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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly column that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings. If you enjoy a “serious laugh” - and complaining about politics and politicians - you’ll enjoy reading Greg’s latest grievances.
What would you say should be the most important thing for a Prime Minister of New Zealand on the death of a Māori monarch? Being a glorified sales rep taking his battered briefcase around the same old traps in Malaysia and South Korea -- a trip to glad-hand political leaders and spruik the nation’s meat, milk powder, bungee jumping opportunities and tertiary education institutions? Or staying at home and doing what might be expected of our head of state on the death of a Māori monarch: leading the government onto Tūrangawaewae Marae to pay tribute and to honour the dead king? Instead, that important job went to his deputy, Winston Peters.
Much was made by various media reports of the Prime Minister, the down-to-earth multimillionaire Christopher Luxon, paying an “emotional” tribute to Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII during a flying visit to the tangihanga last weekend.
Luxon appeared to choke up a little as he spoke of his last conversations with the king. Such sentiment was clearly appreciated by those gathered at Tūrangawaewae Marae.
But with the tangihanga, funeral and the choosing of the new queen now complete, you have to wonder about Luxon’s decision to prioritise an unremarkable and quite postponable overseas sales junket.
Add to that the very unhealthy relationship between the government and tangata whenua right now — and the prospect that tensions will further rise when Act’s Treaty Principles Bill is introduced to Parliament — it seems a strange decision.
The space where Luxon should have been standing with his hodgepodge government at Tuheitia’s tangihanga was instead filled by Peters and -- with huge irony -- the man most responsible for the coalition’s crumbling relations with Māori, Act leader David Seymour.
Luxon, meanwhile, went on to South Korea to sell New Zealand while reportedly not mentioning that hastily cancelled deal with a Korean shipbuilder for our new interislander ferries, a deal, it emerged this week, that was not ended face-to-face but by two text messages. What a class act this government is.
Of course, there will be plenty of people — in particular those who are all for Act’s dog-whistle politics — prepared to give Luxon the benefit of the doubt for his decision to be elsewhere.
They should ask themselves this: would the British Prime Minister have left it to his deputy at the Queen’s funeral or King Charles’ coronation?
Nightmares on Molesworth St
Would the last one to leave Wellington please turn the lights out.
It might not be long before that happens. This austerity government’s slashing of more than 6000 public service jobs has tanked the Wellington economy so badly it has reportedly led to increasing numbers of Wellingtonians fleeing the capital in search of work and cheaper housing elsewhere.
New real estate listings in July were up 47% on a year ago in TradeMe’s property price index, and the number of Wellingtonians on the Jobseekers benefit rose by a startling 13% in the year to June.
So, whatever else the government can boast about achieving in its first year in office, it can definitely lay claim to killing the capital’s joie de vivre — and to literally causing one Wellingtonian to have the world’s weirdest nightmare. A 48-year-old bloke who gave his name as Pete reported that he recently dreamt he and his wife, who are selling their Wellington house, “were doing an open home, and Nicola Willis blew through the place and says, ‘I’ll have this. It’ll make a great rental.’
“That was actually a nightmare I had,” he told The Post this week.
The horror.
It does make one wonder what other nightmares the government and Parliament might generate, not just for poor Pete as he looks to escape a depressed Wellington for the, er, excitements of Hamilton, but for the rest of us.
Here are Another Kind of Politics’ top five terrifying parliamentary-inspired nightmares:
1/ Dreaming you are a giant sausage roll and Chris Hipkins is eating you.
2/ Dreaming you are in hell where it is the Act Party’s annual conference every day.
3/ Dreaming you are at a continuous one-man production of King Lear with Shane Jones playing all the parts.
4/ Dreaming you are a racehorse and the small angry jockey on your back is Winston Peters.
5/ Dreaming you’ve been told you need an operation from the public health system only to wake up to be told you need an operation from the public health system only to wake up to be told you need an operation from the public health system …
Political Quiz of the Week
What is young Simeon Brown, the Minister of Transport, Local Government and Energy, doing in this picture?
A/ Showing off the government’s favourite policy tool.
B/ Threatening someone for claiming he didn’t have a driver licence.
C/ Trying out for a high school production of Edward Scissorhands.
D/ Holding up a normal-sized pair of scissors.
