Luxon needs to lead, not just manage, if he wants to win the next election – Richard Prebble

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has not polled strongly in the preferred Prime Minister question. Photo / Mark Mitchell

THE FACTS

• The latest 1 News-Verian poll showed both National and Labour had taken a hit.
• National was down 2 percentage points to 34% while Labour was down 3 points to 29%.
• The current coalition of National, NZ First and Act would still have enough seats at 63 to form a Government.

The latest polls say the next election is a toss-up. Having served on the campaign committees of both Labour and Act, I offer the coalition some advice: campaigns are overrated.

Governments lose elections rather than Oppositions win them. The best campaign is being a good Government. When prices are stable and the economy is growing, Governments are rarely thrown out.

The most important question for voters is: who do we trust with the credit card?

This election is the coalition’s to lose and here’s how they could do it: by campaigning as if this is another MMP election.

Under MMP, it has always been uncertain which parties will get over the line. Every party has been in competition with every other.

But the polls show that Parliament’s six parties will be returned. Every poll shows that no two-party combo on either side will be enough to govern.

It will take three parties, either National, Act and New Zealand First, or Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.

That makes the next election more like First Past the Post. It’s not about who gets in; it’s about which trio can form a Government.

This three-party requirement is the left’s weakness. The radical extremism of the Greens and Te Pāti Māori makes a Labour-led Government a hard sell to middle New Zealand.

The right’s challenge is grandstanding by Act leader David Seymour and NZ First leader Winston Peters.

Act’s policy ideas and fiscal discipline is an asset but when David Seymour claims the credit, it makes Christopher Luxon look weak.

With Donald Trump challenging international trade, we are fortunate to have a Foreign Minister with Peters’ experience.

When Peters disparages Luxon’s efforts to rally an international response to Trump’s trade threats, he undercuts the authority of the Prime Minister.

Seymour and Peters are assets when they boost Luxon’s leadership, not chip away at it. It would also be helpful to acknowledge each other’s contribution.

After possible disunity, the biggest risk for the coalition is Luxon’s poor polling.

So far, it hasn’t mattered much because Chris Hipkins polls even worse.

Prime Ministers usually enjoy a personal popularity advantage. They have the status of the office and the power to set the agenda.

Prime Ministers are often more popular than their own party. That’s not the case today.

Many National voters tell pollsters they do not favour their own party leader as Prime Minister. That should ring alarm bells.

Election campaigns are inherently presidential. The main event is the debate between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition. That’s when the challenger gets equal time and usually a decent bump in the polls.

Unless something changes, we can predict Hipkins will win the debates. He’s a better debater. By election day, he could be more popular than Luxon.

On paper, Luxon should be the ideal Prime Minister. Strong CV. Family man. He’s brought discipline back to a once-fractured National Party. He’s introduced management tools like 90-day plans, giving the Government direction. What’s the problem?

After 18 months, we still don’t know what makes him tick. Why is Luxon in politics?

Name an issue and you can predict where Seymour or Peters will stand. With Luxon, we’re not so sure.

Take the Treaty Principles Bill. Luxon called it a distraction. Many would agree. But what does he think about the principles themselves? On the day of the debate, he went to Auckland.

Or take the Privileges Committee report. Every other party leader thought the challenge to order in Parliament by Te Pāti Māori raised serious issues over the future of parliamentary democracy.

The leaders participated in the debate. Luxon did not.

Prime Ministers I’ve known, Sir Robert Muldoon, David Lange, Helen Clark and Sir John Key, would not have ducked that debate.

It may be good corporate strategy to stay out of controversy, but that’s not an option for a Prime Minister. Leadership requires taking the lead.

In the Budget debate, Luxon delivered a laboured joke, calling Hipkins “Mr Bo-Jandals” for flip-flopping depending on his audience. Muldoon would have called Hipkins, “Flipkins”.

What’s worse than changing your opinions is having no opinion.

To borrow another song, Luxon is the Beatles’ Nowhere Man:

“Doesn’t have a point of view / Knows not where he’s going to”

Prime Ministers have thought defending democracy important enough to take this country to war.

In the next 18 months, Luxon needs to develop a point of view on the values that make New Zealand special.

In this country, Parliament is sovereign. The Crown honours Governor Hobson’s pledges made at Waitangi. All New Zealanders, regardless of ancestry, are equal under the law, with the same rights and duties.

If Luxon can shift from managing to leading, from sidestepping issues to setting the direction, then he can take the coalition to a landslide victory.