“They fought an election on that tax package, it was a tax buy for being excessively inflationary and unfunded, and yet, you’d have to say... they won.”
The National-Act-NZ First coalition is the first full coalition between three parties (not counting previous confidence and supply deals), and both Tibshraeny and Walls were complimentary of how cohesively the three have worked together.
“That has provided some predictability, which is good,” Tibshraeny said. “They took some time, nutted out those agreements and, where it’s failed is with the ferries, that was not nutted out beforehand.”
“One of the things that Luxon, I don’t think, gets enough credit for, is giving David Seymour and Winston Peters a long leash, so they can go off and say David Seymour and Winston Peters things, retain their party identities, and the Government doesn’t fall into chaos,” Walls added.
The Cook Strait ferries and Kāinga Ora were among the areas where the Government didn’t succeed this year.
One thing all three panellists agreed on was that Prime Minister Christopher Luxon needs to work on his media performance.
" What we’ve seen, particularly in the last half of this year, is just an absolute abject disaster in his media performances," Walls said.
“He’s just gone from low light to low light when it comes to the way that he talks to the press.
Coughlan said pollsters see the country being about six months out of step with the media on some issues.
“And I think in 2025, this media performance of the Prime Minister could become a serious problem if it’s not addressed soon.
“And I think the way to address it is for him to actually substantively answer the questions. It’s just so easy. It’s just so easy. He clearly is not an idiot, and he probably does know the answers to at least some of them.”
Though he also noted that the era of “celebrity” politicians is largely over, and worldwide we’re seeing many unpopular leaders being elected, so how much people’s personal feelings about Luxon resonate remains to be seen.
“There’s no Obama in America, Tony Blair is long gone from the scene in the UK. Jacinda Ardern and John Key, that era’s over here.
“It’s just ... an era of like, relatively unpopular people sort of duking it out for a second.”
Listen to the full episode of the On the Tiles podcast for a full wrap of the year’s politics.
On the Tiles is available on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will return next year.
The podcast is hosted by NZ Herald deputy political editor Thomas Coughlan, who is based at Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.
