Audrey Young: Todd Muller's first day at Parliament as leader was a howler

National Party leader Todd Muller and deputy Nikki Kaye talk to media. Photo / Audrey Young

COMMENT:

The Labour Party has been so concerned about the potential threat of National's new leader, Todd Muller, it has sent out an SOS to members reminding them of how dangerous a new leader with momentum can be.

That was before Todd Muller had had a chance to have a howler of a first day at Parliament as leader.

Somehow he doesn't appear to be quite the threat he did on day one, two and three.

The desperate-sounding note to Labour members was sent out yesterday, drafted perhaps by someone not familiar with the unwritten rule never to admit that one's opponent might be a threat.

"With National's leadership change on Friday, building and growing Labour's campaign is now more important than ever," it said.

"Back in 2017, we all saw how much momentum the right leader can give an election campaign and there's a chance this leadership change could be a moment for National to rally their supporters and leverage funds from their backers."

It sought donations to help stop any momentum Muller might have.

He managed to do that on his own.

Muller's bad day began the night before on his first serious television interview since deposing Simon Bridges on Friday.

It was on TVNZ's Q and A with host Jack Tame in the Auckland studio and Muller listening through an earpiece in from the echoing panelled Legislative Council Chamber.

National Party leader Todd Muller and deputy Nikki Kaye talk to media. Photo / Audrey Young

It became a shouty interview, with Muller gesticulating to distraction, and unable to say if National would spend more or less money than the $62 billion planned by the current Government over the four-year forecast period.

There was one good moment. He had a good interview with Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning. Muller appeared relaxed, articulate, easy to listen to and gave a good account of himself and why the National caucus had put its faith in him.

Two hours later it was the "Caucus run", the procession of MPs to their weekly caucus meetings.

Muller emerged with deputy Nikki Kaye to his first full caucus as leader with a media standup on the way.

It's a time when the leader tries to set the agenda but unless they have something worthy of setting the agenda, it is the media that sets the agenda, which today was the issue of National's front bench.

As it happened, Nikki Kaye set the agenda by leaping to the defence of Muller (he had no need of being defended) and stating that Paul Goldsmith with his Ngati Porou heritage was a Māori on National's front bench.

Todd Muller in his first Question Time as National leader. Photo / Dom Thomas

It was an error that Muller also happily repeated as well – and just as most people were thinking "I never knew Paul Goldsmith was Māori," Goldsmith said it and blurred the focus on National's alternative plan for the economy.

It was perhaps an easy error to have made if Kaye had previously heard Goldsmith talk about his Māori relatives among Ngati Porou and their shared great-great grandfather but apparently the old man had many wives, Māori and Pakeha.

Muller also revealed his first back-track – his intention to keep his Donald Trump Make America Great Again hat in the packaging box.

Anyway, Muller had his first Question Time to look forward to and an apparent aim of doing things differently to the more abrasive style of Bridges.

National finance spokesman Paul Goldsmith is on the front bench but it not Maori. Photo / Mark Mitchell

"You'll see a slightly different style," he said on the caucus run. "I intend to be asking directly the questions I believe New Zealanders want answers to as opposed to perhaps other styles you've seen in the past."

Instead of asking Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern if she stood by all her statements and then ambushing her with a more focused supplementary question, as Bridges used to, Muller was more direct from the start.

He asked for Treasury's most recent forecasts for unemployment in the third quarter of the year and the Government's specific plan to stop the job losses that had occurred over the past two weeks.

The trouble is that Ardern simply answered them directly, and at length, and even summed up the point that Muller was trying to make – that National supports direct cash to small business owners and the Government has preferred a wage subsidy - wages being one of the major costs of business.

It may have been slightly different from Bridges – but it elicited no more information than he would have, it did not challenge Ardern's lengthy monologues, there were no sparks, and it was a little bit dull. Not terrible, not great.

The only sparks were the lighter moments over Paul Goldsmith's contribution, now dubbed Ngati Epsom.

There was a general atmosphere of mockery in the air.

It was not exactly aimed at Muller, but the fact he had precipitated it against Goldsmith was an early lesson in leadership being a little bit harder than it looks from the backbench.

The Labour fundraisers can perhaps relax for a few days until Muller regains his focus.