Christopher Luxon will not want his government to be defined by failures like Kiwibuild or Auckland light rail, the way Labour was
Opinion: Within the next week Christopher Luxon is expected to announce the shape and form of the new National-led government. At the same time, though, there remains an outside chance that, once the special votes are counted, Labour could yet cobble something together, if the numbers are there. However, that would require major volte-faces on the part of Labour and New Zealand First, who have consistently ruled out working with each other, and then the formation of an unlikely, potentially inherently unstable, governing arrangement with the Greens and Te Pāti Māori.
So, the odds remain overwhelmingly on a Luxon-led government being sworn in next week. The only remaining questions are what roles Act and New Zealand First will play within it. But when the new government does take office, its immediate challenges will not come from any of the parties sitting on the other side of the House. Rather, Luxon will face challenges of expectation and time.
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In that respect, he will be acutely mindful of the fate of the outgoing Labour government, widely regarded as long on promises, but very short on delivery, which paid the electoral price accordingly. Luxon will be determined his government will not be defined by failures like Kiwibuild or Auckland light rail, the way Labour was.
In early October, Luxon announced the steps an incoming National-led government would undertake in its first 100 days. These include “delivering tax relief, restoring law and order, and delivering better health, education, housing and infrastructure”. Luxon also promised in its first 100 days National would “cancel Labour’s planned fuel tax hikes, repeal the Ute Tax, stop work on the Jobs Tax, instruct public sector Chief Executives to start identifying back-office savings and report their spending on consultants, ban cellphones in schools, (and) require primary and intermediate schools to prepare to teach an hour a day each of reading, writing and maths”.
What was then a list of election promises has now become a set of expectations against which Luxon’s government’s performance and credibility will be judged. The public’s reaction to Labour’s failed promises shows there is little tolerance for failure to deliver. Therefore, the immediate pressure on the incoming government is not just to deliver on the promises it has made, challenging enough of itself given the breadth of those commitments, but more importantly, to show it can work constructively with the public service to bring the policies to life, something Labour was never able to manage. A complicating factor may be the policy concessions likely to have been made to Act and New Zealand First during government formation negotiations.
The Governor-General’s speech at the State Opening of Parliament in a few weeks will be an important scene-setter. In fact, this speech is always written by the Prime Minister’s office, and will be expected to set out in detail not just the broad outline of the new government’s programme for the next three years, but also the specific details for implementing the 100 Day Action Plan. It will be an early critical test for Luxon, and observers will be watching closely to see whether it contains any significant watering-down or reduction of the commitments made in October, and any reasons for that.
Following that speech, attention will turn to the work of the new Parliament, especially before the Christmas break. There has already been talk of a mini-Budget, which could be the vehicle by which National implements many of the items in its 100-day plan. Parliament would then move into Urgency to pass the associated legislation before breaking for Christmas. But that would leave no time for select committee consideration of the government’s plans, meaning new ministers and officials will have to be doubly sure they get things right, first time. The last thing the new government would want is having to pass amending legislation early next year to correct any mistakes in the legislation it rushed through without select committee scrutiny before Christmas.
On the brave assumption that the implementation of the 100 Days Action Plan proceeds without a hitch, the focus will then shift to the timing of the government’s plans for the remainder of its three-year term. The 2024 Budget will be critical in this regard. It will be the mechanism by which National’s spending plans across government are set out fully for the first time, and will mark the final transition from Labour’s period of government.
The 2024 Budget will also set the scene for National’s plans for the balance of its term. However, there will be little over two years from then until the start of the three-month period of restraint (the time before an election when governments by convention neither introduce new policies nor make significant appointments) before a presumed October 2026 election. The government would therefore want to have all its major policies in place by that time, to allow a clear run to the election.
Typically, a bill can take up to nine months to wend its way through the Parliamentary process. That includes time spent being considered by a select committee and managing competing pressures for debating space on the House timetable. New ministers will need to be cognisant of that reality and to plan accordingly if they are to get their major policy commitments in place before the next election. The last thing any minister would want is to leave major policy initiatives uncompleted by the time the period of restraint begins, running the risk they could be overturned or picked up and claimed as their own work by an incoming minister from a different government.
Luxon has made much of his managerial experience. He scored heavily during the election campaign with his criticism of Labour’s ineptitude in this regard. However, in doing so he has also made a heavy rod for his own back. Failure to deliver on key promises, or to manage his government effectively, will consequently bite him heavily in 2026.
