Where a gotcha has some real political currency is when it speaks to a wider, real political problem.
Albanese's flub soon blew across the Tasman. Enterprising Australian journalist Ben McKay (a guest on the Herald's On the Tiles Podcast) asked Christopher Luxon to list the official cash rate and unemployment rate. He nailed both, and added the current level of CPI inflation for good measure. "A+," was the verdict from McKay.
Housing Minister Megan Woods had less luck on the Mike Hosking Breakfast the next morning, saying the cash rate was 2 (it hasn't been that high since 2016, when the median house price was $500,000).
Lest anyone be left with the impression that Luxon made it through Tuesday unscathed, it must be remembered he gotcha-ed himself, answering questions about public transport subsidies by implying they should go, saying public transport should "stand on its merits".
He swiftly walked that back the next day.
On their own, these screw-ups don't really say anything terribly important about the state of politics in New Zealand. But dig deeper, and they expose blind spots on the part of Labour and National.
First, Woods' flub: this demonstrates the alarming denial mainstream politics has had of the effects of interest rates on house prices. Labour has huffed and puffed trying to bring the out-of-control housing market to heel since it took office in 2017. For most of its time in office, it was in denial about the effects of monetary policy on house prices.
Even when the Reserve Bank was creating tens of billions of dollars of digital money in an attempt to push interest rates down, the Government was fairly agnostic on whether this would have a positive or negative effect on housing affordability. It was only after the 2020 election, half a year after the Bank first fired up the digital printing presses, that Finance Minister Grant Robertson acknowledged there was a problem, writing a letter to the Reserve Bank to begin the process of getting the Bank to think about house prices when setting monetary policy.
This year, Treasury and the Reserve Bank began talking about work on interest rates and asset prices, acknowledging that long-term downward trends in interest rates have had the effect of pumping up the price of assets like housing.
Despite this, the holder Government's housing portfolio, has for a long time not seen fit to get briefings from the Reserve Bank on monetary policy. Woods told financial news website Interest.co.nz, in October 2020, as the Government was contemplating getting the Bank to think more about house prices that she did not "get regular briefings from the Reserve Bank", while also saying she was hopeful house prices would stabilise.
There are no easy choices in this area. But Woods' flub on the radio shows she wasn't across what might just be the single most important number in her portfolio.
Luxon's episode was of a different character.
One of Luxon's great weaknesses is the amount of time he's spent in Wellington (which, oddly enough, many people consider to be a strength). For all the allegations of clubby chummery levelled at career politicians and staffers-cum-MPs, the strength they bring to the job is an understanding of every nook and cranny of the state.
Luxon's remarks, and his admission he had not thought too deeply about it, gave the strong impression (which he denies) that Luxon believed public transport could possibly run without subsidies - an idea Labour took great pleasure pointing out would send public transport fares into the highest reaches of unaffordability.
Many might sneer. But there's some value in knowing the way that a GPS feeds into an NLTP, which dictates how the money raised from FED and RUC is spent from the NLTF by NZTA. Some of which goes to PT (tendered using PTOM), some of which is spent on ATAP and LGWM (with ATAP being given additional funding from the RFT).
It's complicated, difficult, and if you're Prime Minister, it's your problem.
Luxon has strengths - many of which Labour don't seem to see - but his weakness is a depth of knowledge about how the Government works. That's a problem. Many voters are dependent on little-known or appreciated lines of spending. Subsidies for care, education, health. National has a reputation for keeping a lid on spending - Luxon needs to convince these voters the spending they depend on is safe.
Luxon won't be too worried. He wisely corrected the record the next day and fudged the brain fade by saying he had not properly understood the question. But he'd do well to reflect on the episode and the fact that an embarrassing slip of the tongue led to 24 hours of Labour mirth making at his expense.
The boot isn't often on the other foot; it's been a long time since Jacinda Ardern made a genuinely embarrassing gaffe. The worst this columnist remembers was a mistake made in 2018 (again, speaking to Hosking) in which Ardern mixed up the Crown accounts with tightly-held GDP figures. Two very different things.
Ardern avoids embarrassing flubs by carefully managing questions she doesn't have an answer to, or doesn't understand. She'll waffle, and give a tangential answer, but one that doesn't touch on anything she's not comfortable talking about. It's frustrating - and at times soporific, but it works for Ardern.
It's a pity politicians soon learn to avoid the gaffe. It's the somewhat unpopular opinion of this columnist that most gaffes are every bit as revealing as they are distracting.
