Steve Braunias: The secret diary of Christopher Luxon

OPINION:

MONDAY

I met Nicola Willis for coffee. It was a practice of mine when I ran a national airline to meet employees in an informal setting and find out if they had anything I could use.

“I think we need something new,” I said.

“New,” she said.

“Yes.”

“What, like new-new?”

“Well - nothing radical.”

“Something new,“ she said, “but something obvious.”

“Yes.”

We parked it. Business management philosophy tells us that a brilliant concept sometimes needs to rest a while until it finds an actual idea.

TUESDAY

Disgraceful scenes at Parliament today with Te Pāti Māori suddenly conducting a pōwhiri, which interrupted speeches in honour of King Charles III’s coronation.

They said it was to welcome Meka Whaitiri, who recently resigned from Labour, but the timing of it told another story. They hadn’t got permission from all parties to do it but they went ahead anyway with a karanga and a waiata, the whole works.

“Grandstanding,” I said to Nicola.

“Yes.”

Co-leader Rawiri Waititi made some noises that Parliament had not treated wāhine Māori well in the past, including Whaitiri and former Green MP Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, who was making her debut in the House as an independent MP. Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer made other noises that they were asserting their tikanga.

“Asserting their Māori separatism, more like,” I said to Nicola.

“Yes.”

They were kicked out of the debating chamber.

“What a shambles,” I said.

Nicola said, “Yes, but potentially a very interesting shambles.”

“Interesting how?”

“Every shambles,” she said, “is an opportunity.”

WEDNESDAY

My announcement that I have ruled out working with Te Pāti Māori has gone down gangbusters.

A headline in the Herald reads, “The day we saw him become a politician”.

Business management philosophy tells us that perception is reality, or was it John Key who said that?

THURSDAY

I looked across at the benches in Parliament this afternoon.

At the tired faces of Labour, at the hunched shoulders of the Greens, at the faraway eyes of Te Pāti Māori.

They all seemed so terribly old.

None of them looked as though they had the drive or energy to run a government, let alone a national airline.

FRIDAY

A new Herald poll, which uses data from a number of different pollsters and running multiple election simulations, gives a 99.91 per cent probability of National, Act and Te Pāti Māori being able to form a government if the election was held this weekend.

The headline reads, “Herald’s poll of polls shows Christopher Luxon’s big gamble”.

Voters like a gambler. It speaks to risk, daring, adventure.

But you’ve to know when to hold them as well as when to fold them.

Business management philosophy tells us that when the Opposition’s house is burning down, sit down and enjoy the spectacle.