National Party leader Christopher Luxon had an early-morning lesson in dairy farming. Photo / Alex Burton
Chris Hipkins wins a bet
Budget month is an expensive time for Prime Minister Chris Hipkins - every ministry, minister, business, and union wants a piece of the pie.
Good thing the poor man won a bet this week on a visit to the Chelsea sugar factory in Auckland.
Beehive tragics will be aware of Bernard Hickey, editor of The Kākā newsletter, and his persistent questions on the Government’s tax system. (Beehive tragics will also be aware that this columnist is in no position to be pointing the finger when it comes to persistent questioning over issues of tax).
When Hickey, at the end of questions, asked whether the Government was pondering a sugar tax, Hipkins smiled and said he’d just won a bet that Hickey would ask that exact question.
The exploding udder
Christopher Luxon, or whoever manages his Facebook account, was up very early on Thursday, posting at 4.56am.
No, the resignation of cancelled candidate Stephen Jack the night before hadn’t been keeping Luxon up all night. Not at all. In fact, Luxon took to his keyboard to applaud New Zealand’s farmers, who he said were just starting their work day.
“Right now, farmers are starting their day at work. Thank you for what you do for New Zealand,” Luxon wrote.
In a way typical of all online discourse, the replies to Luxon’s message suggested his own early start, in this case, an early start to posting rather than to milk cows, had pleased no one.
Anya, who appeared to know a thing or two on the subject, suggested Luxon would be faced with burst cow udders were he to start work as late as 5am.
“They started work much earlier, more like 3am or 4. Like seriously guess your [sic] a late starter cows udders be bursting by the time you showed up,” Anya wrote.
Richard Worth (presumably not the MP Richard Worth who died last year) agreed, saying farmers were getting to work by 5am “300 days a year 7 days a week” and revealing the need for National’s maths and English basics education policy was more pressing than we thought.
Meanwhile, other posters screamed that health workers were only just finishing their shifts - these workers would presumably dream of a 5am start.
And won’t someone think of the poor Aucklanders. According to Amanda, “if you’re in Auckland, you’re already on the motorway, to arrive at your job 2-3 hours before you start, before traffic gridlocks and takes you 3 times as long to get to work [sic]”.
Roslynn agreed with this assessment, noting that, unlike poor Auckland commuters, farmers had the luxury of working from home.
Chris v. Chris
A plague on both Chrises’ houses this week as red Chris and blue Chris were hit with deja vu.
Blue Chris had to contend with another National candidate disgracing themselves (honestly, what is it about the bottom of the South Island?).
Dreadful for Christopher Luxon, who distanced himself from the candidate immediately, noting he had never met him.
National’s famously horizontal candidate selection processes technically give Luxon very little power in situations like these, but that doesn’t mean he’s unaccountable. Luxon would know this from his CEO days - if Air New Zealand hired an intake of captains who couldn’t fly, it would be Luxon’s problem despite the fact he hadn’t hired any of the pilots himself.
He needs to clean this up, and fast. If he wins the election, he’ll be in charge of tens of thousands of public servants - most of whom he will never have met, but all of whom he will be responsible for.
Red Chris was faced with further allegations of poor probity and an erosion of the impartiality of the public service.
The issue here was Justice Minister Kiri Allan receiving donations from Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon in 2020 when she was a backbench MP.
Foon should not have given the donations, Allan - a member of the governing party - should not have accepted them.
The issue is an unhelpful combination of aspects of the Stuart Nash and Rob Campbell scandals.
Hipkins needs to get on top of it.
This week’s a draw.