Prime Minister Christopher Luxon took a little pleasure in pointing out the tired-looking faces of some journalists following the Press Gallery party on Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon took a little pleasure in pointing out the tired-looking faces of some journalists following the Press Gallery party on Wednesday. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Press Gallery Party - Luxon roasts journos’ hangovers:
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon put in a decent effort at the Gallery party, staying much longer than his predecessors bothered to. A teetotaller, he chatted happily with a cola as the blood-alcohol levels of those around him increased.
The next day, hewas just a little smug about his own fresh demeanour compared to those who may have imbibed when he did his standup with the media. Asked about the GDP figures released earlier that day, Luxon began his answer: “Well, what I’d say is, as many of you are doing so well dealing with a hangover from the Press Gallery party last night, New Zealand is dealing with a hangover from the economic management of Labour over the last six years as well.”
In the interests of a right of reply, we note virtuously the Beehive Diaries author had two drinks and left at about 9.30pm.
Speaking of questions of confidence, some will recall Luxon’s pre-election unhappiness with the RNZAF Boeing planes, which have been known to break down on a semi-regular basis while transporting prime ministers overseas.
Luxon even pledged not to use the planes unless he absolutely had to. The Boeings have not got off to a good start in trying to repair the relationship. On Friday, Foreign Minister Winston Peters was due to fly to Fiji on his first overseas mission of the new coalition government.
Alas, the Boeing broke down so the ancient Herc had to be brought in to ferry Peters instead.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters on the RNZAF Boeing 757 during a Pacific Mission flight with then-Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in 2018. Photo / Michael Craig
The NZ Herald was not among the handful of media selected by Peters to go on the trip. He had come up with a cunning plan to ensure the Press Gallery was not with him by telling Mfat to only offer seats to the media who went to the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands. That was on November 6-10 – so most Press Gallery journalists had not gone to the forum as they usually would have because they were staked out at various venues waiting for Peters while covering coalition negotiations instead.
There is history, and there is Winstory.
Some of the major blowouts in infrastructure spending have been around projects Winston Peters championed back in 2017-2020 when he was in coalition with Labour. One was for the new Interislander ferries, in furtherance of Peters’ dream of a great ribbon of shining silver train tracks stretching down the country – and across the water. The other was for the upgrade of Scott Base in Antarctica. Both have increased in budget significantly since then – and according to Winston the cost blowouts are all because he was not in charge.
He told reporters this week: “As you know, when I [was] in charge of that operation things were under control, and the moment I left things blew out completely ... What on earth went wrong? Everywhere you look it shows incompetence the moment the handbrake left.”
How to get out of a sticky situation:
Transport Minister Simeon Brown’s excuse for not releasing a regulatory impact statement because he considered it a “draft” made one of the longer-serving MPs remember how the late Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Parekura Horomia once dealt with a similar predicament. Asked about an apparent contradiction between a letter he had signed and his current position, Horomia stood and said “that is easy. It was a pre-letter”. It remains unclear to this day what a pre-letter was, but he got away with it.
