The vote on the Treaty Bill was little more than the dying gasp of a minor party’s wish which never had support and caused a disproportionate amount of trouble and division.
Instead, Luxon was focusing on the pistols at dawn coming from the US.
Dawn has become a fraught time of day for Luxon.
However, the way he negotiates those fraught dawns could well prove to be the making of his prime ministership.
The daily awakening to US President Donald Trump’s latest utterings about tariffs – and the responses of other countries – has been like watching a game of poker played with Monopoly money.
It is 25% tariffs! Raise to 104% tariffs! 125% tariffs! Infinity tariffs!
If only it were Monopoly money and a game that had an endpoint. Trump promised “a beautiful thing” would emerge, but where it will end, nobody seems to know.
All of which hands Luxon something of a political opportunity.
Every Prime Minister gets a chance to prove their mettle in a crisis: whether it be a natural disaster, a catastrophe, or an economic crunch.
Luxon’s first real crisis has landed in the form of Cyclone Trump and the tariff wars.
Opposition MPs celebrate as Act leader David Seymour leaves the House after the Treaty Principles Bill was voted down. Photo / Mark Mitchell
So while the issue that had plagued his first year as PM was finally put to rest with the voting away of the Treaty Principles Bill, Luxon was otherwise engaged in dealing with an actual problem.
He and Finance Minister Nicola Willis have so far had a pretty strong playbook in responding to those tariffs.
There has been a little bit of a “don’t panic” shade to it, but it has been proactive and quick, albeit a bit like trying to tap-dance on quicksand.
They moved quickly to address the issue after the schedule of tariffs came out and other countries started responding.
Luxon kept talking about it throughout the week in speeches and interviews as the situation changed.
That meant that on Thursday Seymour sat in Parliament insisting he was the only one with any sense in the room and watched his Treaty bill get resoundingly voted down.
At the same time, Luxon was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was on the blower – a can of Pepsi Max on his desk – calling other leaders around Asia and in Europe to try to cobble together a united front and shore up the existing free trade agreements.
It was exactly the right thing for him to be doing. New Zealand’s economy is so heavily reliant on trade that such events warrant a Prime Minister’s every waking moment.
It is very perverse luck, but Luxon has had the luck of being landed with a crisis that is right in his wheelhouse and at just the right time for him politically.
His decision earlier in the year to focus strongly on the economy was starting to bear fruit in the polls – the past three have seen National’s poll ratings start to lift finally after dipping over the summer, following on from an Investment Summit and international trips.
It was finally starting to look as if Luxon was driving a coherent agenda, rather than being stuck in the wash of white noise that his coalition partners were throwing out.
Forging ahead on the economy is Luxon’s strongest chance of improving both his party’s and his personal ratings.
The economy is what will actually impact on voters and it is what they will vote on in 2026.
Handling an economic crisis gives the PM a chance to rise to an occasion, to prove they have things in hand. And that chance is exactly what Luxon needs as he continues his mission of turning round his poll ratings.
He has clearly reasoned that while he may not have managed to win over hearts and minds, he still has a chance at winning over the hip pockets.
That will be a hard task. It is all happening at a very difficult time, just a month before the Budget and while the Government is finalising the contents of that Budget and the forecasts ahead.
Pity the forecasters, trying to work out how the books might look in four years when even trying to work out what might happen tomorrow is like looking into a cloudy crystal ball.
Daron Parton cartoon for Saturday April 12, 2025.
That Budget will not necessarily please voters. Already the Opposition parties are starting to depict it as a Budget of hard cuts. Luxon and Willis will be focused on justifying the cuts.
The tariffs war will be like battling a hydra.
Trump is unpredictable at the best of times and there is precious little Luxon or anyone else can do about what he decides. However, part of Luxon’s goal is to show voters he has his eye on the ball and has moved early to try to protect New Zealand’s interests.
It is aimed at reassuring voters that the end is not nigh, while also forewarning them that bumpy times could be ahead – and trying to explain that will be out of the Government’s control, but the Government is alert to it.
That is essentially aimed at trying to avoid voters putting too much blame on the Government. Whether Labour lets them get away with it is another matter: after all, Luxon and National did not let Labour blame the global economy for inflation in New Zealand skyrocketing under its watch.
There is a more political purpose to it: it is also aimed at making the most of the advantage National already holds in voters’ minds that it is the best party to deal with the economy.
Luxon’s determination to talk about the economy is partly aimed at showing he is fluent in that world. The point of that is to contrast his Government with what a Labour coalition might have done in the same situation.
Luxon also finally seems to have worked out how to grab the agenda, rather than getting stuck in reaction mode constantly.
He has shifted his Tuesday media slots back to Monday, meaning the week starts with him. The Government has been putting out announcements on Sunday or Monday morning to give him something to talk about.
His decision to avoid talking about the Treaty Principles Bill and to steer clear of the skirmishes around culture wars shows he’s also starting to try to avoid getting himself embroiled in the causes his coalition partners throw out.
Any voters whose votes might be determined by the Treaty principles stuff are already baked into Act.
Luxon does have some relationship damage to see to, but there is zero advantage for him in talking about the Treaty Principles Bill any more.
As for Seymour, he’s suggested this will not be the last we hear of his Treaty bill. He does, after all, have a constituency to appease.
But for the time being even he had switched transmission by Friday, back to one of his other favourite topics – castigating children for skipping school to take part in climate change protests.
