Will Labour’s poll plunge save Christopher Luxon after his worst week? – Thomas Coughlan

But his past week has demonstrated just how poor a performer he can be, demonstrating to the National caucus and the country at large that there is no floor to Luxon’s political ineptitude.

The only thing that is going in the Prime Minister’s favour at the moment is the thing that matters most: the polls. He’s kept in place by Labour’s slow and steady decline this year, which has contributed to an ever-so-slight improvement for National.

While the coalition Government is indeed unpopular, it’s not nearly as unpopular as the last Labour Government was in 2023.

The more voters see of this unchanged, unreformed Labour Party this year, the more they seem to be reminded of how much they dislike it. A Taxpayers’ Union-Curia Poll this year that had National at 28.4% sparked a wave of speculation on Luxon’s leadership. That same poll now has Labour at 27.8%, less than a point above the party’s disastrous 2023 election loss.

But does Luxon have the ability to bring this election home?

It was already going to be a challenging one, fought against the backdrop of rising unemployment, rising inflation and hikes to the Official Cash Rate. It takes a special sort of leader to chart a course through those choppy political waters and come out the other side.

Luxon, by contrast, can’t even survive a fireside chat without insulting his own support base; he has no hope of winning over marginal voters furious at the economic decline his Government has failed to arrest.

This has been a shocker of a week – one of the worst of any Prime Minister in recent memory, and made worse by the fact that most of the errors were self-inflicted.

Let’s forget the accidental rule-out of the Opportunity Party last Monday and begin with Luxon’s comments to the Rotorua Business Chamber on Friday in which he urged them to “go out there and smack it and go create the road” among other inane platitudes.

After this predictably garnered attention, the Prime Minister’s Office made the unusual decision to release a transcript of the remarks, believing they would exonerate Luxon by placing his musings in greater context.

This too was an error.

It defies belief that anyone could think the transcript would exonerate Luxon. Quite the opposite. The 500 words of patronising cybernetic drivel condemned him. Intended to encourage firms to “retool” themselves for the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, his remarks when read in full were so heavy on artifice and light on intelligence they succeeded only in convincing the audience that an AI might have replaced their Prime Minister.

That the Prime Minister and the people around him thought the remarks would exonerate Luxon only demonstrates how detached they are from the country they will soon ask to re-elect him.

Things got worse on Wednesday, when news broke that Luxon had taken New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) flights after attending a National Party fundraiser – a fairly clear, inappropriate misstep. He may clearly miss the national carrier, but that’s no excuse for turning the NZDF into National’s carrier. This, on the day the unemployment rate rose to an 11-year high.

He put his foot in it again on Thursday, talking himself into a referendum on MMP if he’s still Prime Minister after the election (which looks increasingly doubtful). This mistake was the clincher, and could be what topples him.

National MPs didn’t even try to hide the fact they had no idea this was coming.

Coupled with the decision to rule out Opportunity, this was the second time Luxon had made a decision of such significance on the hoof – but this sin is greater.

Given that reshaping the election system is of such immense constitutional significance, decisions about it should be thrashed out in caucus rather than on talkback radio.

(Having said that, MMP – in an ironic twist – owes part of its existence to a similar accident, with the referendum on switching electoral systems traceable back to then Prime Minister David Lange accidentally promising one during a debate).

In the backdrop to all of this has been Luxon’s shadow contest with Foreign Minister Winston Peters over remarks, widely interpreted as racist, which Peters made about Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan.

Luxon had no choice but to say the remarks were racist – in my view, they were – but having taken that step, the PM then had to confront what must logically come next.

In a normal situation – in a normal workplace – such obvious racism would be met with a sanction. But Luxon cannot sanction Peters because, as Nicola Willis said almost explicitly, to do so risks bringing down the coalition.

Some in the coalition think this impossible situation shows Luxon was wrong to come out so strongly against the remarks; you cannot label remarks from one of your own ministers racist and then do nothing about them. Better then to fudge it, say they were “ill advised” or “not something I’d say” and park the issue in the political grey zone until the herd moves on.

