Comment: Christopher Luxon has never seemed like someone who readily admits to making a mistake.
The Prime Minister tends to blame “media beat-ups” when pressed on his various flubs, only rarely conceding to misspeaking (as when he couldn’t rule out support for a US-led carpet bombing campaign against Iran).
That makes Luxon’s apology, after he accused Kiwi businesses of having a “parent-child mentality” and being too negative about the current economic climate, all the more telling of the damage done by those remarks.
The National leader had initially sought to brush the controversy aside: his office suggested his remarks had been “mischaracterised”, while Luxon himself showed no signs of repenting in his Monday morning media interviews.
But by the time his post-Cabinet press conference rolled around, he clearly felt that he could not brush the matter aside.
“I know many small business owners are doing it tough right now. They’re working long hours, they’re managing financial pressures, looking after their staff, and doing everything they can to grow their businesses,” Luxon said, buttressed by Finance Minister Nicola Willis.
“I am sorry if my comments did not properly acknowledge the challenges that many small business owners are facing, and that I got that wrong.”
Read the full transcript, and it’s hard not to cringe at some of the Prime Minister’s trademark Luxonisms; “You go out there and smack it and go create the road,” he declared (exactly what was smacked, he did not say) while talking of “building a kick-ass company that actually has commercially superior returns”.
But far more damaging was the implication that businesses battling through waves of geopolitical disruption and rising inflation were acting like babies, and should not be looking to the Government for support.
With National falling behind Labour as trusted economic managers in the eyes of the public, and having trailed on the cost of living for over a year, the party can ill-afford to be seen as unbothered about the travails of the country’s SMEs.
The remarks also do further damage to Luxon’s brand, feeding into the critique that he is living in a bubble and out of touch with ordinary Kiwis doing it tough. “This is why he never answers a question – because when he finally does, he says what he thinks, and nobody likes what he says,” Labour MP Kieran McAnulty declared.
The Prime Minister’s apology may have been enough to head off any immediate revival of leadership rumblings, although it will hardly inspire confidence among his caucus about how their leader will perform on the campaign trail in the months ahead.
There is still the lingering issue, however, of managing coalition relations between now and November 7 – particularly with New Zealand First and Winston Peters.
Despite saying that Peters’ verbal attack on Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan was racist, Luxon has shown no signs of taking further action and appeared uninterested in saying more when asked on Monday: “Look, I mean, I’ve sort of addressed that over the weekend. I don’t have anything more to say about that.”
He did eventually admit to having a conversation with Peters, albeit without divulging what was said, and reverted to party politics when asked whether he would sack him as foreign minister, or work with him again in the portfolio next term.
“The point very clearly is that we are 90 days out from an election, and if people feel that that language is unacceptable and they don’t like it, as I keep saying, party vote National.”
Yet Luxon’s dreams of having 20 National ministers around the Cabinet table are clearly a fantasy. If he does manage to secure a second term in office, it will likely be with a smaller presence within government, giving Peters and Act leader David Seymour even more leverage.
That makes it easier for Labour to counter any ‘coalition of chaos’ barbs thrown its way by National, and makes it harder for Luxon to present his party as the more stable choice.
It isn’t hard to imagine Xu-Nan and his fellow Green MPs throwing some more heckles in Peters’ direction in the House, either, and if the New Zealand First leader again responds in an offensive manner, there would be even more pressure for a meaningful response.
With just under two months until Parliament rises for the election, the Prime Minister will be counting down the days until he gets some extra breathing room from his coalition colleagues.
