PM Jacinda Ardern v Christopher Luxon: Ignoring Covid pays in first Parliament Question Time for 2022

OPINION:

Parliament's marking of the Queen's 70th Jubilee saw party leaders and MPs split into three: the monarchists, the republicans and the republicans who did not want to be mean to the Queen so kept it to themselves.

The monarchist was Act MP Nicole McKee.

The republicans were Green Party co-leader James Shaw and Te Pāti Maori co-leader Rawiri Waititi.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and National Party leader Christopher Luxon both fell into the latter category: both like the idea of a republic, but also like the Queen and neither appear to have much appetite for progressing the issue. So they said nice things about the Queen and left it there.

Their stands on republicanism are one of few areas of agreement between Ardern and Luxon, as the later Question Time showed.

For the first time in a long time there were no Covid-19 questions on National's slate. Luxon had talked about it to media, saying the Government needed to set out how and when it would start phasing out vaccination mandates in workplaces.

But once he was facing the PM, it was a different matter. After mixed success tackling Ardern on the Covid-19 response in his first few question times last year, Luxon clearly refined his approach over summer.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern responds to questions in the first Question Time of the year. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It is now clear from both his first speech on Tuesday and Question Time that he will be relentlessly prosecuting the Government on inflation this year.

It is a wise move: Labour would much rather be talking about Covid-19 than inflation. It would also much rather National was talking about Covid-19 than about inflation.

The switch to inflation delivered National one of its strongest Question Time performances in a long time.

Luxon's mission is to try to re-capture the so-called middle New Zealand – or, as his finance spokesman Simon Bridges put it, "the regular Joes and Joannas". The cost of living is biting them now.

A quick draw? National Party leader Christopher Luxon on the first day of Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Food prices, fuel prices, housing costs, rates and interest costs are all going up and out-stripping wage increases.

National's goal is to try to ensure much of the blame for all of that goes on the Government.

This involves challenging Ardern on high levels of Government spending, especially spending that could be seen as "wasteful".

Ardern's mission is a variation of her old "blame the virus, not the person" refrain. It is to try to ensure much of the blame for inflation goes on Covid-19, instead of the Government.

Her responses firmly slated it to supply chain challenges affecting all countries, mixed with some jabs back at National: "The credibility gap of being lectured by the Leader of the Opposition on the cost of living when he doesn't believe in increasing the minimum wage."

Luxon was followed up by deputy Nicola Willis asking questions about housing affordability, followed by Finance spokesman Simon Bridges on inflation, and Transport spokesman Simeon Brown probing at the pace of delivery on transport projects.

Act leader David Seymour also joined the party, grilling Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Ardern on a Treasury report setting out the inflationary impact of its decisions.

Robertson had some fire power in return: he pilloried Luxon's call to lower petrol costs by scrapping the regional fuel tax, saying Luxon was proposing to swap it for another tax, in the form of congestion charges. He then noted that many of the roading projects championed by National were to be paid for from the very same fuel tax fund.

When Seymour hit him with a damning quote from a Treasury report, Robertson grinned and noted that, just as Seymour had, he had chosen to focus only the quotes in the report that he liked.

Inflation is a combination of both Covid-19 and the Government – but cherry picking of statistics and the bon mots of Treasury to suit one's argument is a time-honoured tradition and was freely used by both sides.

It was the Speaker who provided the cherry on the top. A few weeks back, Luxon told the Herald he intended to put in place a feedback regime for his MPs. They would either get "good feedback" or what he delicately put as "development feedback:" translate, a shellacking.

The Speaker clearly took note. When Luxon's deputy leader Nicola Willis overstepped a mark, Mallard called her to order. "I'm going to give the member some development feedback," he began.

As for the republican debate, both Ardern and Luxon have previously said they believe New Zealand should stand on its own at some point. Neither believe that time is now: or at least, neither believe that the voting New Zealand public are ready for it.

Nor do either believe that it should be a priority.

For Te Pāti Maori it is a more complicated issue. The party's co-founder, Dame Tariana Turia, was not a royalist but nor was she keen on a republic, because the Crown was the Treaty partner.

In 2015, after Turia welcomed Prince Harry on his visit to Whanganui, she told the Herald she did not believe the country should become a republic because she believed in the Treaty relationship.

"It's hard enough for tangata whenua as it is and I think if we went to a republic that would be a way of getting rid of the Treaty-based relationship we have with the Crown and therefore with the government on behalf of the Crown."

The Waitangi Day call by the current Te Pāti Maori leaders for the country to become a republic is a big shift from that position.