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OPINION:
This is a transcript of Audrey Young’s subscriber-only Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click on your profile at nzherald.co.nz and select ‘Newsletters’. For a step-by-step guide, click here.
Welcome to the Politics Briefing. The hoo-ha over whether Christopher Luxon was obliged to find a new datefor The Press leaders’ debate in the Christchurch Town Hall after Chris Hipkins is out of Covid isolation is reminiscent of the old gag about David Frost and Peter Cook.
Frost rang Cook to invite him to dinner to meet Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson before their nuptials and, after consulting his diary, Cook apparently said, “I’m terribly sorry but I appear to be watching television that night.”
It is quite possible Luxon will be otherwise engaged every evening next week, doing regular things such as having dinner, meeting with the campaign team via Zoom - he won’t specify what he’s doing. Changing plans is inconvenient but not impossible. Every notice to the media about a leader’s movements says it is subject to change because election campaigns are always fluid and change according to circumstances.
But Luxon has every reason to avoid another debate. It is not because he is a weaker debater - he is not. He and Hipkins are fairly even. He might actually have won. But when you are ahead in a campaign, there is no good reason to give your opponent the chance of getting ahead.
The conflict over the debate shows beyond any doubt that Hipkins is the underdog. In the past, it has almost always been the Prime Minister who has dictated which debates he or she will take part in, and the Leader of the Opposition who has been grateful to have any shared platform. In this case, it is Hipkins who is desperate to have another shared platform with Luxon. Hipkins has nothing to lose. Luxon has.
The episode has changed the tone of the campaign. Not long after most leaders had expressed sincere sympathy for Hipkins’ illness, Labour took to social media with Luxon dressed in a chicken’s costume - the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Matt McCarten used one for the Alliance during the Taranaki-King Country byelection.
Hipkins has been conducting media interviews from his Auckland hotel room where he is isolating until he tests negative. But today Luxon released a big policy, National’s health plan.
It includes some policies already announced, including funding 13 cancer treatments that are available in Australia and re-introducing target wait times for emergency departments. It also includes an extension of the time a woman is entitled to stay in a post-natal facility from two days to three days, and an increase in the workforce dealing with mental health. Luxon outlined $1.19 billion in extra spending above the $1.4b extra built in by the current Government for cost pressures.
Selwyn MP Nicola Grigg, who was there, announced she is six and a half months’ pregnant.
At the press conference, Luxon was asked if he was “chicken”, to which he replied if Chris Hipkins really wanted to have a debate with people who disagreed with him, he could have one with former Revenue Minister David Parker and Taieri MP Ingrid Leary. Leary is the latest Labour MP to publicly back a capital gains tax that Hipkins has vowed not to introduce. “I would also support a capital gains tax but I support my leader and Labour will not be doing that while he’s leader,” she reportedly said last night.
Plenty of questions over benefits
Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan was at the press conference and pressed Luxon on the most controversial aspect of National’s fiscal plan, which was released on Friday. It is the fact that National will pay social welfare beneficiaries $2b less over four years than what they would otherwise be getting. They will still get an annual increase but the increase will be less, relative to other households, because it will be indexed to inflation and not to wages.
National will pay social welfare beneficiaries $2b less over four years than what they would otherwise be getting. Photo / Bevan Conley
Thomas tried to get Luxon to talk about why, but got no good explanation. It leaves National wide open to charges that it is literally taking money earmarked for beneficiaries to help pay for tax cuts.
Policy bonanza
My colleagues in the Press Gallery and in Auckland have been examining the policy differences between the parties, the most recent ones being welfare, law and order and health. They are linked below, and if you want to read more of them, you can find them on the Herald’s Election 2023 page.
Quote unquote
“I’m meant to be interviewing the man - instead, I’ve found myself lying next to him in enforced silence for an hour” - Thomas Coughlan regrets agreeing to do yoga with TOP leader Raf Manji, but eventually gets around to the interview (see below).
The Maungakiekie electorate has had five MPs, three National and two Labour, since its formation in 1996. How many can you name? (Answers below).
Brickbat
Winston Peters, whose reflections on the PM’s illness were less generous than other leaders: “The more they don’t see him, the more chance he’s got of doing better.”
Bouquet
Christopher Luxon’s response to the tweets about him being too chicken to take on Chris Hipkins post-Covid in The Press debate - an Instagram post showing himself having dinner last night - KFC.
Quiz answer: Belinda Vernon (N), Mark Gosche (L), Sam Lotu-Iiga (N), Denise Lee (N), Priyanca Radhakrishnan (L).
Audrey Young is the New Zealand Herald’s senior political correspondent. She was named Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards in 2023, 2020 and 2018.
For more political news and views, listen to On the Campaign, the Herald’s politics podcast.
