Election 2023: Why don’t some voters trust National leader Christopher Luxon - and does it matter - Derek Cheng

National leader Christopher Luxon, centre, with MPs Simeon Brown and Chris Penk. Photo / Alex Burton

ANALYSIS

National should be wiping the floor with Labour - but they’re not.

The 2023 election race remains tight, and though National has a bit of breathing space over Labour in recent polls, the election could still go either way.

That’s despite the economic headwinds of inflation and recession, as well as Labour’s torrent of scandals including losing five ministers this year - Jacinda Ardern, Stuart Nash, Meka Whaitiri, Michael Wood and Kiri Allan - leaks of key policy to National, and internal disagreements over tax.

So poorly is National Party leader Christopher Luxon resonating with the public that there’s been watercooler chatter about whether the election would be all but over if his deputy, Nicola Willis, took the helm.

Indeed, some in Labour quietly say if Willis rolled Luxon - even though she’s non-existent in preferred PM scores - it would be “a disaster for Labour”, as one Beehive insider put it. And this week, trans activist Shaneel Lal actively called for Willis to step forward.

It’s not something National is entertaining, as it isn’t putting much stock in what the polls say about Luxon’s personal appeal. “Bugger the polls,” as Jim Bolger once said, and this is not unreasonable; poll results are hardly definitive, and they tend to heavily favour the incumbent.

But they do indicate trends, and the trend has been clear: Voters prefer Chris Hipkins over Luxon, the National Party more than its leader, and they distrust Luxon much more than they trust him.

Chris Hipkins has held a lead over Christopher Luxon in most polls, including this Newshub Reid Research poll conducted at the end of July. Source / Newshub

‘He is Labour’s greatest asset’

National strategists welcomed the recent Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll not just because Labour had dropped into the 20s, but because Luxon and Hipkins were tied in the preferred PM stakes at 25 per cent, the first time they were neck and neck.

The context, though, is that National was on 35 per cent in the poll, while Labour was on 27 per cent; only 71 per cent of National voters prefer Luxon as Prime Minister.

Three times Luxon has hit 26 per cent in the Taxpayers’ Union - Curia poll, but each of those times National was between 34 and 39 per cent.

The Talbot Mills poll last week showed a more familiar pattern, with Hipkins 10 percentage points ahead of Luxon, who was on 24 per cent as preferred PM while National was on 35 per cent.

Luxon was only on 20 per cent in last month’s 1News Verian poll, when National was on 35 per cent.

And the recent Newshub Reid Research poll had National on 36.6 per cent, while Luxon’s preferred PM score was just 15.9 per cent.

That poll, conducted at the end of July, also asked about trust in Luxon and Hipkins. For Luxon, only 35 per cent said they trusted him - largely in line with National’s party vote - while 46.9 per cent said they didn’t.

Trust in Hipkins was far healthier at 51.5 per cent - streaks ahead of Labour’s 32.3 per cent - while 34.9 per cent said they didn’t trust him.

“Look at his personal ratings and you’ve got to say he’s a chain,” says Dr Suze Wilson, senior management lecturer at Massey University with a special interest in leadership.

“It’s the only inference you can draw. He’s dragging them back. He is the Labour Party’s greatest asset at the moment.”

The trust dial had barely shifted for Luxon since January, the last time the Newshub Reid Research poll asked the trust question.

Back then Luxon was still much more of an unknown quantity to voters, but his numbers were slightly better: his trust score was 1.6 percentage points higher, while the distrust score was 3.1 points lower.

These differences are so small that they’re within the margin of error. But they suggest Luxon’s extensive travel around the country in recent months has done nothing to improve his trustworthiness.

The opposite has happened. It has actually gone down.

Recent Newshub Reid Research poll showing trust in Christopher Luxon and Chris Hipkins. Source: Newshub

Why the lack of trust?

Wilson says there are potentially two factors at play. The first is that the seven properties-owning Luxon struggles to show voters that he’s cut from the same cloth as they are.

“There’s an impressive body of evidence to support this: people follow those who they perceive are ‘one of us’ in terms of their achievements and how they conduct themselves, their values and traits. This says that they’re like us, share the same worldview, and what is motivating them is that they’re trying to act for the collective good.”

Luxon’s challenge, she says, is his corporate background.

“Most of us don’t see senior management as being on our side. People are somewhat predisposed to be mistrustful or sceptical. It’s the old joke: ‘I’m from corporate, here to help.’”

This would be less of an issue if the second factor - language - was helping Luxon.

“But the way he articulates himself so often reflects that managerial worldview, which absolutely compounds the perception - true or not - that he’s not about looking after us, but advancing an agenda for him and his mates,” she says.

KPIs for his MPs. Outcomes focused. Eliminate waste. Optimise efficiency.

“Surely a normal person doesn’t talk like that. The nature of his discourse, because it’s so corporate, evokes a sense of: ‘Who’s the real person behind that?’ A cardboard cut-out, if you like. You can’t connect with that. You can’t relate in a meaningful way,” Wilson says.

