OPINION
Christopher Luxon is now carefully asserting his dominance over his Government and its narrative.
Hardly elected by acclamation, Luxon will never be beloved like Dame Jacinda Ardern, Sir John Key, David Lange or even Helen Clark. But two of them left no meaningful impression and one a legacy they opposed.
The first TV poll since the election shows Luxon’s coalition comfortably ahead, but his own rating slightly below Jim Bolger’s immediately after his election.
Yet low prime-ministerial popularity and good government may not be unrelated. We have to go back to Bolger for a Prime Minister who delivered substantial change and three years of economic growth in the 4-7 per cent range.
Like Bolger’s, Luxon’s Government must rely on results rather than smiling, waving and fairy-dust.
Luxon’s State of the Nation address successfully communicated the ruin left by a uniquely incompetent Labour regime. Labour must radically rebrand to be taken seriously again. The Greens are challenged by losing three of their most important MPs in just two months, first comically, then inevitably and now tragically.
Elected without a general knowledge of New Zealand economic, political and constitutional history that shocked aides, Luxon’s first three months in the job, including a difficult Waitangi week, have helped him catch up.
He allowed David Seymour to huff and puff about his Treaty Principles Bill only to find that te ao Māori and the constitution are built more of bricks than straw and that those wanting radical change to either are fewer than Act thought.
Winston Peters has similarly had space to continue the work he began under Clark in 2005 and continued under Ardern to restore New Zealand’s relationships with Australia, the US, Nato, Japan, South Korea and the rest of the free world.
Unfortunately, Luxon also has in common with Bolger, and Key, having imprudently promised more than needed to win power. If anything, his fiscally reckless tax cuts package damaged National’s brand as responsible economic managers, costing votes.
After one quarter as Prime Minister, Luxon now knows the economy is smaller than forecast and likely to remain flat for longer, that inflation is more deeply embedded and interest rates likely to stay high all year, and that the mere fact of his election won’t magically fix either.
He’s learned he massively underestimated the cost of his infrastructure and other spending promises.
Ministers are also learning that asking bureaucrats for savings is unlikely to deliver many that are politically saleable.
Along with Finance Minister Nicola Willis’ speech last Thursday and her remarks to Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee, Luxon’s State of the Nation address made clear that the numbers don’t remotely add up.
Reflexively breaking promises, like Bolger with his irresponsible pledges on superannuation, must be avoided, since that damages public confidence in democracy, in his case causing the catastrophe of MMP.
Key was smarter, waiting for pressure to build from the political right against his promised second round of tax cuts before dumping them.
It enhanced rather than damaged his and Sir Bill English’s reputations for straight talking and economic management.
Whatever Luxon and Willis say now, postponing further tax cuts until 2025/6 will determine whether they are more responsible governors than desperate campaigners.
Similarly, their current approach of seeking roughly the same level of cuts from every department – essential or pointless – risks compromising functions that truly are valuable.
To deliver meaningful fiscal reform, Luxon and Willis must themselves identify departments and government functions to abolish. First blood was the Māori Health Authority. But if the closure of that Wellington monument isn’t to be revealed as mere race-baiting, equally pointless agencies like the Tertiary Education Commission and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise should join the same bonfire.
Likewise, having rightly focused on those abusing social welfare, Luxon and Willis need to underline that wasn’t cynical beneficiary bashing by entirely abolishing the even more productivity corroding corporate-welfare state, so lovingly erected by Jim Anderton, Sir Trevor Mallard and Steven Joyce.
Such moves wouldn’t save mere tens of millions a year, but billions, and would also ensure resources are allocated by the market to their highest and best use rather than to whatever losers Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee or Regional Development Minister Shane Jones pick.
Unable to buy economic recovery with taxpayers’ money or debt, Luxon and Willis are right to turn to the private sector including iwi to fund infrastructure, and the Superannuation Fund and its partners.
But there’s also a role for the Government to facilitate greater connection at the local level and identify opportunities to slash red tape.
With even doyens of the centralising Key Government like Joyce and Paula Bennett now promoting localism, there’s a chance Luxon is sincere when promising to empower families, community groups, hapū and iwi over the dead hand of a soul-destroying and initiative-sapping Wellington.
Further evidence of Luxon’s sincerity are initiatives like today’s Tairāwhiti Tomorrow Together Summit in Gisborne.
This was initiated locally by the Gisborne District Council, its business community and four local iwi rather than Wellington’s corporate-welfare machine, although officials from MBIE will still fly in to look important.
No photo ops are planned, but nearly a third of Luxon’s Cabinet will participate in person or via video, including Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay, Cyclone Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell, Transport Minister Simeon Brown, Māori Development, Conservation and Whānau Ora Minister Tama Potaka, Jones and Luxon himself.
MBIE advised its ministers to stay away, advice they rejected, and Ngāti Porou wants to hold its own summit later in the year rather than attend with Te Aitanga A Mahaki, Rongowhakaata and Ngāi Tāmanuhiri.
Luxon’s endorsement means over 100 local business, community and social service leaders are attending to align their work and pursue business and investment opportunities with Super Fund, private equity and Crown Research Institute bosses.
There won’t be TV pictures of the Prime Minister smiling, waving and gushing, nor the unveiling of a glossy MBIE brochure in the Beehive banquet hall.
The idea is more to get all the region’s leaders better networked with capital and regulators and on a similar but not Wellington-written page.
It could work, which would be good for a struggling region. But it also underlines to other regions that the Luxon Government may not have any money to hand out but will back local government, business, iwi and wider communities taking initiative of their own.
That’s how governments deliver productivity and economic gains, rather than the more recent practice of randomly throwing around tens of billions of dollars that have had to be borrowed from those still racking up student loans, kids still in primary school and those yet to be born.
Matthew Hooton has more than 30 years’ experience in political and corporate communications and strategy for clients in Australasia, Asia, Europe and North America, including the National and Act parties and the mayor of Auckland.
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