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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings.
By the time you read this, New Zealand will have a free trade deal with India. Or it won’t. Or it will have sometime. Or it will have soon. Or soonish. Or not so soonish. Or maybe sometime in the next 60 days. Or the next six months. Or next six years. Or by the next election. Or after the next election. Or never.
It is quite possible that in the multitude of parallel universes out there, all of these things will be true at the same time. Not that anyone in this particular universe knows right now or possibly cares.
Apart, of course, from the Prime Minister, the unpopular multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, who is surely desperate for good economic news now he’s back from his four days on the outer rim of a galaxy called Wishful Thinking, where he spent time breathing out lots of hot air on the planet Hyperbole.
The near-manic enthusiasm on display during Luxon’s trip to India was certainly something to behold. So, too, was what read like frothy fan fiction from some of our media who accompanied Luxon and his contingent of business types and ministers on their jolly outing.
When all is said and done, there is only one thing we peasants know with absolute certainly and that is that talks about a free trade deal with India are definitely going to happen — just like they did 10 years ago when John Key was PM.
What is not so certain is whether those talks, as they did then, will amount to a mountain of nothing. Or what Luxon might be privately prepared to agree to do to get the deal done by the 2026 election, which was the wild, off-the-cuff promise he made during the 2023 election campaign.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, accused by critics of being an authoritarian, of ramping up sectarian rhetoric and of weaponising state agencies against his opponents, seemed quite keen that India “continue to receive the support of the New Zealand government” in taking action against what Modi called “anti-India activities by some illegal elements in New Zealand”, which sounds rather sinister, because it is.
Luxon downplayed these comments. But who knows what commitments a desperate prime minister might allow himself to consider behind closed doors? Luxon, after all, is the guy who agreed to support, to the first reading, the highly divisive Treaty Principles Bill so that he might get a coalition deal with the Act Party, even though the bill was not, according to Act, a red line in negotiations.
Still, watching Sahib Luxon’s Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Adventures — see him play street cricket with poor kids! See him pray at a Sikh temple! — has certainly been colourful relief from the usual grey distractions of his premiership, like rising unemployment, falling consumer confidence and the rising numbers of homelessness in our towns and cities, to name a few.
The visit to Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib and all the rest made for the usual Indian spectacle. But you’d have to reckon the most exotic thing for the PM about this sales trip was him experiencing what it’s like to be really liked.
After his fairly grim polling at home, it must have been quite something for Luxon to see, on his arrival, that Modi’s regime had made sure there were “welcome” banners featuring Luxon’s full name and face about every 100m between the airport and his hotel. Proof, perhaps, that when you’re a prophet not much honoured in your own country, you can still be some sort of guru in India.
Act planning to Act out more
Political life moves fast when you’re Act’s David Seymour. In a week, he’s gone from explaining away his exploding school lunches programme to announcing the equally explosive news that there is to be an exploding number of Act candidates in the near future.
Mind you it could be argued, so I will, that the party’s decision to stand Act-branded candidates at the local body elections this year is actually very good news, at least for the 90% or so who don’t vote Act.
In the past, it’s been hard for voters to know which of the local body candidates in their city, district or region might be secretly on Seymour’s team. Thanks to this sort-of reverse of the gang patches ban, that will no longer be a problem. With Act candidates now allowed to hang around on the streets in their gang colours, frightened or intimidated fellow citizens will be able to spot them and avoid them like the plague. This is a win for democracy. Result!
Meanwhile during his Act gang patch announcement, Seymour proved yet again that he enjoys nothing better than a bit of pointless trolling, this time by jokingly declaring that Jesus would likely have been an Act supporter because “Jesus believes that each person has inherent dignity”, though I’m not sure that was the main message.
For the record, the complete list of other historical figures, living and dead, who might support Act are:
Sweeney Todd, Demon Barber of Fleet St (was keen on cutting corners on food production)
Benito Mussolini (boasted how he made things run on time)
Alexander the Great (cut red tape)
The QAnon Shaman (fellow Libertarian)
Taylor Swift (doesn’t like sushi either)
Timothy McVeigh (fellow believer in Big Government overreach)
Political quiz of the week
What is Prime Minister Christopher Luxon praying for at the historic Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in New Delhi?
A/ A milder vindaloo tonight.
B/ That he’s not mistaken for Hulk Hogan.
C/ That his pants will survive this carry-on.
D/ That his own God doesn’t hear about any of this.
