The speech set out three priority areas for Labour — jobs and incomes, health and housing — and Mr Hipkins’ agenda while in Dunedin yesterday focused on the first of those.
He visited several local firms, including Animation Research Limited, before ending his day at bespoke manufacturing firm United Machinists.
"In the era which we're currently in, where we have rising unemployment, we actually need to look at where the jobs of the future are going to come from," he said.
"We're entering an age of mass disruption, AI is just changing everything, and so what I've been looking at in my visits around the country is who's at the cutting edge of doing innovative new things."
There were huge possibilities for firms in the advanced manufacturing such as United Machinists, but the government needed to have specific conversations with business sectors about what they needed, rather than be narrowly focused on growth, he said.
"The real question is growing what and for whose benefit, and you can grow the economy in ways that are actually detrimental to the New Zealand population," Mr Hipkins said.
"What we want to shoot for is quality growth, the growth that actually makes New Zealanders better off, and not dismissing old-school manufacturing."
Mr Hipkins was briefed on the work United Machinists has done for clients ranging from the aerospace industry to medical equipment and instruments, an area of much interest to him as a former health minister.
Having been much involved in the planning for the new Dunedin hospital, Mr Hipkins said he struggled to see how the government could complete the project for its set $1.88 billion budget.
"Dunedin will be short-changed if they set a fixed budget and say under no circumstances will they be willing to renegotiate beyond that.
"Surely the question here has to be what capacity is required for the lower South Island? And bearing in mind this is not just Dunedin, actually it is going to be the main tertiary hospital for the lower South Island. What is required here, and how much is that going to cost?
"I think New Zealand has a woeful history of penny-pinching when it comes to major infrastructure investment, and this should not be added to the long list of those. We should do it right."
