He might be New Zealand’s 42nd prime minister, but just months after getting his dream job, the down-to-earth multimillionaire Christopher “Luxe” Luxon is not having much luck being its most popular.
Talbot Mills Research, the polling company used by Labour, recently released figures showing Luxon is dramatically less popular — some 50% in fact — than the previous National PM John “The Ponytail Puller” Key at the same point in the first term of their leaderships.
And it turns out Luxon isn’t even the most popular “Chris” in Parliament right now.
The latest monthly Taxpayers Union-Curia poll wasn’t a great report card on the six-month-old coalition as a whole — National, ACT and NZ First were all down in support — but for the CEO, it was not so much a catastrophe as a Chris-tastrophe.
After plunging 16 points in “net favourability” in last month’s Curia poll to -5, Luxon slipped to -7 this month, putting him behind Labour leader Chris Hipkins (-6). He’s also below one of his most senior ministers, one Chris Bishop (-4).
This means that the Prime Minister of New Zealand is only the third most popular “Chris” in Parliament. Oh, the shame!
Astute political observers will deduce that Luxon has just two options for fixing this invidious “Chris” situation: either get more popular, or — and this might be much the easier option — change his name to something likely to make people think more favourably about him, a name like Cuddles or Flossy. Or Pudding. Everyone likes pudding.
Far better for a PM struggling with likeability to be the most popular Pudding in the House than the least favourite Chris.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Politician
They seek her here, they seek her there, they seek her everywhere.
The mysterious case of the Incredible Disappearing Broadcasting Minister was solved this week when Melissa Lee magically appeared in human form to inform the country she is still working on a solution to “modernise” the media, whatever that means.
In a week where the Fourth Estate was more or less hacked down to the Third-and-a-Bit Estate, Lee would not confirm what exactly she was working on, apparently due to cabinet secrecy rules.
However, she has reportedly presented a paper to cabinet that is sitting on harrumphing Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters’ desk while he’s overseas doing important Foreign Minister work such as telling-off the naughty, naughty UN and looking at the solar eclipse.
Will Lee’s policy ideas, should they get cabinet approval, be too little, too late? Given Newshub will be gone in July if no white knight rides in, and TVNZ is savagely paring back its news and current affairs service right now, it is unclear whether there will be much broadcasting news media left to save when — or rather, if — Lee’s solution is finally unveiled and whether it turns out to be actually worth the interminable wait.
In the meantime, as hundreds of journalists lose their jobs, wouldn’t it be wonderful if someone had a big, magic wand to wave to make everything better? Lee certainly thinks so.
“If only I … was the magician,” she said earlier this week. “If I could … snap up a solution, that’d be fantastic. But I’m not a magician.”
In the interests of clarity, here are some other things Melissa Lee is not:
1/ A wizard
2/ A fairy godmother
3/ A unicorn
4/ A Jedi knight
5/ A very good Minister for Broadcasting
Lots of degrees of separation
It’s official: politics isn’t show business for ugly people. It’s show business for ugly people with flash educations and fancy careers.
Some 78% of those in our new Parliament have a university qualification, according to a three-yearly survey published by Wellington’s Blackland PR this week. That compares to just 11% of the rest of us.
It is just one of the many degrees of separation that separates us, the long-suffering voters, from them, Homo Parliamentarian.
For a start, they are more likely than the rest of us to be lawyers, managers, analysts or business owners. A significant number had previously been elected representatives in local government, while there are more ex-media types than ever before.
Basically, the majority of our political class are far better educated, have worked all their lucky lives in comfortable jobs earning comfortable money, and when at play would prefer to go to, say, the opera than the speedway.
In other words, our House of Representatives isn’t very representative of the country.
Does this matter? As the Blackland report says, given the scale of the difference in education and careers to most other New Zealanders, it is likely that Parliament’s perspective and worldview is also very different — which perhaps explains a few of the bad headlines the coalition has had in its first six months.
To most people, cutting free school lunches sounds mean and punitive. But not to Act leader David Seymour — to him, it’s wasteful spending.
To most people, a multimillionaire taking a $ 50,000-a-year accommodation allowance for a mortgage-free luxury apartment sounds greedy, but not to Christopher Luxon, to him, it was an entitlement (until he agreed to pay it back after a public furore).
To most people, cutting funding to disabled people and their carers seems cruel and heartless, but not to Penny Simmonds, the Minister for Disability Issues. To her, it was just money being wasted on “massages, overseas travel, pedicures [and] haircuts”.
In the face of criticism, politicians always like to say they’re people too. Perhaps, but just not people like us.