That’s not right either. Not calling the remarks racist would have traded one problem for another – day upon day of Luxon having to deny something was racist when most people, including National MPs, think it was.

Luxon had little choice. If a political storm is inevitable, he might as well weather it from the moral high ground.

This scandal clearly fanned his unhappiness with MMP. Luxon clearly wants a system in which he can treat all ministers as if they were in his own party, perhaps a system in which all ministers were actually from his own party to begin with.

But it isn’t axiomatic that this two-tier accountability is the natural consequence of MMP. As the system beds in and some parties rise and others fall, it’s possible that we develop a precedent whereby the Prime Minister is able to expose ministers from coalition partners to the same levels of accountability as those from his or her own.

It may be the case that universal standards of accountability across the ministry are challenging as long as we have both MMP and Winston Peters. But Peters isn’t the only problem. MMP requires leaders to have the strength and guile to navigate politics between Government and opposition – but also within the coalition.

Luxon clearly lacks this talent. He may think MMP is incompatible with the stability New Zealanders crave. It might actually be the case that his style of leadership, which prioritises visible displays of strength, is incompatible with the tact and guile MMP requires.

Consider his rule-out of Opportunity. This may have made Luxon look strong, but it boxes him in with his current coalition partners, weakening his hand when he negotiates with them. Helen Clark and Sir John Key kept their options open, building broad, flexible governing arrangements to their left and right.

True strength in MMP comes from being able to exert control, and control comes from having options. But what hope can a man who cannot exert control over the few inches between his brain and his mouth have of exerting control over the coalition?

His accidental announcement of an MMP referendum proves this.

Having made his MMP commitment, Luxon is now forced to campaign on it. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject he risks further enraging his coalition partners, prompting a cycle of outrage that will distract from National’s core campaign themes, which are already under threat because the economy, three years after the last election, is manifestly not “back on track”.

If you want a glimpse of just how disastrous that will be, look no further than this week.

Labour dispatched the coalition’s most pro-growth, pro-business policy, Investment Boost (clearly intending to direct $5 billion from the scheme to measures like Pay Equity as any Labour party worthy of the name should do). National had been readying itself for months with a bevy of blistering press releases and ads attacking the move as a threat to the country’s economy.

However savage these attacks might have been, they were drowned out by the blood-curdling sound of a Prime Minister devouring his own foot on Newstalk ZB.

There are three months until the election. The regulated campaign period began yesterday. Luxon simply cannot afford to waste the remaining weeks like he has wasted this one. In fact, there’s a good chance he won’t get the opportunity.

The Government feels consumed by chaos, with headlines that read like those of a third- rather than a first-term Government, as my colleague Audrey Young wrote this week. The chaos has engulfed everything to the point that Act had to put out a press release reminding voters of its recent pivot to prioritise consensus and quiet delivery. Stability has become its own policy.

However depressing and chaotic things look on television or read in the newspaper, they’re worse in real life. The atmosphere at Parliament is febrile, the mood is terrible.

It’s not for nothing that some describe themselves as being in the trenches; the MPs put on a brave face, counting down the days until they go over the top on November 7, bravely willing themselves into believing they won’t meet the fate they know is coming and holding to the misguided belief that their leader may one day place common humanity above ambition.

Each week as National MPs file into their caucus room, it becomes clearer and clearer how many of their colleagues won’t be coming back next year. Most are poorly reflected by their leader. They share most MPs’ fondness for community and ambition for the country; what binds them to the National Party is a belief that this is best achieved through free enterprise.

There’s only so long a leader can survive in an atmosphere like that. Yes, Labour is plunging in the polls, but Opportunity’s rise means the coalition is only just clinging to power.

Change is afoot. Nobody believes Chris Bishop’s ambitions were put to bed by Luxon’s successful confidence vote this year. Education Minister Erica Stanford, who ultimately decided to stick with Luxon in April, is said to have come around in favour of change – with herself at the top of the ticket.

As usual, everyone is denying they’re on manoeuvres; as usual, nobody believes them.

Luxon cannot outrun this forever. The “adult, adult, adult” thing to do might be to go, go, go.