OPINION: Hear ye. Hear ye. All rise for Judge Luxon. The Court of Bang ‘Em Up For Life is now in session.
When it comes to election-year tough-on-crime policies, the Nats are repeat offenders. It’s a bit boring.
This would have added a bit of zing: at the annual National Party conference last week, Opposition Leader Christopher Luxon announced he was appointing himself as a High Court judge and would bring back hanging. No, of course he didn’t. Nothing as exciting as that ever happens at party conferences.
He did announce that under his government judges would be prevented from dishing out discretionary discounts of more than 40% on criminal sentences. The Nats would also restrict the use of “cultural reports”, which take into account the cultural context for a crime, and which can also result in reduced time. Those Nats are tough guys. But while they want to look tough, they don’t want to come across as ogres who keep bad guys chained up in the cellar. So there was a sweetener: rehabilitation would be available to remand prisoners presentencing. As sweeteners go, this amounts to a grain of that awful artificial stuff that people who don’t use sugar stir into their instant coffee.
The Labour Party, of course, said all of this would cost gazillions. And where, by the way, were National’s costings? There weren’t any. So whether all of this would cost gazillions is unknown. But never mind. “We’re gonna make sure we can do everything as fast as we possibly can,” said the self-appointed, tough-talking Judge Luxon. “But it’s very difficult for us to predict all that out. But I’m telling you, we’re gonna take action.” Gotta love those “gonnas”.
Real judges up and down the country will no doubt be pulling their figurative horse-hair wigs out. Because, er, being a judge involves actual judging, which means making actual judgments, with learned discretion, within the current sentencing laws.
But the quote of the conference didn’t come from Judge Luxon, but his deputy, Nicola Willis: “We will stop the despair and start the great repair.” It has the dubious merit of at least rhyming, but the next Wordsworth Willis sure ain’t.
The startling revelation from the conference was that Luxon is a secret romantic. He took his wife on a romantic getaway weekend. Isn’t that sweet? He took her to … the conference. Amanda Luxon gave every appearance of being delighted, which is pretty much the full-time job of a political spouse. She got to spend a whole weekend with her husband “all in one place, even if it’s not at home”. What would you rather do? Spend a weekend at a dreary party conference in Wellington, or a getaway to a luxury lodge? You be the judge.
757 x 2
De plane! De plane! This was the catch cry of tiny Tattoo on the bonkers 1970s telly series Fantasy Island. There was always vast excitement whenever de plane arrived carrying honoured guests to the island. Luckily, de plane wasn’t an NZ Defence Force Boeing 757.
A backup 757 had to accompany the 757 carrying Chris Hipkins and the prime minister’s honoured guests on his first diplomatic visit to Beijing. The backup travelled as far as Manila in case the main plane broke down. It has happened before. In 2022, a Hercules designated to carry then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern back from Antarctica broke down. She had to hitch a ride in an Italian Hercules.
Having to rely on a backup plane when you are about to meet the leader of a super power – the head of our largest trading partner – is not exactly a super look. Not to mention super for our carbon footprint.
Fortunately, Chinese President Xi Jinping has a robust sense of humour so this may have amused him. We know about his sense of humour because another former PM, John Key, who exchanges Christmas cards with Xi, said so. An example, quoted in the NZ Herald: “We had dinner and they served us long-life noodles and you’re not allowed to bite them. You need to suck them because, of course, if you bite them, you’re cutting your life in half,” Key said. “And I remember him pointing out to me that this was very, very important.”
This sounds more like a veiled threat than a joke. Perhaps something was lost in translation.
Hipkins got 40 “warm and incredibly constructive” minutes with the humorous Xi. They had a “relatively free-flowing” dialogue. Interpret that “relatively” however you like. Once they’d said “gidday” and posed for the obligatory official grip-and-grin picture, and once you take time for translations into account, 40 minutes of dialogue amounts to little more than a stop-and-chat.
Still, it beats the hour of “epic haranguing” Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta reportedly endured from the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, aka “a wolf warrior”, according to The Australian newspaper. The other thing the meeting produced was a brilliant photo of the Mahuta and the wolf warrior shaking paws.
They each look as though they suspect the other of having cat sick on their proffered palms. When quizzed by New Zealand journalists about her encounter with the wolf, Mahuta said the pair had simply had a “very robust” discussion. Again, interpret at your leisure.
Missable memoir?
Dame Jacinda is writing a memoir – but not a political tell-all. Instead, her goal, she said on social media, is to “write the kind of book that would have made a difference to my 14-year-old self”. Depending on your tolerance for this sort of thing, you will either applaud this or you’ll find yourself having to swallow that little bit of sick that just rose in the back of your throat.
Your averagely bad 14-year-old self would do well to heed the following advice from your 40-something self: Don’t smoke behind the bike shed. Don’t snog that boy with the spots. Don’t jump out the window at night and go to parties with that boy with the spots.
It’s hard to imagine that Dame Jacinda, at 14, or at any age, did any of those things. Her advice to her 14-year-old self is more likely to be earnestly do-gooderish, to “do” grow up to be the prime minister and a dame, to “do” get a book deal reputed to be worth between $1 million and $1.5 million. Etcetera.
Her memoir will be inspirational and will be bought by people who believe inspiration can be achieved by symbiosis.
But she won’t be dishing any dirt, so she will probably call the memoir Be Kind. How disappointing.
We know she can be snippy. It should be called What I Really Think of David Seymour, and Other Arrogant Pricks. Which one would you rather read?
