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Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly column that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings. If you enjoy a “serious laugh” - and complaining about politics and politicians - you’ll enjoy reading Greg’s latest grievances.
Can money buy you love?
The answer has to be a hard “no” based on Christopher “the Luxe” Luxon’s first year as prime minister.
If the down-to-earth multimillionaire has proved anything in the 12 months since the election, it is that, in 2024, it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for this filthy-rich white guy to enter the kingdom of popularity as prime minister.
Two polls published in the past week and a bit have again provided compelling evidence that during his first year in office Luxon, despite his Energiser Bunny schtick, remains New Zealand’s least popular first-term leader so far this century, with the new surveys revealing he continues to be the preferred prime minister of only a quarter of voters.
Which makes Luxon pretty much Chris No-Mates when compared with Helen Clark and Jacinda Ardern, both of whom polled north of 40% during their first year. Or when compared with his political mentor Sir John Key who, despite being a filthy-rich white guy as well, was the preferred PM of more than 50% of New Zealanders during his first year.
Shockingly for Luxon he is even less popular than Labour leader Chris Hipkins was the month before he led his party to last year’s historic and humiliating electoral defeat. Mind you Hipkins has now plunged to 15%, though he’s not yet in David Cunliffe territory.
When it comes to polls, Luxon has claimed “I just don’t care”, and maybe he doesn’t.
However he must have felt the hard kick to his goolies from the latest 1News-Verian poll, which found a massive 51% think he’s “out of touch” with ordinary New Zealanders.
Imagine half of us thinking that? What could have given so many people that idea?
Actually it’s no mystery. Feel free to take your pick from a list that starts with the richest PM since Key claiming an up-to-$52,000-a-year accommodation allowance because he was “entitled” to it (he later agreed to pay it back, but the damage was done), and ends with him making about $500,000 tax-free from the sale of two of his seven mortgage-free properties (another is on the market) before humble bragging to a right-wing radio host that he’s “wealthy” and financially “sorted”.
His lack of likeability is due his unrelatability, which is also partly to do with his apparent inability to speak and behave like a normal human being when in public.
So it’s pretty clear why half of us might think he’s been insulated from the real world through the worst of a cost-of-living crisis. But apparently not to Luxon. Faced with 51% thinking he has no idea how the other half live he immediately threw up his shonky reality distortion field saying he didn’t think the majority view, that he was out of touch, was “necessarily linked” to his wealth. Well, he was the only one.
Luxon’s has also tried to spin his lack of personal popularity as a reaction to him taking “tough” decisions after inheriting a “mess” – which is him blaming Labour again, this time, laughably, for his own unpopularity. You have to admire the chutzpah.
It must be obvious to all but Luxon that his major point of political weakness this year has been that his so-called “tough” calls – which have seen unemployment jump by almost 12% since the election and homelessness increase – haven’t personally touched him, or people like him, other than benefiting them from the $2.9 billion tax break given to landlords and the absence of any capital gains tax on investment property.
This is Luxon’s biggest handicap. His lack of likeability is due his unrelatability, which is also partly to do with his apparent inability to speak and behave like a normal human being when in public.
To those who don’t know him personally or are outside the Wellington bubble, there’s no getting around that much of Luxon’s public persona is either weirdly off base or is transparently performative.
When dealing with questions from the media Luxon typically responds like AI software with a glitch causing it to repeat the same, increasingly meaningless phrases and statements over and over again.
On social media – and the guy produces more posts most weeks than the average person has bowel movements – he often sounds like a desperate used car salesman trying to offload a clunker to save his business.
And when observed interacting with others, particularly foreign dignitaries and leaders, he gives the distinct impression of someone on a first date doing a bad job of acting naturally.
In short, he is what those of us who were school kids in the 1970s and 80s called a “try hard”.
So where does that leave him a year into government? Luxon may have been a successful CEO, at least according to him, but it’s clear that, even with the polls showing the coalition maintains the confidence of roughly the same number of voters that put it into power, Luxon is still a long way away from being a successful politician. Especially when it comes to taking the majority of voters with him as he – altogether now! – gets New Zealand back on track.
And if he doesn’t care about his unmistakeable disconnect with many voters, then there’s only one conclusion that can be reached: he really is as out of touch as that 1News poll says he is.
Political Quiz of the Week
Why is Act leader David Seymour (right) wearing shades and a madman’s grin outside a room packed with cannabis plants?
A/ He’s breaking bad.
B/ Bro’s hot for Mary Jane.
C/ Reefer madness.
D/ Cos Act’s latest polling is, like, so high, man.
