He put up a seemingly innocuous social media post about his dining experience on Thursday night — a picture of him at De Nada, a Mexican eatery in his electorate. His only comment was that it was “a much loved and welcome business in the Epsom Electorate”.
Point well made.
The skirmish over whether Jones’ interjection was out of order or simply part of the cut and thrust of Parliament was only one of a string of unwelcome speed bumps in the way of Luxon’s attempts to only talk about one thing: economic growth.
Luxon’s anointment of 2025 as the year for “growth” has meant that word must now be shoe-horned into everything any National MP utters.
Increasing the speed limits up the Wairarapa highway? That’s about growth and in case that was not clear, Luxon kicked off his media appearance by saying “growth, growth, growth.”
It was akin to calling Beetlejuice’s name three times to make him appear or disappear.
The other pesky interloper into Luxon’s discourse about growth was Seymour, who merrily added privatisation and asset sales to the menu before Luxon wanted to talk about them. He got increasingly prickly about being asked about the issue this week. He should get used to it.
The Mexican issue flared brightly for a day but will quickly subside.
The questions about asset sales will not subside because Luxon softened his pre-election “no asset sales” stance to make that “no” a time-limited one. It is now a “no” for the rest of the Parliamentary term. Which means it is a “maybe” for National to campaign on in the 2026 election.
That means the media and Opposition parties will raise the issue regularly up to that election.
Asset sales have traditionally been seen as one of those unpalatable moves, along with the likes of raising the retirement age and a capital gains tax.
Nobody from National was willing to say what assets might be put up for sale this time round. Happily, former PM Sir John Key, was there to help out.
Key told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking he didn’t reckon it was worth selling more assets, and that cuts to spending and tax cuts and foreign investment were a more reliable way of getting the growth Luxon was hellbent on.
He then pronounced there was nothing left that was worth selling anyway — presumably because he’d sold the last of the things that were worth selling.
He ventured the only thing worth selling might be the remaining 51% of the energy companies that he’d hocked off the first 49% of. He had a longer list of things that weren’t worth selling, including TVNZ, which he suggested you’d have to pay someone to take off your hands.
Key was the last Prime Minister to dabble in the dark art of asset sales — one of those issues which is traditionally seen as politically unpalatable.
The first question National and the Opposition will have to wrestle with is whether asset sales are as politically unpalatable as they once were.
That partly depends on which assets are in line for sale, and how fond the public are of them.
The second critical question is how politically unpalatable the politician who decided on the asset sales is.
Key managed to hock off 49% of energy companies without any denting in his popularity.
He had the political capital to do it and he took the time to do it. Luxon has time but does not have the same capital.
So as soon as Luxon raised the prospect of asset sales, Labour leader Chris Hipkins decided he had something to get his teeth into.
The Greens and Te Pāti Māori were also quick to take up their positions and NZ First leader Winston Peters did not waste time in making his view clear. His view has been clear for decades.
Slapping asset sales into National’s 2026 campaign manifesto will be as much of a political decision as an economic one.
It will also depend on Luxon’s ability to sell his case for it and convince an often sceptical public that it is needed.
Key’s initial utterances that there are better ways to get economic growth will not help Luxon.
However, back in 2011, Key did set out the template for how to sell the case of asset sales without being punished for it in the polling booths. His recipe for success depended on two things: making it seem ordinary voters would benefit from it and the political capital he had in the bank.
Key had announced National would campaign on partial asset sales in a speech in January 2011 — giving him about nine months to convince the public of the merits of it and dampen Labour’s criticism.
He pitched it carefully from the very start, setting out the need to pay down debt and then designing and pitching it as an investment opportunity for “mum and dad investors” — in short, the average voter.
It was one of the biggest issues of that campaign. Labour put more energy into campaigning against that policy than on pitching their own policies. The election became all about asset sales. It might not have been massively popular, but it did not change many votes. Key won convincingly.
For Luxon, it will be a much riskier ask. For a start, one of those who will most strongly oppose any such move is his coalition partner: NZ First’s Winston Peters. It could make for a messy final year of the coalition’s term as Peters switches from coalition partner mode to NZ First leader mode.
Secondly, Luxon does not have the same political capital to burn as Key did.
Back in 2011, Key’s National was in the mid to high 40s in the polls and its governing parties were tiny.
Luxon’s National Party was in the 20s (just) in the most recent polls. Luxon does not have the same reservoir of trust Key did.
That doesn’t mean Luxon won’t back himself and give it a go anyway. But it will be a lot more risky for him. There may also not be much appetite within the caucus for going hard on a policy that risks damaging their chances further and drags attention away from less controversial policies.
That is especially the case if it is seen as dead-duck policy: and it would be seen as that for as long as the polling showed National might need NZ First to form a second term Government. That could render the proposal useful only as a bargaining chip to surrender in post-election negotiations.
Therein lies the third — and possibly fatal — reason Luxon will have a harder job of selling asset sales than his mentor did: Key did not need NZ First.
Saying growth three times over won’t make Winston disappear.