“The other concern that might play into people’s minds is: ‘What do you really think? Show us your true character.’”

Wilson adds that Luxon’s constant negativity about the Government being a shambles doesn’t sit well with moderate voters and cuts into his efforts to come across as genuine - which National contests, pointing out it has already released dozens of policies to reverse the so-called shambles.

“When it’s an authority figure speaking, we expect a level of reasonableness,” says Wilson. “If you give no credit for having done anything well in the last six years, that will probably irk some voters in the centre who’ll think, ‘Play it fair. Credit where credit’s due.’”

She says Sir John Key also enjoyed corporate success before running for PM, but he spoke in a way that connected to the average New Zealander, rather than alienated them.

This accompanied a carefully crafted image - which all political leaders do - of him doing regular Kiwi bloke stuff. How would you host Prince William? Beer and BBQ, naturally.

Prince William attends a barbecue at Premier House with John Key. Photo / Getty Images

Whether this was genuine is less important than whether it looks or feels genuine.

“And Christopher Luxon just appears to be someone at this stage who’s not very good at that,” says Wilson. “His attempts to be likeable feel a bit forced and artificial.”

The question “Who is the real Luxon?” has permeated since he became leader. At the end of last year, “don’t know” and “unsure” were the words most associated with Luxon in a Newshub Reid Research poll. Even as recently as last month, voters were telling him they don’t know him.

But there’s a more charitable interpretation.

“Luxon is a bit handicapped in terms of what he can say,” political commentator and former National government press secretary Ben Thomas says.

“If he wins the election, he has to be prime minister, so he does have to be more equivocal about things. He can’t just promise to sack 3000 public servants on the first day, like David Seymour can.”

Then there’s the need to be on message.

“National realised early last year that this was probably a cost-of-living election. That means it’s often not easy to get a clear sense of what Christopher Luxon stands for because he’s always pushing the cost of living and the things that go with that - more efficient government, less wasteful spending,” Thomas says.

“It’s electorally appealing in terms of a platform, given what people’s concerns are, but it doesn’t give you a very clear picture of an individual.”

He says Hipkins runs on the same lines once Labour also realised the cost of living was front of voters’ minds.

“But he pins it to ‘I’m a boy from the Hutt who pops down to the Cossie Club’, which is not necessarily any more genuine than any of Christopher Luxon’s attempts to be a common person. ’I’m a successful CEO’ resonates in some ways - the business guy to get us through economic problems - but it doesn’t give a sense of identification with the public because that’s just not an experience most people have had.”

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins mingles at the Upper Hutt Cosmopolitan Club after attending dawn service on April 25, 2023. Photo / Getty Images

The crucial swing voter

If trust in Luxon is low, then it becomes even more challenging for National to appeal to the swing voter: middle-class, urban, middle-aged, female.

This voter is more likely to be pro-choice rather than pro-life.

“As a woman who wants to ensure that women have free and ready access to abortion services, that really concerns me,” says Wilson. “At the very least, he should articulate his position so I can understand where he stands.”

Luxon has done so, repeatedly, but does that count for much if voters don’t trust him?

Since entering Parliament, Luxon has sought to manage how his faith is perceived, recognising it could be used to portray him as extreme. In his maiden speech, he said his faith was personal, an anchor for him, and “not in itself a political agenda”.

“And no politician should use the political platform they have to force their beliefs on others,” he said at the time.

A few months later as National Party leader, he was asked in a Newshub interview if abortion was tantamount to murder. Luxon said: “That’s what a pro-life position is.”

In June last year he was forced into damage control in the aftermath of the court decision overturning Roe v Wade in the US, which was enthusiastically welcomed by National MP Simon O’Connor.

Luxon repeatedly said a government he led would not revisit abortion laws, and eventually said he would resign as prime minister if access to abortion became more restricted.

It wouldn’t be the first time a politician has said they would never implement something they personally believed in. See Dame Jacinda Ardern and the capital gains tax. But at the time, Ardern’s political stocks were through the roof.

Luxon’s are not. And his time as National leader has been liberally peppered with gaffes and walk-backs, so taking him at his word is not as easy as taking Ardern at hers at the time.

A first-term MP, Luxon is still pretty new to the political scene, and voters were likely to be forgiving as he inevitably made mistakes - as all politicians do. But he’s shot himself in the foot so many times that voters might see a pattern of behaviour, rather than the competent CEO.

There was the back-tracking after saying National would axe the Clean Car Standard (he meant to say the Clean Car Discount); suggesting he was in Te Puke when he was on holiday in Hawaii; not knowing key numbers the day he announced key transport policy.

Then there was his comment about New Zealand being a “very negative, wet, whiney, inward-looking country“ (he later claimed it was a reference to Labour), or how Kiwis should have more babies if they don’t like immigration (he later said it was a joke, but explaining is losing in politics, as the saying goes).

Or his order for and then cancellation of a taxpayer-funded Tesla after criticising Tesla subsidies, which his wife then apparently used (Luxon has refused to talk about this, saying it’s his wife’s car and not his).

