I'm often frustrated with Hipkins, but he makes an important point here;
"... 20,000 fewer jobs in the construction sector than there were on election day 2 years ago ... where have [those workers] gone? Well, a whole chunk of them have left the country, and some of them have ended up on a Jobseeker benefit. So we're paying them to sit at home, when we could have been paying them to build the future of the country."
#ChrisHipkins, NZ Labour leader, 2025
