Who is who? What has happened to our Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Leader of the Opposition Chris Hipkins. Who is Prime Minister Christopher Luxon trying to be? And likewise with his opposite number across the house, who is Labour leader Chris Hipkins trying to be?
Right now Mr Luxon might be more useful to Labour than Mr Hipkins.
The lacklustre Leader of the Opposition
Mr Hipkins, for all that I can tell, is determined to lose the election. His resistance thus far to anything that does not back the political status quo has been steadfast. Same as the unflattering poll numbers that Mr Luxon has consistently faced. I have seen absolutely nothing in the last three years to suggest that Mr Hipkins has any new ideas or how to come up with them. Nor have I seen any effort to get rid of the non-performing spokespeople he has. They will be Ministers of the Crown if Labour forms a Government.
And this is scary. It parallels very nicely with an Australian Leader of the Opposition when former Prime Minister Scott Morrison was in office. Mr Morrison was performing appallingly. Mr had consistently better polling numbers by 2-4% and on occasion even 5%. The Australian Sky News are generally champions of the Liberal and Australian Nationals parties. It was beginning to accept that Labor had the jump on Mr Morrison’s Liberal Party. Then came the 2016 General Election and Labor were soundly roasted. Mr Morrison’s party would go on to govern Australia for another 6 years until disgust over corruption. The consequences of his appalling leadership during the 2019-2020 bushfire emergency caught up with him in 2022.
The looming disaster
New Zealand cannot afford another 3 years of the current Government. We cannot afford the violent assault on the public service that has turned Wellington into a ghost town. A government that ignores evidence and appeases the Atlas Network can never be good. The consequences for our health, education, social welfare and overall socio-economic performance if National-A.C.T.-New Zealand First are returned to office, are potentially huge. Any credibility New Zealand still has for being environmentally responsible is well and truly shot. The repeal of the Resource Management Act, and the Regional Councils that implement its environmental functions complete a grim picture.
One might that Labour, following its 2023 disaster would have had a bit of introspection. It turns out that they did. I know people who say that is why they were initially silent. Not trying to wave off the criticism, but instead a period of internal contemplation where they took it all on board. But that is where they seem to have stopped. After reviewing their failure, I thought that the party of Michael Savage and Peter Fraser might have very deliberately started a systemic overhaul of their caucus, their policies and outlook. Nope.
The out of touch Prime Minister
It is not that I think Mr Luxon is any better. On the contrary as Prime Minister, a man commonly called “Mr 7 Houses”, “Cluxon” and other things on Twitter, is as out of touch. More concerningly, Mr Luxon appears to have no idea how or why he became so unpopular. None of the scandals, incompetent Ministers – Penny Simmonds exempt – seem to have aroused any level of concern about his Cabinet.
More concerningly, no one has been able to communicate to him the damage his “Get N.Z. back on track (at all costs)” is doing to the party – possibly more so than anything that the Opposition have been able to achieve. Former Minister of Defence, Chris Penk saw the writing on the wall. He thought he had the numbers to depose Mr Luxon. The opposite happened. Mr Penk lost all his portfolios and chose to retire from politics.
The harm that they are doing is also to New Zealand. The stubborn obduracy of Minister of Social Development Louise Upston in refusing to resign – and Mr Luxon in refusing to fire her – is just one example of a Cabinet that is scarily out of touch with reality. Health Minister Simeon Brown bullying the health sector with a crackdown over the last two years that only saw 54 – not a typo! – new nurses hired. Hundreds of nursing jobs are listed as vacant, but Mr Brown has very deliberately put a hiring freeze on Health New Zealand.
Neither of them have an answer to the rise of the Opportunity Party, now at 9.5% on the latest Roy Morgan poll. If accurate, that would have been given Qiulae Wong and 10 other candidates seats in Parliament. As New Zealand First appears to be falling in the polls once more, dare we ask a question:
Is the end of the old order in New Zealand politics coming?
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