Christopher Luxon’s worst honeymoon of any elected Prime Minister - Richard Prebble

OPINION

Christopher Luxon says that he is “not too hung up on polls”. He should take notice of the Talbot Mills poll. No elected Prime Minister has ever had a worse honeymoon. In the preferred Prime Minister ratings, Christopher Luxon is at just 24 per cent.

Luxon was elected PM polling 35 per cent. Clark, Key and Ardern after becoming Prime Minister all received a 10 per cent plus bounce in the poll. Luxon had no honeymoon. His polling had dropped to 30 per cent by Christmas. It is now down over 10 per cent from its peak. It is no comfort he is just ahead of Chris Hipkins. To win, Labour will replace Hipkins.

A Prime Minister who took notice of polls would have polled to find out why he is not connecting.

The poll was taken after it was revealed that Luxon was being paid $1000 a week to live in his own Wellington apartment. No matter that the PM was entitled to the allowance it made him seem entitled. He then decided to pay it back.

Political scientists speculate that Luxon’s polling may be affected by the Treaty issue or the smokefree repeal or Act and New Zealand First taking his limelight.

Without daily tracking polls Luxon does not know.

When the PM made his captain’s call not to support Act’s Treaty bill beyond the first reading did he know that polls say 60 per cent of voters support Act’s bill and just 18 per cent are opposed?

The polls say that the electorate supports the smokefree laws. Prohibition has never worked and is a gift to organised crime but a PM that read the polls would have referred the issue to an expert review. Then any decision would be non-political.

Both David Seymour and Winston Peters are keen that their parties do not suffer the usual fate of minor parties in a coalition. This is not a new issue.

Prime Ministers often lead a Cabinet of rivals. As President Harry S Truman put it “all the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.”

National leader Christopher Luxon, Act leader David Seymour, and NZ First leader Winston Peters. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Luxon must flatter, kiss and kick Seymour and Peters to realise that they either hang together or hang separately.

If the Coalition has a PR strategy it is well hidden. Labour was all sizzle and no sausage. This Government is all sausage and no sizzle. The three leaders negotiated the policy but not how to promote it.

Polling could help Luxon to get the coalition parties to agree on a common PR strategy.

The coalition’s biggest test is rapidly approaching, the Budget. It is vital that the parties agree on a plan to turn the economy around.

The economy is in recession. The Government’s finances are in a mess. Voters are feeling sour because according to Westpac our incomes, GDP per capita, have fallen a massive 4 per cent.

The coalition faces the toughest Budget in 34 years. Ruth Richardson’s “Mother of all Budgets” set this country up for 20 years of growth but with no PR strategy it was a political disaster.

This Budget, if it contains unfunded tax cuts causing inflation and increased borrowing, will be both a political and economic disaster.

Every party appears to be fighting for their own policies. It is alleged the Finance Minister is making the absurd claim that the expenditure cuts fully fund her tax cuts, and it is other policies that are blowing out the Budget.

President Truman had great advice: “A leader has to lead, or otherwise he has no business in politics”.

Economic credibility is Luxon’s greatest asset. If he throws it away, he will never get it back.

Luxon must tell his Finance Minister and his coalition partners that the country voted for sound economic management. If that means the tax cuts and other policies must be delayed, so be it.

Luxon needs to be himself, a businessman. He did not run Air New Zealand on spend, borrow, and hope. He must not run New Zealand on spend, borrow, and hope.

Businessman Luxon would never have put up with the behaviour that he has tolerated as Prime Minister. Labour appointees and civil servants behaving as if there has been no election. He should be as tough on disloyal bureaucrats and Labour appointees as he is on his own MPs.

It is better to be respected than liked.

What the Prime Minister must not do is panic and do a u-turn. The country does need a smaller Government and tax cuts but in that order. Ending the cost-of-living crisis is the priority. Getting things done is the best strategy. Good governments are rarely defeated.

In the poll that matters, if Luxon has got the country back on track the voters may never love him, but they will not sack him.

- Richard Prebble is a former leader of the Act Party and a former member of the Labour Party