New Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had his first post-Cabinet press conference to outline his revamped 100-days plan after the first three days consisted of his deputy PM, Winston Peters, hogging the limelight and battling the media. How did Luxon go?
Luxon’s very first post-Cabinet press conference was also his first public appearance as PM without his deputy, Winston Peters, alongside him.
Luxon’s aim was to set out his new-look 100-days programme after the necessary adjustments were made to take account of the coalition deals with NZ First and Act.
He strode up to the stage in the Beehive Theatrette and introduced himself to the sign language interpreter, Alan Wendt.
Then he began his stated mission of getting NZ back on track – and trying to get his own political honeymoon back on track.
He tried to put to one side the issues that had dominated his early days – Winston Peters and the controversy over the smokefree reforms by setting out the first moves: the 49 Actions of his 100-day plan.
The very first in the line is a law change to return the Reserve Bank to a single focus on getting inflation down to 3 per cent in its decision-making, rather than having to take into account some social measures. It was timely: the bank had only that day warned it might have to lift interest rates again.
There was a flush of hyperbole when he declared National, Act and NZ First would do more in the first 100 days than Labour had done in the last six years, perhaps forgetting NZ First had been part of that Labour government for three of those years.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon leaving the Beehive theatrette with Leader of the House Chris Bishop after his first post-Cabinet press conference. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Luxon ended his opening pitch with a flourish and a nod to his mentor, former PM Sir John Key, by declaring his 100-day plan showed he was “frankly, ambitious for New Zealand” - Key’s old campaign slogan.
He also said it had been a very busy three days during which he had reminded ministers of the expectations he had of them: including a focus on delivering for the people of New Zealand.
During those same three days, Peters had not been reading that memo and had instead taken it upon himself to steal the show by taking potshots at the media, accusing them of succumbing to bribery in the form of the Public Interest Journalism Fund at every opportunity possible, from the Big Reveal of the coalition deals to what was what supposed to be a happy photo op of the Cabinet. By Wednesday afternoon, he’d got to the point of blaming the media for not being able to stop a Covid-19 lockdown happening.
As a result, he almost upstaged Luxon again for the post-Cabinet press conference, without being in the room.
It ensured Luxon would have to answer questions about Peters as well as his 100-day plan – and by now Luxon couldn’t get away with saying he had not seen the comments Peters had been making.
In dealing with it, Luxon invented a new coalition management strategy. The usual tool is the “agree to disagree” tool. In this case, it was more “agree to agree but using different words”.
He had no other real option other than to point out the three different leaders might view and say things in different ways, and that was perfectly appropriate. He could hardly publicly reprimand Peters just three days into their new deal – that would only give the Opposition something to chew on, and spark an allergic reaction in Peters.
Luxon noted he had some sympathies for Peters’ position, saying he too thought the Public Interest Journalism Fund was a bad idea but he wouldn’t have said it in the same way. He agreed it had led to a perception of bias, whether it was true or not. He managed to avoid saying whether he thought it was true. He also gallantly denied Peters had overshadowed the start of the new Government.
Then came the barrage of questions of the press conference: everything from inflation to the treaty principles and Winston Peters and Winston Peters and Winston Peters. Whether he shone is debatable, but he didn’t make any massive blunders.
Peters’ antics also gave Labour’s leader Chris Hipkins a better-than-expected start to his new role as Leader of the Opposition. In case everybody had missed it, he spelled it out, saying his predictions of a Coalition of Chaos had come true even sooner than he had anticipated it would. And he then happily tried to drag Luxon into the fray, saying it was the Prime Minister’s job to haul his deputy Prime Minister into line for making inaccurate and false allegations.
Luxon clearly had very little appetite for doing that.
He has, however, learned an early lesson in the danger of leaving a vacuum. If he doesn’t front on the business of the day, he now has two other party leaders who are more than happy to fill the vacuum for him.
Claire Trevett is the NZ Herald’s political editor, based at Parliament in Wellington. She started at the NZ Herald in 2003 and joined the Press Gallery team in 2007. She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
