Comment: National launches its election campaign with Vegas-like hype but no new policy - instead delivering a personally guaranteed policy pledge card from its leader. Tim Murphy reports.
Dad went to Las Vegas for Father's Day and all we got was a postcard.
Well, 'Dad' in this case was Christopher Luxon and Vegas was the hype-machine of the National Party campaign launch event at Manukau. But the postcard was indeed all we got.
National kicked off its bid for power one day after the Labour Party with an entertainment extravaganza, a kaleidoscope of ethnic dance and drums, a boxing world title fight's buildup and Vegas-level announcer hyperbole before Luxon took the stage.
It is not easy to outperform Labour on music and the arts, or on ethnic groups' performances at these kinds of events. Labour had a Gospel choir, drums and a powerful waiata and welcome at the Aotea Centre on Saturday. National saw all that and raised it with a high energy concert from Māori, Chinese, Indian, Tongan, Samoan and Filipino groups, before a soaring karanga ahead of Luxon's entry.
Oddly, both parties struggled to fill their chosen venues. Labour filled out the stalls and some of the Circle at the Aotea, but many red seats were empty on that level and the nosebleed level above was vacant. National chose the Due Drop Events Centre (a politically dubious omen for polling) at Wiri and filled the floor seating, most of both sides but the higher areas, behind the speakers and the end faced by Luxon and the performers showed a sweep of empty blue seating.
Luxon's entry on Sunday came after his two children, Olivia and William, introduced him on stage as a great dad, who would make time for them when he was home, and who would make a great Prime Minister.
Then each of his candidates was announced individually and, showing on the big screen, made their way forward to form a guard of honour for the leader. The warmest crowd response to the MPs' entries was for Mark Mitchell, Erica Stanford and, of course, deputy leader Nicola Willis. By the alphabetical tail end of things, the crowd's effusiveness strangely ebbed for Tauranga's Sam Uffindell, Waikato's Tim Van der Molen and Dunedin-based Michael Woodhouse.
Luxon appeared on a video, one of two smartly produced campaign segments played at the event, complete with an attempt at a Jackie Chan-style humorous bloopers reel.
He delivered his messages walking along much the same few metres of Queen St about five times. National even indulged itself with one of its TikTok techniques, showing sand falling through an egg-timer as Luxon declared it was time for Kiwis to make their choice.
The launch event announcer outdid himself in holding the letter 's' in Luxon's first name for an eternity, then a high tempo pop song '[That] Day is Gonna Come' by Royal Deluxe shook the place. Luxon negotiated the MPs' guard of honour, embracing some, swivelling to acknowledge others before heading to the stage.
Before he could ascend, a Pasifika member placed a red shell necklace around his neck. Luxon handed that sensitive-coloured adornment quietly to a party staffer stage-side and then strode out into his first election campaign.
His speech was delivered with practised polish, repeatedly drawing on the crowd to finish National's campaign slogan, by starting with "Let's Get New Zealand..." pausing, and then asking "What?".
"Back. On. Track," came the chants. Five times.
He also introduced another line, borrowed by National from the mists of time and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters.
Luxon relayed conversations he had had with a young couple looking to buy a house, a struggling farmer, a dairy owner, and shoppers at supermarkets. After each 'real' anecdote he intoned: "Hang on, help is coming. You will be better off under a National government."
The memory of Peters and his Little River Band line of 'Hang on, help is on its way' was swept aside as Luxon repeated his own version four times.
His speech attempted inspiration. "A National government I lead is going to restore the fundamental promise of what it means to be a New Zealander ... to work hard and get ahead."
People were "worried that everything feels broken but I'm telling you there's nothing that cannot be fixed. New Zealanders and New Zealand are not broken. We just need a good government."
Then to the main course of this speech, the final round of this much-hyped bout.
It wasn't a policy announcement. The suspicion remains that National's big reveal of tax threshold changes and new taxes last week had been brought forward from the intended release at Sunday's launch event to snooker Labour ahead of its own launch.
Luxon instead revealed an eight-point election pledge card, starting with the tantalising words "I personally guarantee...."
The card was not from the famous genre of Tony Blair's New Labour in 1997, mimicked by Helen Clark's Labour in 1999, of a credit-card size and minimum, easily recitable number of points and words.
Luxon's card is a postcard sized card containing eight sentences, fully 212 words (plus 14 of small print and his signature). It's a brochure masquerading as a pledge card.
When he went through the points, the 'restore law and order' got the biggest cheer, followed by funding cancer drugs under the health waiting times point.
The final point, number eight, to Deliver Net Zero by 2050, seemed, because of its ranking, to be either a late thought or something needed to fill up the postcard. It got virtually no claps at all until Luxon went onto explain National would give farmers the tools and technology to reduce emissions. The 2050 target is not ambitious. It's what the former National government signed up to in the Paris agreement all those years ago.
Luxon vowed: "It's a simple eight-point manifesto that's going to be the bedrock commitments of a government that I lead.
"We will get New Zealand.... what?"
"Back. On. Track" came the reply.
Luxon later denied the pledge card concept was "old-fashioned" as one questioner put it. "I think it's really important. New Zealanders are confused about what we are trying to do in government. I want New Zealanders to understand the priorities. It will focus everybody.
"I'm very proud of what we've [announced] and wanted to pull it all together, to give it some structure."
He used the final parts of his speech to warn National members that "power doesn't concede easily" and that the next 41 days of the campaign "will be incredibly challenging ... up against a campaign of fear."
"National can take 41 days of attacks but the country can't take three more years of the same failed policies.
"We are going to block out the noise, taking nothing for granted. We are going to fight this election like New Zealand's future depends on it."
With one more exhortation for "Back. On. Track," he was off, family by his side, to be engulfed in the spotlight and the praise of his MPs, party board and members.
Way down the other end of the stage, the last leader to launch this party's campaign for power, in 2020, stood in the second row of official seats, on the far edge except for the Tauranga MP Sam Uffindell. Judith Collins knows better than most what Luxon faces these next seven weeks. This time, she was able to clap along to his exit song, apparently carefree.
