OPINION
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will have ended this week on something of a high: the 100 Days programme was put to bed by the deadline of Friday and, like a good fireworks show, the big bangers were left until the end.
Over the last week, the Government pushed through the chunkier announcements in its scramble to meet the deadline: the big voter-pleasers of a gang crackdown, and promises of swathes of roads up and down the country (albeit with the stinger of a hike in rego fees).
There were the health targets and the fast-track consenting regime that pleased mining companies but which critics said took things back to the 1970s and the Muldoon era.
The week ended with the three coalition parties putting out statements claiming credit for the 100 days delivery, without mentioning each other. NZ First did it by way of a mock news bulletin, possibly a poke at the broadcast news media, for whom the last 100 days have not ended so well at all.
While Luxon was pretty pleased with himself for the 100 Days plan, a Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll released yesterday showed there is still some way to go to convince more of the public about the virtues of the new Government: the approval levels had dipped, as had National’s party support result and Luxon’s personal ratings.
The 100 days programme is effectively a political marketing tool, aimed at showing the voters Luxon is a man of action.
It also served as an intense three-month trial of Luxon himself as Prime Minister – juggling the jobs of delivering on his promise to deliver things, coping with unexpected events, settling in with coalition bedmates, and testing his political judgment.
So how did Luxon go?
Inconsistent. That Taxpayers’ Union Curia poll illustrates the danger of that inconsistency: Luxon took a big hit.
The number of people who had an unfavourable view of him had spiked up by 11 points to 44 per cent, while 39 per cent of voters had a favourable view (down five).
That poll was taken over the period in which news emerged Luxon had claimed a $52,000 accommodation allowance to live in his own apartment rather than in Premier House: his biggest political misstep so far.
Luxon learned two lessons: first, do not second-guess Sir John Key’s words of advice. Second, explaining is losing – especially when you use the words “entitled” and “entitlement” on loop while doing so.
He did at least learn them quickly, rather than dragging it out – he backed down and paid back the allowance by the end of the day. He will be hoping the dent to his rep is as short-lived as the allowance was.
Luxon has nonetheless come miles from his starting position, when his speech and the way he thought about things were as a CEO. He still sees himself as the CEO of the country, but is learning the hard way that what was good for the corporate goose is not necessarily good for the political gander.
He has realised that simple and strong communication is his best weapon, and adjusted accordingly. The corporatese now only sneaks back in when he’s under pressure and relying on muscle-memory to answer questions.
Luxon also had his first major-ish overseas adventures, to Australia to meet Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then back to Melbourne last week to meet Asean leaders. His hopes of having that covered well back at home were foiled by the RNZAF Boeing breaking down, leaving his entire media entourage at the Rongotai military terminal for 12 hours, instead of in Melbourne.
That meant all we got to see was short clips of Luxon meeting and greeting other leaders – we learned that he was quick with a flattering comment (assuring one leader he hadn’t aged at all) and his go-to handshake routine consists of a firmish shake with the simultaneous arm-grip power move.
Luxon’s diplomatic skills have so far been more tested by his own coalition partners at home than internationally.
Coalition partners management
When Christopher Luxon buckled to the inevitable and paid back his accommodation allowance he was claiming, he said it was because it had become “a distraction”.
There are a couple of distractions he cannot dispense with quite so easily: his coalition partners.
Luxon has so far taken a very hands-off approach to the various statements and stands of his deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and his Deputy PM in Waiting, David Seymour.
His tendency is to give them as much space as possible to express themselves in their own unique ways, while trying to keep himself away from any of the fallout. His standard approach is to leave them to it, and simply say what his position is.
Given both Peters and Seymour occasionally suffer from Limelight Deficiency that has sometimes proved a difficult job. Thus far, Seymour has been the most testing.
The most intense workout was in February, when Seymour’s plans for a Treaty Principles Bill were the centre of attention – Luxon eventually had to simply rule out supporting that bill past first reading to put to bed Seymour’s attempts at claiming he might be able to change Luxon’s mind.
That issue has faded back into the background (for now) as Waitangi Day passed and the stuff on the 100 Days programme started rolling.
Then came the last week, in which Seymour decided to try out his roundhouse kick technique on his foes, former and present - from Professor Lisa Te Morenga and Joanna Kidman over some tweets about him, and finally he took up the baton from Winston Peters and got stuck into the media.
Seymour is a shareholding minister of TVNZ, and there are some rules around ministers telling the media how they should be doing their job. There was Seymour merrily issuing reprimands because TVNZ had not interviewed people he wanted them to interview, and criticising one reporter for the reporting on Luxon’s accommodation claim.
If Luxon thinks Seymour has skirted too close to the line, he certainly wasn’t going to say it: he avoided getting embroiled in it by saying simply that he felt for the journalists who faced being out of work.
The other danger of the coalition partners is that they hog all the attention - and that seemed in danger of happening at the start. However, as the 100 days has rolled on, Luxon has more often been the one setting the agenda as National moved on its key campaign promises around welfare reform, the gang moves, and on transport.
Luxon’s history in marketing has come in handy when he’s selling what the Government is doing.
He puts up a totally unashamed pitch for the Government’s sometimes bulldozer approach, staring down his critics and saying he’s doing what he said he’d do “and that means doing things differently”.
It’s in line with the sentiments of the late Sir Michael Cullen’s summary of the position when Labour was repealing the Employments Contract Act in 2001: “Eat that! You lost, we won ... It’s as simple as that!”
Luxon also sees it as being as simple as that. There are dangers in that approach, if taken too far.
Thus far, Luxon has taken the election result as giving him a mandate to push on with changes National campaigned on (and some it did not) with the minimum of due process – the use of Urgency in its first 100 days has far outstripped that of previous governments.
That means laws are being drafted in a rush, subjected to rushed analysis and stress-testing by officials, and in many cases pushed through Parliament without the usual input or care.
Elections tend to be won on a handful of a party’s policies – not the entire suite. Labour discovered that to its cost after the 2020 election, deciding that was a mandate to pursue all of its reform proposals, rather than a verdict on its Covid management at the time. In National’s case, the bread and butter election winners included tax cuts, law and order, roads and general economic management.
He needs to travel with caution in areas where the public might be more wary.
News of merging ministries was just the tip of the iceberg.