𝕃𝕦𝕩𝕠𝕟 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕡𝕝𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕝𝕪 𝕠𝕦𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕕𝕖𝕡𝕥𝕙

ℂ𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕡𝕙𝕖𝕣 𝕃𝕦𝕩𝕠𝕟 𝕚𝕤 𝕡𝕣𝕠𝕧𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝕓𝕖 𝕒 𝕕𝕦𝕕 ℙ𝕄. 𝕆𝕦𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕕𝕖𝕡𝕥𝕙 𝕨𝕙𝕚𝕝𝕖 𝕘𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕒 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕪 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝔸𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕠𝕒 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕦𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕣𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕒𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕟𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕠𝕨𝕟 𝕄𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤

T

he Prime Minister is too arrogant to resign, at least before the election, but those who argued the former corporate bureaucrat lacks the attributes for a successful national leadership have been proven right.

Like Ricky Gervai's David Brent, Christopher Luxon has an unfounded sense of his own personal charm, while also running down his Colleagues behind their backs. 

His lack of understanding of the national party means he fails to realise that everything he says about another MP soon gets back to them.

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However, Luxons lack of understand of New Zealand, partly but not solely because he lived abroad from 1995 to 2011, is more serious.

When he left, the economy was was booming under Prime Minister Jim Bolger, there was a structural surplus and corporate welfare had been tamed.

Right wing commentator Matthew Hooton finds it difficult believing Luxon could be a competent as PM. file: 𝕵𝖔𝖍𝖓𝖓𝖞 ᴴᴰ

After the fall of the Berlin Wall but before 9/11, our international relations were less complicated, despite the anti-nuclear policy. A free-trade agreement (FTA) with China was unimaginable, and something like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) nearly so

Back home, just one win had completed a Treaty of Waitangi settlement and the first MMP election hadn't happened, nor the lessons of coalition management. When Luxon returned, national was back in government, under Prime Minister John Key, supported by ACT, United Future and the Maori party.

Brutal! Apart from the swipe at Dame Jacinda I find myself surprisingly in total agreement with Hooten https://t.co/nB6RNy45dE

— Pippa MacKay (@PippaMacKay1) November 21, 2024

Despite Key resuming borrowing, debt was still low after the Bolger-Shipley and Clark governments had paid it all back. After 20 years of turmoil, health was out of the headlines. On the downside, corporate welfare had been reestablished byelen Clark's government and worsened by Key's.

China had become our most important market after the FTA, and TPP was under negotiation including with the United States.

In parallel, Winston Peters had begun restoring the defence relationship with the US, having forged and excellent relationship with George W. Bush's Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Luxon is continually avoiding his responsibilities as PM. file: 𝕵𝖔𝖍𝖓𝖓𝖞 ᴴᴰ

While away, Luxon also missed the racial division sowed by Clark's mishandling of the Seabed and Foreshore and Don Brash's 'Orewa speach'- and the healing that followed. When Luxon returned, more than 40 Treaty settlements had been completed and nearly 20 were in the pipeline, helping make Maori major players in the economy.

The principles of the Treaty, which had been clearly defined by the Court of Appeal and Privy Council a quarter-century earlier, were deeply embodied in the law and practice.

The was a rough bipartisan concensus over the country's policy on climate change.

Across all these policy areas, Luxon seems to have no appreciation of how difficult progress had been nor how fragile, especially for a small, isolated agrarian economy.

That may not have mattered, except Luxon appeared to demonstrate little if any curiosity about the country he wanted to lead. The casual observer might conclude that he considered that if he didn't already know something, it wasn't worth bothering with

Luxons record at Air New Zealand was mixed. He failed to forge a strong network even in the Auckland business community, let alone more broadly.

Bereft of a deep understanding of the New Zealand economy and it's recent development, Luxon had nothing to offer bu some modest yet unaffordable tax cuts and a belief his mere election might motivate an economic boom.

After a year in office, it would be OK to still be blaming the previous government for most of the nations economic ills, were Luxon able to articulate a plan to address them.

But as Professor Robert MacCulloch, the University of Auckland's right-wing chair of macroeconomics explained in the Herald on Thursday, there is none.

Tinkering around the edges won't do anything to address New Zealand's productivity and growth crises.

Luxons language is often derided as business-speek, but no genuine businessperson uses so much corporate twaddle.

His language more resembles a cheap self-help book.

Extraordinarily, he communicates even less substantively in the media and in person than the lamentable Dame Jacinda Ardern

Worse, if Luxon genuinely believes New Zealand's long-term fiscal and health crises can be resolved through much needed cost-cutting in Wellington alone, then he is as innumerate as he seems illiterate.

Arguably, Clark and Key had the knowledge, intelligence and personal attributes to chart and middle path between China and the US, but Luxon shows no sign of it

Neither Xi Jinping nore Donald Trump is likely to be remotely influenced by a clutch of the shoulder, a Luxon grin and trite sloganeering, except negatively.

Yet the Treaty of Waitangi and race relations are the areas where Luxon's lack of history, understanding and foresight threaten the greatest harm. Luxon ca't say he wasn't warned including by every living National party Prime Minister and more broadly, that his handling of ACT's Treaty Principles Bill was wrong-headed and could benefit only ACT and Te Pati Maori, while severely damaging both New Zealand's social cohesion and Nationals electoral interests.

As party leader, he had two options when dealing with ACT: to accept their policy or reject it. If he wanted be an effective Prime Minister, he had only the latter.

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ACT insists it did not declare the bill a bottom line in coalition negotiations, but only an importamt priority. If so, it isnt true Luxon had to accept the compromise.

Nevertheless, despite claiming without evidence to have extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions, Luxon opted for the worst possible option, enraging Maori while bitterly dividing his own party.

Belatedly, he has settled on the obvious point that it is not the role of a single Parliament to redefine the meaning of the Treaty of Waitangi after 184 years of debate, but that is no more than was advised at the outset, had he listened to his own advisors and senior MP's.

Despite his delayed realisation, Luxon has proven too personally and politically weak to exercise his authority as Prime Minister to decide that killing the bill before introduction was in the best interests of country and party.

As in the country at large, he is now rightly regarded as impotent by both National's liberals and conservatives, and as an easy-beat in negotiations by his coalition partners.

Luxon's leadership of country and party will stumble on while achieving little and meaning less. He will remain Prime Minister only because he lacks the self-awareness to know it would be better for New Zealand and his own reputation to accept he is completely out of his depth.

In the meantime, he could at least appreciate his cabinet ministers are not some kind of Ilford Second XI captained by Sir Donald Bradman, but that at least half of them would be doing his job much better than he is.

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