National Party leader Christopher Luxon. Photo / Alex Burton
OPINION:
Christopher Luxon initially escaped media torture when his jokey encouragement to people to “have more babies” did not immediately feature on the day’s news.
It was not to be.
Luxon had been on form at Infrastructure New Zealand’s Building Nations Summit in Christchurch. He projected passion, competence, clarity and a determination to do something about New Zealand’s infrastructure problems as he promoted a five-point plan.
He was speaking to a 750-strong captive audience of bankers, engineers, developers, government agency heads and more who were keen to know just what National’s focus would be if it became Government after the October 14 election.
There was a frisson of excitement at my table when in answer to a question from NewstalkZB host Jack Tame on immigration, Luxon said, “we need people”.
“I mean, here’s the deal, essentially New Zealand stopped replacing itself in 2016 ... I encourage all of you to go out there, have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful.”
It didn’t take a nanosecond for the infrastructure specialists I was with to reckon that Luxon’s aside would grab more media attention than National’s plan — it was just the way the media was these days. When I later caught up with Luxon, he said he had just come from a media stand-up which was dominated by questions on what should happen to the beleaguered Cabinet Minister Michael Wood (sack him of course) and the babies reference.
But here’s the thing. Wood’s predicament dominated news that day. It wasn’t until the following afternoon that news editors decided to surface the babies story.
Cue outrage on social media and clickbait aplenty.
It’s a sign of how polarised New Zealand has become that a political leader like Luxon cannot make a light-hearted comment without being subjected to vilification through unfounded suggestions that he wants to interfere in women’s biology, or health for that matter. Yet again, references to The Handmaid’s Tale were surfaced along with his stance on abortion.
Even his deputy Nicola Willis got in on the act, making a defence of his “joke” and setting out what the party’s views were.
Actually, Luxon is big enough to stand up for himself.
Unfortunately, it now seems Luxon will have to edit his thoughts during the upcoming campaign before voicing them as it is clear from this week’s contretemps that he does not have the media with him when it comes to such issues.
It’s a far cry from the time when Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, some two decades ago, announced a baby bonus in his Budget, urging Australian couples to help remedy the problem of an ageing population by having three children.
“One for mum, one for dad and one for the country” was the Costello catch-cry, which he also promoted to Kiwis as he endeavoured to get more New Zealanders to cross the Tasman to fill Australia’s labour gaps.
The baby bonus did have an impact on the Australian birth rate, which increased significantly, hitting a peak in 2008; 2011 also saw Australian births exceed 300,000 (301,617), causing demographers to say they were then amidst a bigger baby boom than the post-World War II surge which resulted in Australia’s largest-ever generation — the Baby Boomers. But that was before paid parental leave and other financial assistance evolved.
It’s doubtful that Luxon will want to open a dialogue on a population policy any time soon — he is in a no-win position.
But New Zealand ought to be able to discuss population realities without hysteria.
Luxon does have a good track record in figuring out problems in infrastructure. He chaired the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council at the time it warned Jacinda Ardern that New Zealand was at an “infrastructure crisis point”.
This council had said New Zealand lacked a “national master plan” to tangibly map out “our immediate, medium and long-term infrastructure future in an integrated way”.
The council maintained there was “no overarching vision or leadership in New Zealand for infrastructure development” — although it qualified this by saying the issues were intergenerational.
Luxon has said a National Government would expand the role of Crown Infrastructure Partners to create a National Infrastructure Agency, connecting domestic and offshore investors in New Zealand infrastructure, co-ordinate the various government infrastructure investment funds and act as a specialist delivery agency for complex projects. There’s more: innovative funding and financing vehicles like public-private partnerships, tolls and value-capture instruments to boost private sector investment in infrastructure; national, city and regional “deals”.
There would be a fast-track process modelled on the Covid recovery legislation to establish a class of projects known as Major Infrastructure Priorities, which will require decisions within one year.
National would also create a 30-year infrastructure pipeline and plan for New Zealand covering all infrastructure sectors, overseen by the Infrastructure Commission.
The problem is that most of these solutions have been talked about for years in infrastructure circles.
But what is lacking is a bipartisan approach.
It is a nonsense that there is no commonality between the major parties on matters like mass transit for Auckland, housing — where National pulled the plug on the accord forged with Labour — or congestion charging for that matter.
Labour’s Northcote MP Shanan Halbert, who also chairs the Infrastructure and Transport select committee, stepped up at Building Nations to take Michael Wood’s place in the political debate on transport.
National’s Chris Bishop was also a ring-in — that’s because the party’s transport spokesperson Simeon Brown was off on paternity leave, welcoming the birth of a son.
As moderator of this session I was impressed by how both stepped up. There was not too much political biffo. Both acknowledged the need for a bipartisan agreement on the big spending projects.
But ahead of the election? Forget it.
That is the problem. This country has been talking about infrastructure deficits, light rail options, second harbour crossings, tolling, congestion charging etc etc for two decades.
But when media had an opportunity to push Luxon on bipartisanship — they focused on babies.