Editorial: What should PM Christopher Luxon be asking Santa for Xmas?

What should Prime Minister Christopher Luxon be asking Santa Claus for Christmas? Photo / Mark Mitchell

Editorial

• Christopher Luxon will be wishing for a recovering economy in 2025.
• More jobs, a stronger dollar, and lower interest rates will also be on his wishlist.
• Luxon should also be seeking peace in the Pacific and improved US-China relations with Trump’s return.

Has Christopher Luxon been a good boy this year?

If Santa Claus thinks so, then the Prime Minister will be asked what he wants for Christmas. So, what should be at the top of his wish list?

With news last week that New Zealand had dipped into its deepest recession since the Covid-related slump in 2020, then surely a recovering economy will be his big parcel under the tree.

With manufacturing, business services, construction, hospitality and tourism all creaking in an economically-grim 2024 – with primary industries seemingly the one great outlier – it’s hard to see Luxon wishing for anything other than a bounce-back year.

Santa’s little helpers will be under the pump next year to deliver Luxon’s gift and may need a hand in February with a 75-basis-point (bps) OCR cut.

But while Luxon smiles for the family photo on Father Christmas’ knee, what else would he quietly be asking for?

More jobs for Kiwis, to stem the flow across the Tasman Sea to the golden sands of Australia where government spending is propping them up post-pandemic?

Not to mention a stronger NZ dollar and lower interest rates.

The crackdown on gangs, promised in pre-election pledges, has happened at a pace this year, with the banning of gang patches and a closer police watch around tangi and rides. He may not even have to blow a Christmas wish on that one, or Police Minister Mark Mitchell might have the sleigh pulled over at the border.

As war rages on between Ukraine and Russia, and continued volatility in the Middle East, Luxon will also be asking for peace in the Pacific too.

With US President-elect Donald Trump taking over the White House again next month, the New Zealand Prime Minister will be hoping for the US and China to embrace a closer working relationship.

China’s top diplomat last week said he hoped the incoming Trump administration would “make the right choice” and work with Beijing, something that Luxon and other Pacific leaders would endorse.

If there’s a little room for some stocking fillers, Luxon might also ask for Mother Nature to play its part in 2024 too, and limit the storms, floods, droughts, bushfires, earthquakes and volcanoes on his watch too.

And whether he asks Santa, or just tells his National/Act/New Zealand First Coalition Government around the Beehive table, to do him a favour and to avoid any political scandals in 2025 too, if that isn’t asking too much.