Christopher Luxon has said there will be no changes to abortion settings.
Left-wing claims that billionaire Elon Musk performed a Nazi salute at President Donald Trump’s post-Inauguration rally provided plenty of cheap headlines here and abroad.
News media went for Simeon Brown with the cheap shot that his appointment as Health Minister meant getting an abortion could be threatened.
The media posse at the National Party caucus retreat this week wasn’t focusing on his prioritiesfor this weighty portfolio: how he would ensure New Zealand does develop a first-class health system amid the disarray left behind when a major centralisation by the last Labour Government to form Health New Zealand resulted in chaos.
All too complex in today’s media world? Surely not.
Instead, its members picked up on an obvious smear by a pro-abortion lobby suggesting Brown’s appointment meant abortion services and funding delivered by the health system were in jeopardy. His appointment was a “provocation”, the lobby claimed.
That’s plainly asinine. It would be an overreach. And against the spirit of legislative change to decriminalise abortion.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has made clear – after being wrong-footed by a reporter on his abortion views early in his political career – that there will be no changes to the settings under his leadership.
I went back and watched the speeches Brown made in Parliament when the legislation was debated. There was no doubting his sincerity and his obvious pain, particularly when it comes to near-term abortions. But it also came through that he was a realist and deeply respectful of the right of other MPs to have opposing views.
This reflexive approach by press gallery journalists in particular drives coalition ministers to exasperation. The default position is often to go for the negative first instead of trying to understand what new policy positions involve.
It’s why Luxon also bypasses them to communicate directly via X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok to ensure he has some direct lines to the public where he can get his messages out untrammelled by journalistic bias.
In my view, it contributes to a loss of trust in media – particularly among those who have an appreciation for the challenges Governments and businesses face in a fast-changing world.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has been known to bypass journalists by using social media to get his message to the public. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The furore over left-wing claims that billionaire Elon Musk performed a Nazi salute at United States President Donald Trump’s post-inauguration rally also provided plenty of cheap headlines here and abroad.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later leapt to Musk’s defence by going on X and blasting those who equated a hand gesture to a Nazi salute, saying the billionaire is being “falsely smeared”.
Netanyahu recounted that Musk visited Israel after it was attacked by the militant group Hamas and has “since repeatedly and forcefully” supported Israel’s right to defend itself against genocidal terrorists and regimes who seek to annihilate the only Jewish state.
Here’s the preamble to Trump’s executive order reclaiming women’s spaces for women: “Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers.
“This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in Government itself.”
Back here there is nervousness among some in Government on potential fallout as they grapple with Peters’ insistence on policies to do similar.
Much about Trump disturbs some, but unlike the Opposition leader, he is clear on the definition of woman!
He’s not alone. At the 2025 World Economic Forum at Davos, Argentina’s President Javier Milei said “wokism” is a “mental virus” and a “cancer that must be removed”.
Milei attacked feminism, immigration and the fight against climate change, calling them causes only intended to justify the advance of the state. He talked on how the “winds of change” are blowing in the West and expressed hope over the formation of an “international alliance” of countries that “believe in the idea of freedom”.
Among his potential “partners”: Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Netanyahu and Trump.
This may seem radical. But these political leaders are not alone in saying the pendulum has swung too far.
New Zealand cannot stay isolated from these debates.
