On the Tiles: Big talking points of the National Party Conference 2022

NZ Herald

5 Aug, 2022 04:00 AM3 mins to read

Christopher Luxon and Sir John Key during the Joseph Parker vs Junior Fa fight in February 2020. Photo / Dean Purcell.

The National Party stages its annual conference this weekend - and new leader Christopher Luxon will be hoping it goes off without a hitch.

Last year's conference was memorable for all the wrong reasons, with the party's youth wing, the Young Nats, protesting against the party's stance on conversion therapy, while former MP David Carter resigned from the National Party board after failing to win the presidency from Peter Goodfellow.

There also was some Cook Islands dancing that Luxon will probably be trying to avoid replicating.

This year's conference comes after a steady performance in the polls from Luxon that has helped cast off the shadow of the party's dismal 2020 general election performance. But the shine has dimmed slightly, with several commentators this week from across the political aisle casting doubt on his leadership potential.

This week on On the Tiles, the New Zealand Herald's politics podcast, host Thomas Coughlan is joined by National Party member and political commentator Liam Hehir to evaluate where the party is at.

Hehir said that he was sceptical when Luxon entered Parliament, but people he didn't expect to come around to the former Air NZ CEO were won over - and talking to Luxon himself, he impressed Hehir as a potential Prime Minister.

Hehir said that one of the issues Luxon is facing is he probably has better instincts, but he does not have the "everyman" qualities Sir John Key had that made him a better politician.

"If he becomes Prime Minister, and I think there's a good chance he does, I think he will be a better Prime Minister than John Key was a governor. But that slight difference means that he doesn't quite have that easy-going, instant connection that John Key had."

He used the example of the brightline test which John Key introduced "on a whim", according to people he has spoken with, which Hehir said basically allowed for a Capital Gains Tax to be implemented by stealth.

"That's the downside of having someone who errs more on intuition, whereas I think Luxon seems to be - and this is just personal, anecdotal experience - very, very detailed oriented, very systematic in his thinking."

They also discuss what to expect from the conference, the party president race that will be voted on, and why Act is putting National in a tricky position - listen to the full episode above.