Praise and protest, big day of contrasts for Chris Luxon

Monday, 19 February 2024

Tova O’Brien is Stuff’s Chief Political Correspondent and host of the political podcast, Tova.

ANALYSIS: What a difference a change of scene and a quick change of outfit can make.

Over the course of just a few hours on Sunday the Prime Minister received a standing ovation, applause, cheers and chants from supporters quickly followed by boos, jeers, chanting of “wanker”, “shame, shame, shame” and “genocide” as Police called in backup to herald him through protesters.

Christopher Luxon’s morning was spent in a sharp suit delivering his state of nation speech to adoring true blue National Party supporters.

Fast-forward to the afternoon and a more casual baby blue polo look, Luxon met a small handful of people in the crowd at the Big Gay Out and took a few selfies before being surrounded and shouted out by dozens of protesters calling for more action on Gaza and trans rights.

His visit was cut short but Luxon told Stuff he still plans to attend the annual rainbow community event next year.

The constitution of our prime minister perhaps less fragile than that of the country.

“The state of the nation is fragile” was the key takeaway from the PM’s big speech and it’s hard to argue with.

The cost of living is crippling families, our health system is in crisis, so too housing and the state of education is dire.

Where you believe the blame lies will depend on your perspective and probably your politics but the dyed in the wool national party faithful present at the PM’s speech lapped up the liability Luxon was laying at Labour’s feet.

To rapturous applause and chants of “back on track!”, Luxon's “straight up” chat was a hit.

“ Not everyone will like it, but I think Kiwis need a Prime Minister that levels with them, and is straight up about the state of the nation and where we’re at,” the PM told the crowd.

And that we do but given it is so fragile - our delicate inflation nation - there’s probably less need for overdramatisation.

The shock and awe moment of Luxon’s speech was when he re-announced funding shortfalls for transport projects inherited from Labour added up to more than $200 billion.

Re-announced because Finance Minister Nicola Willis referred to it in her mini-budget late last year but it didn’t receive the appropriate level of shock and awe so National was “bringing new emphasis to it today,” Willis said.

“They were $200 billion short. If you saved $20,000 every hour, day and night, seven days a week, it would take you over 1,000 years to save that $200 billion,” Luxon said in his speech.

The problem with this very big dramatic figure hanging over our very fragile little nation is that that’s often how transport funding works.

Questioned about some of the transport projects that his own government has promised and not yet funded, the Prime Minister made the point: “We are going to look at different ways of funding and financing in terms of public money, private money, how we actually make that come together and work,” i.e. they too are not yet bankrolled.

In defence of his record, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins called the PM’s speech “a bunch of slogans and management mumbo jumbo joined together,” and said the funding shortfall allegations were absolute nonsense:

“It's simply not true, there are certainly some things where we hadn't figured out how we were going to fund them long-term like Auckland light rail, for example, and that can be funded through a variety of different ways.. As the current government are proposing.”

Asked if he agrees that the state of the nation is fragile, Hipkins told Stuff, “I believe that the current government are doing everything that they can to make the country more fragile, to make New Zealand a more divided place.”

Unsurprisingly the Green Party shared the sentiment and also pointed out that the Prime Minister failed to mention climate change, the Treaty of Waitangi or poverty in his state of the nation speech.

Also absent was any mention of his coalition partners - ACT and NZ First - unusual perhaps given their prominence and necessity for Luxon.

Instead the Prime Minister hit all the big issue targets - education, health, cost of living and stuck the boot into beneficiaries, “we’ll do everything we can to help people into work, but if they don’t play ball the free ride is over.”

While most of the speech focused on bashing Labour’s record, the Prime Minister also came prepared with a listicle of 22 things the government has delivered in its first 81 days because he’s “obsessed with getting stuff done. Fast.”

Of the 22 things, 15 were Labour policies or projects that the government was repealing, cancelling or reviewing.

The short list of things that the government was doing rather than undoing including banning cell phones in schools, deploying security personnel in hospital EDs, “first steps” to raising the breast cancer screening age and “progressed work” on a third medical school.

Asked if repealing and cancelling would be what he stood for this term, the Prime Minister was unrepentant for knocking off “dumb and stupid and expensive things like Three Waters.. I make no apologies. We are doing what we said we would do.”

As for why there was no new policy announcement, as is common in these big set piece speeches, the PM said they don’t need to because they have a 100 day plan.

81 days down, 19 to go and one fragile nation waiting to see if this government will make a difference.