National Party leader Christopher Luxon says access to abortion won't become more restricted if he becomes Prime Minister. Photo / Alex Burton

More recently, he walked back his initial comments that he would undo the Government’s axing of $5 prescription fees.

Given the potential for this to hit Luxon in swing voter territory, Labour swung into attack mode, perhaps too strongly. As Lizzie Marvelly explained, reinstating a prescription fee for contraceptive pills would be a particular turn-off for women voters.

“A return to the unpopular prescription fees will mean a return to an inequitable system,” Marvelly said. “Luxon didn’t create the inequity in the first place, but his comments [about scrapping the no-fee policy] showed voters – particularly female voters – that he has no problem with a regime that penalises women unfairly.”

Luxon eventually said the fee might be brought back for those who can’t afford it.

But a pattern of walk-backs invites the question, especially for a pro-choice woman, about what else he might change his mind on.

“I don’t see how you can trust anyone who says abortion is tantamount to murder,” says reproductive rights advocate Jacqueline Cavanagh.

“Christopher Luxon’s and some of his caucus’ open disdain for abortion should ring alarm bells.”

Cavanagh says Luxon’s history of flip-flops does nothing but reinforce the possibility of a Luxon-led government influencing access to abortion.

“They could cut the [travel and accommodation for abortion] reimbursement. They could not grant any of the safe area applications, or enforce them. They could make an ultrasound mandatory prior to an abortion. They could cut funding for training providers.”

There’s a cohort of pro-choice voters who have already decided they won’t vote for Luxon. There’s nothing Luxon can do to win them over beyond what he’s already said.

The unknown is the size of that cohort, and whether it would make any meaningful difference in a cost-of-living election.

Dame Jacinda Ardern's credibility was riding high when she gave her word in 2019 that she would not implement a capital gains tax as long as she was PM. Photo / Nick Reed

Bugger the polls

Opposition leaders notoriously struggle to score highly in the preferred PM ratings. Ask Simon Bridges, who languished far below support for National. Or Helen Clark, who dropped to 2 per cent while in Opposition and faced an internal coup, but as PM hovered mostly in the 30s and 40s.

The same thing happened with Anthony Albanese in Australia. He rocketed to the mid-50s after becoming Prime Minister, but was stuck in the mid-20s and 30s while in Opposition. Incumbency counts.

Sir John Key was an outlier, overtaking Clark in the preferred PM ratings while Clark was PM, as did Ardern when Sir Bill English was PM.

That could reflect their respective X-factors rather than any shortcomings on Luxon’s part.

“The age of giants is over,” says Ben Thomas. “John Key and then Jacinda Ardern were political phenomena, not run-of-the-mill candidates, and what you’ve got now is two reasonably average characters.”

As for Luxon’s preferred PM rating, the most recent polls were conducted more than two months out from election day. A chunk of the electorate is still not tuning in to politics, and probably couldn’t even name the National Party leader let alone give his name when asked who they want as PM.

“It’s important to remember that Luxon’s preferred PM score is not at all bad for an Opposition leader, and Hipkins’ isn’t stellar for a sitting prime minister,” says Thomas.

“I actually think some of the discussion around this idea - that Luxon is a sort of millstone around the party’s neck - is overstated.”

And he’s improving, becoming more road-tested, as he travels around the country answering questions at public meetings.

“He’s done dozens of meetings now, talking to thousands of people right around the country,” says National’s campaign chair Chris Bishop.

“We’re tracking pretty well, actually. We’re ahead in the polls, and Christopher’s doing well. There’s everything to play for.”

On his gaffe-prone history, Bishop says no politician is perfect and Luxon is no exception.

“There’s always room for improvement. All you can do is be yourself, and that’s what he’s doing.”

Thomas says Luxon’s popularity might not even matter at the end of the day.

“The messages are resonating, whether people like or dislike Christopher Luxon personally. When we think about roads, we think about potholes. When we think about inflation, we think about wasteful government spending.

“So the question is: is he the person to solve it?”

Thomas says it would be a mistake for National to try and reshape the Luxon package this close to the election.

“You can’t force people to perceive you in a particular way. And trying to force that is only going to result in the sort of mishaps that bedevilled Don Brash in 2005 when National tried to turn him into this man-of-action and shoved him into a race car,” he says.

“Luxon can’t say he grew up in a solo mother-household in a state house, so he’s got to show that he understands regular people’s struggles in another way. How much does a block of cheese cost? How much do his policies cost?

“If your appeal is not the relatable common man, but instead the competent, assured businessman, then you need the numbers at your fingertips. Key was very much on top of all the detail. Luxon has to be on top of that stuff, and there have been lapses.”

The less Luxon makes a U-turn or says something he needs to explain later, the more credible he becomes, which adds integrity to what he says, including his pledge not to restrict abortion access.

“The key thing right now is to minimise mistakes, be completely on top of the material, be well briefed across everything,” Thomas says.

“That’s going to be the real challenge of the campaign. He’ll come out of a school or a shopping mall and be hit with any issue under the sun.

“And he’s got to be prepared for that.”

Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery and is a former deputy political editor.