Education Minister Chris Hipkins on National leader Chris Luxon. “They clearly don’t have a clear and consistent position”. Video / NZ Herald
OPINION:
If the honeymoon isn't over yet for National Party leader Christopher Luxon, I think it's about to be.
Because, in the past 24 hours, I've read two political opinion pieces - one by a left-leaning commentator, the other by a right-leaning commentator - both saying pretty much the samething.
That Luxon is struggling and Nicola Willis might have been a better bet.
National leader Christopher Luxon and deputy leader Nicola Willis at a press conference at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
I remember getting quite a bit of flack a few months ago when I said I thought Nicola Willis should be leader. I even predicted that she would be by the end of the year. And nothing since then has given me any reason to change my thinking on that front.
The thing about Luxon is that he was never, ever going to be another John Key. I know a lot of people thought he was. But I think that was pretty superficial thinking based on the fact that both of them come from impressive business backgrounds.
The difference was, John Key had been a trader - and traders thrive on chaos. Which is good if you want to be successful in politics.
Christopher Luxon, though, had impressively worked his way up the ranks to become a chief executive. But chief executives hate chaos. Chief executives talk a lot about pivoting and all that but, when it comes down to it, they prefer things to be organised and planned and structured and well thought out. Chief executives are terrified of surprises. That's why they employ swathes of people to manage risk.
And so you've got John Key, who thrived on chaos and was quite prepared to make a clown of himself and didn't hide the fact that he had truckloads of money and holidayed in Hawaii and played golf with Barack Obama. And people loved him because he was authentic.
And then you've got Christopher Luxon, who is actually very reserved and considered as any successful chief executive probably should be - and, because of that, he doesn't thrive on chaos (like John Key did), which I think must make politics a very difficult thing for him to be involved in. Certainly as leader of a party.
So I was very interested to read these articles about Luxon by two people at each end of the political spectrum, both saying they don't think he's up to the job.
Shane Te Pou. Photo / NZME
Let's start with Shane Te Pou, who comes at things from the left.
In his piece for the Herald, he says that when he expressed the view back in April that National may have got it wrong making Luxon leader and not Nicola Willis, his National Party friends accused him of stirring.
But fast-forward to today and when he says the same thing to the same people today, he's finding there's less eye-rolling and "a lot more flickers of acknowledgement" as he puts it.
Te Pou's criticism of Luxon is largely focused on recent performances in the media - accusing Luxon of scoring own goals left, right and centre. The most recent example being a TV interview where Luxon tried desperately to avoid answering the questions that were actually asked. Using a trick known as "block and bridge".
An example of "block and bridge" is where a politician might be asked a question about something and instead of answering it they trot out a line saying New Zealanders don't really care about that, but they do care about what it's costing to fill the tank, buy petrol and pay the mortgage.
And we saw Luxon do it the other week when he was asked about the Facebook post saying he was in Te Puke when he was actually in Hawaii.
He acknowledged it was a mistake by his social media team but when a reporter asked him something along the lines of whether the muck-up was keeping him awake at night, he said it was the cost of living in New Zealand that was keeping him awake at night.
Block and bridge.
And Te Pou finishes the article by saying this: "At what point will Luxon's CEO credentials and superficial plausibility give way to the recognition he is just not very good at this?"
So that's the view from the left, which, I can think we could all agree, is hardly surprising for that very reason. Te Pou is a left-leaning commentator and, of course, he's going to take every opportunity to throw potshots at Luxon.
But then today, we've got Matthew Hooton - who comes at things from the right. He's the polar opposite of Shane Te Pou politically but his thinking is strikingly similar.
Hooton says since taking over as leader, Luxon has offered nothing new. He says the only thing of any significance has been a promise to cut taxes.
But, as we've seen, that's been played down by National's finance spokesperson Nicola Willis, who is saying the tax cut thing was just an idea National was putting forward for this year's Budget.
National deputy leader Nicola Willis. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Hooton thinks one of the most damaging things Luxon has done is criticise New Zealand businesses and call them soft during his recent overseas trip.
As Hooton says in his article, sole traders and small business owners who have battled through Covid would have heard those comments and assumed he was talking about them.
He writes: "They might legitimately ask if the softest corporate job in New Zealand is the one Luxon himself held: chief executive of a state-owned airline that gets bailed out each time it goes bust."
And he goes on to say that Jacinda Ardern - who he describes as "the more experienced and nimbler political operator" - is likely to have the edge over Christopher Luxon at next year's election.
He writes: "Unless he has a lot more in the tank than is apparent so far, Luxon is starting to look more like a Todd Muller or Andrew Little than a Key or an Ardern."
