In Watership Down, the rabbits have a dread of “going tharn” – being frozen with fear in a moment of overwhelming danger; paralysed by the headlights of an oncoming car. It’s the expression we see on Christopher Luxon’s face daily, now that he’s trapped between the devious schemes of Act leader David Seymour and the mediagenic mass-movement activism of Te Pāti Māori.
Luxon is our CEO Prime Minister, and he clearly relishes the CEO-like elements of his job: the trade delegations, the strategic visions, the KPIs.
In a recent interview, he referred to voters as customers. Unfortunately, destiny and his coalition arrangement are calling him to wrestle with the grand themes of New Zealand politics: the founding of the nation, the nature of its constitution and the legitimacy of the state.
Who would have thought being prime minister would be so political? John Key never had to deal with any of this.
At the end of his first year in power, Luxon feels like a peripheral figure in his own government – more a sales manager than a chief executive.
Activism on show
Te Pāti Māori is Luxon’s first problem. Instead of a parliamentary party, it is an activist movement operating out of Parliament. Its goal is to challenge the sovereignty of that institution and deliver self-governance for Māori, not to indulge the rituals and procedures of the House. Every new movement needs an enemy to unify against, and providence has generously supplied it with Seymour and his Treaty Principles Bill. Te Pāti Māori’s opposition to the bill – which is scheduled to spend six months in select committee – is consuming all the media oxygen, drowning out everything else. Luxon’s recent meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, was barely reported on. At the end of his first year in power, Luxon feels like a peripheral figure in his own government – more a sales manager than a chief executive.
Seizing the day
Seymour is Luxon’s second problem. Machiavelli wrote that successful politicians have virtù, the ability to seize opportunities, to take bold, calculated risks under conditions of uncertainty, to wield power against their rivals. It’s hard to see much of this quality in Luxon’s leadership thus far, but Te Pāti Māori, NZ First leader Winston Peters and Seymour all possess it.
When Seymour took over Act in 2014, it was a failed, disgraced party with a single seat in Parliament. Now, it has 11 MPs, and he is one of the most capable ministers in cabinet. He’s taking a risk in playing such a disruptive role in his own government, but it is a calculated risk. Just as Māori are uniting against Seymour, he hopes the centre-right will react to Te Pāti Māori’s rise and Luxon’s timidity and unite behind him.
Luxon’s third problem is that every other party in Parliament is taking a principled stand on the issue of treaty principles – or at least pretending they are. Act is fighting for classical liberal values – equality and individual freedom – against the notion of a nation with rights divided along racial lines. The parties of the left point out that this history of New Zealand is one of state violence based on race. The government oppressed Māori – continues to do so – and they reject Seymour’s notion that correcting that inequality would somehow make us unequal.
Sovereignty at issue
Te Pāti Māori questions the legitimacy of the state. Iwi never ceded sovereignty, and any interpretation of the treaty or its principles claiming that they did is a lie. Political power over Māori should sit with Māori, not the crown. Organisers of the hīkoi mō te tiriti declared that it was “the beginning of the end of unchecked rule over Māori by kawanatanga” and that the day signified the birth of a Māori nation.
What does National believe? It thinks the status quo is about right. There were excesses under the last government, but it has tidied them up. Now it is Getting New Zealand Back on Track and Seymour’s bill is a distraction from that. It is worse than a crime, it is off brand.
David Seymour hopes the centre-right will react to Te Pāti Māori’s rise and Luxon’s timidity and unite behind him.
But there’s a contingent of Luxon’s party who quietly worry that Seymour may be right. The courts and many public sector agencies have adopted positions on the treaty that are closer to Te Pāti Māori’s than National’s. The next left-wing government will almost certainly have Te Pāti Māori ministers in cabinet, leading to a rapid and radical shift towards political separatism. Isn’t it better to prevent that now, instead of trying to wind it back after the fact?
What would John Key do, aside from avoid being trapped in such an impossible position in the first place? The Key-English government worked closely with the Iwi Chairs Forum, which it saw as its logical counterpart on treaty issues, given that the signatories to the treaty were iwi and the crown. The meetings were not public; they were collegial, respectful, constructive; there were barely any protests during nine years of a right-wing government. That process was discarded by Willie Jackson and Jacinda Ardern, and the coalition government’s meeting with the forum in August was a disaster.
Luxon will need to rebuild that relationship. He’ll have to transform his rhetoric about empowering iwi by devolving delivery of services into something tangible, and he’ll need to tell a story about his conception of the treaty that’s more persuasive than Seymour’s and Te Pāti Māori’s. Most New Zealanders – Māori and Pākehā – prefer stable equilibrium to radical change, but they’ll choose change if the status quo is merely a bewildered chief executive, dazzled by the headlights of a treaty referendum and a nascent Māori nation bearing down on him.
