Hayden Munro: Christopher Luxon's Emissions Trading Scheme gaffe points to lack of policy

Christopher Luxon is a strong media performer but is new to the rigours of politics and the scrutiny of his ideas that comes with it. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Opinion

OPINION

Christopher Luxon is developing a bit of a habit of shooting from the hip in interviews and it's causing headaches for his party.

This tendency was on full display this week with Luxon's pronouncement that all public transport should be expected to make money on its own without any Government subsidy.

Except, it turns out public transport is already heavily subsidised – the clue is in the name after all – something Luxon had to have pointed out to him by journalists, forcing him to admit that he "hadn't thought too deeply about it, to be honest".

That was clearly not politically tenable, so Luxon spent his round of interviews the next day back-pedalling fast, trying to claim he was really talking about wasteful spending in public transport like the Auckland Light Rail plan. That didn't track at all with his Tuesday comments and Labour pounced on the gaffe, pointing out that Luxon's position would mean huge price increases for commuters and no more Gold Card rides for seniors.

It's not the only time Luxon has stumbled by going off script and thinking out loud. In March he got caught up talking about "bottom-feeding" and promising "we don't focus on the bottom".

And then last week eyebrows in the farming sector were raised when he told TVNZ's Breakfast that National would now be looking to have the Emissions Trading Scheme "do the heavy lifting" when it comes to reducing emissions.

This idea – that the ETS alone can solve all our emissions problems and that other climate change policies aren't needed - has been rejected by the Climate Change Commission and most academics, including those who work on the global IPCC reports.

And crucially, it's also a position at odds with Luxon's own party policy and his agriculture spokesperson.

This is because currently agriculture sits outside the ETS and stopping its addition to that scheme has been a major goal of the farming industry and a long-standing feature of National policy.

The problem with the ETS or bust position is it requires driving the carbon price so high that the economic consequences would be devastating. Concept Consulting estimated it would add $1.50 to the price of a litre of petrol. Farms would be broken up as well, with the Climate Change Commission estimating one in 10 farms could be converted to pine forestry.

This isn't a fatal problem for Luxon – a tendency to speak first and think second can be common among the extroverted personality types attracted to politics. And overall, he is a strong media performer, speaking in quotable sound bites, with a positive tone and an engaging style. He's also new to the rigours of politics and the scrutiny of your ideas that comes with it. He'll no doubt study fast and tighten up his performances as he goes.

But these gaffes probably speak to a deeper problem for National – the lack of substantial policy development work over their time in Opposition. When Simon Bridges was rolled as leader in 2020, incoming members of Team Muller reported being shocked to find there had been almost no serious work done on the party's manifesto. That problem certainly wasn't solved during the chaotic reign of Judith Collins.

It means National's only significant policy is still its flagship tax cut plan. With so little in the way of new content to talk about, it's perhaps understandable that Luxon sometimes finds himself making up ideas on the fly.