkins, a flat of people studying dentistry at a charming student flat called "The Love Shack".
Charming, I hear you ask? Yes, really. The nearly new carpet was nicely vacuum-cleaned — the flatties confessed to cleaning "a bit" earlier in the week, although the well-stocked top shelf above the kitchen cupboards had survived — and the surfaces were mostly dusted.
As a showcase for the warm homes initiative that Mr Hipkins was promoting — and which he said had in part been prompted by his own experience visiting Scarfie flats in his student politics days — this was a winner, although the student with the book by arch-conservative Jordan Peterson on their shelf might have been a hard sell.
But Mr Hipkins did buy the flat donuts, which was a nice touch although possibly falling foul of the Electoral Act’s provisions regarding treating voters.
Next up was a ribbon cutting, as the former education minister formally opened a building Mr Hipkins had previously inspected when it was a muddy hole in the ground, Otago Polytechnic’s Trades Training Centre — He Toki Kai Te Rika.
As at the anatomy museum, there was plenty of evisceration on show here too — the building has very few ceilings, an "active learning choice" so aspiring builders can see how everything was put together.
Even more pared back is the new Dunedin hospital, a project Mr Hipkins was keen to link to the polytechnic opening as examples of what Labour was doing for Dunedin. He was somewhat less keen to address a question about Labour’s decision last week to reverse most of the cost savings it had introduced to the project, an exercise which has contributed to the opening date of the hospital being pushed back yet again, at who knows what cost.
With that it was off to the day’s real highlight, the annual Otago Daily Times Class Act awards, a salute to the region’s high-flying high school pupils, now in its 24th year.
Mr Hipkins urged his youthful audience to keep working hard and to seize every opportunity that came before them. He also noted that surprises can crop up in life, and a year ago he would not have thought that he would be handing out their achievement certificates.
By 6pm he might have wished that he had not been so "lucky".
At the top of the bulletin came the day’s final evisceration ... Labour had dropped to 28%, and 1News was speculating whether Mr Hipkins should be replaced as leader.
That’s life on the campaign trail, having your guts ripped out despite your best efforts.
