He’s a fast learner. This time last year, Christopher Luxon was the least-experienced Opposition leader the country had ever seen, and it showed. Many of his press conferences generated follow-up appearances, often fronted by his deputy rather than himself, who would crisply explain her party’s actual position. A National government would continue to subsidise public transport, it would not impose a dystopian theocracy, and so on.
In the initial weeks of the new government, Luxon was eclipsed by his coalition partners, Winston Peters and David Seymour. But now, 100 days into his leadership, we can see the tentative emergence of Prime Minister Luxon, a shy fawn peering out at us through the trees.
Most politicians who rise to high office have spent decades tracking political scandals, evading questions in the House and squabbling with the press gallery. They’ve developed a sixth sense about what they can and cannot get away with and mastered the hateful but necessary art of talking a lot without saying anything.
Luxon was too busy selling soap in Canada, then forcing us all to sit through unbearable Air New Zealand safety videos, to acquire these instincts. He’s still learning on the job – and his underdeveloped intuition can lead him astray.
Given his many complaints about Labour treating the taxpayers like a bottomless ATM machine, his decision to charge the state $1000 a week to lease his own apartment while Premier House awaits repair was not a wise one. His initial defence that he was “entitled to the entitlement” was even more misguided. But when he reversed the decision, he did so quickly, decisively, prime ministerially.
With each week in the job, he is more adept at repeating a handful of empty phrases: “Let me be clear”, “the reality is” ... and making them sound substantial. He is, however, still an amateur at this compared with Chris Hipkins, let alone Jacinda Ardern, who was a Picasso of meaninglessness.
The Luxon government’s first 100 days have climaxed with a month-long parliamentary sitting period – much of it under urgency – in which the new regime furiously stamped out the final, dying embers of the old. Te Aka Whai Ora Māori Health Authority, Three Waters, the smokefree legislation – all are gone. The Auckland fuel tax will expire at the end of June.
One of the grand traditions of New Zealand politics is that Labour reforms and National governs, tweaking and fixing but generally retaining whatever radical policies Labour imposed. John Key disliked most of Helen Clark’s government’s accomplishments, especially Working for Families and the purchase of KiwiRail, but he gritted his teeth and kept them.
The new government’s determination to blot out its predecessors – like purged politburo members redacted from Soviet propaganda photos – is a new development. If the subsequent Labour government retaliates in kind, the nation could spend much of the 21st century trapped in the policy settings of 2017.
Clever thinking
Now that the great blotting-out is accomplished, the Prime Minister’s thoughts have turned to his next 100 days. Parliament usually follows a yearly cycle centred on the delivery of the Budget. Luxon’s government will adopt a quarterly approach. He has convened a Cabinet strategy committee that will decide on further 100-day plans, imposing urgency and accountability on ministers and their reports, virtues National believes have been lacking in the past six years.
It is a clever approach, turning the grind of government into a sequence of mini campaigns, each new quarter yielding new promises and new goals delivered, more mighty legislative challenges overcome. Instead of committing to wildly over-ambitious schemes such as Auckland Light Rail or KiwiBuild’s 100,000 homes, Luxon’s ministers can set realistic targets, implement them in discrete chunks then loudly congratulate themselves on once again delivering for NZ.
Many of the measures during their first term will mark achievements in transport and housing. In early March, Transport Minister Simeon Brown released a draft policy statement on land transport. The week before, Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop delivered a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce accompanied by a new Cabinet paper on housing policy.
Brown’s approach signals a return to Key-era transport settings, with 15 more Roads of National Significance, funding for walking and cycling projects nearly halved, a handful of public transport projects in Auckland and Wellington and a desperate scramble for money as projects that were presented as “fully costed” during the election turned out to require more revenue – to be clawed back via a host of surprise taxes and costs: increases in registration fees, seat belt fines and road-user charges.
The housing crisis
But Bishop’s approach is a vigorous rejection of the Key government’s housing policy, which consisted of not building houses. This was a nice way to boost property values and make middle New Zealand feel rich. But on the downside, it generated a housing affordability crisis and condemned thousands to live in cars and garages.
House prices are up to 10 times the median household income – the highest in the world. Bishop acknowledged this is our “most pressing social and economic issue”, labelled the status quo “state neglect on an industrial scale” that has “shattered the Kiwi dream”, and wants to halve the income-price ratio – albeit gradually. He’ll do this by compelling councils to either free up land for development or allow construction of medium-density accommodation – more townhouses and apartments – in urban centres. He’ll streamline the consenting process and is considering the adoption of Act’s policy to make GST revenue from new builds available to councils, rather than vacuumed up by central government.
Both schemes will be amenable to the Prime Minister’s quarterly, incrementalist approach and, if Bishop’s grand designs prove unpopular, they can be reversed as quickly as Luxon’s own ill-judged accommodation arrangements.
There’s more to being a successful prime minister than endlessly repeating inane slogans and unwinding unpopular decisions quickly – but they’ll get you most of the way there.
