Barry Soper: 'Loose lipped apprentice PM' - Fallout from Luxon's 'C-listers' clanger

The Prime Minister’s trade mission to Japan’s been pretty successful but who would have noticed?

Most of the business signed there, like the Rocket Lab agreement to send Japanese satellites into space, is a great yarn.

But the trip will be remembered for anything but the business foray to our fourth most important export market.

It’ll be remembered for a broken down RNZAF jet in Papua New Guinea, and the rescue of the mission by the Air New Zealand boss, who happened to be on the trip with his chairwoman, by diverting a plane out of Auckland to pick them up in Brisbane.

It’ll also be remembered by the airline’s passengers on what they thought was a direct flight to Tokyo. They didn’t seem to be placated by airline CEO Greg Foran and chair Dame Therese Walsh genuflecting up and down the aisle, serving coffee, saying they were sorry.

And the trip will also be remembered for Christopher Luxon’s comment that trade missions under Labour were made up of “C-listers”, while his sometime passengers on this mission were the creme-de-la-creme of the country’s boardrooms.

What Luxon said was true, the few trade missions Labour did while in office were usually short on numbers, which likely had a lot to do with the then Government’s ability to connect, let alone travel, with the business community.

There were many times, having been on most trade missions over the years, that you had to look askance as to why some of these people were on board. The answer was obvious, it was an opportunity to have the ear of the country’s top politician, although some Prime Ministers were more willing to engage on board with them than others.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon meets with Japanese buyers and New Zealand producers at a Costco supermarket in Tokyo.

The issue here is, should Luxon have said what he did about earlier missions? The answer is emphatically no, to do so is to insult the many legitimate businesses who have travelled.

Luxon came across as a loose-lipped apprentice Prime Minister which he effectively is. He now says he could have expressed it in a better way which is something of an understatement.

Luxon says he puts an enormous effort into making sure he’s got the business and media delegation right on these trips.

Even though the media have never been turned down to be part of a delegation, at times you would have to wonder.

A good part of his penultimate press conference in Japan was taken up with a complaint from a reporter about the media not being allowed to ask questions of the Chinese Premier when he was here last week.

Ask away I say, regardless of officialdom’s dictates. But that in itself can have problems.

Joe Biden visited here in 2016 as Barack Obama’s 2IC. No questions were allowed, but before the press conference ended I fired one off. The then Vice President left the podium, came down, cupped his ear to me, and politely said: “I didn’t quite catch that.”

My microphone was still on the podium.

Oh, and a politician has refused my participation on a trip, a visit to North Korea by our Foreign Minister of the day in a Labour Government, Winston Peters.

And on the Prime Minister having a reliable plane to travel to our export markets, there’s a very old saying, you have to spend money to make money.

The bloke who first said it though, Titus Plautus, was a failed businessman.

Barry Soper is a New Zealand political journalist, and has been featured regularly on radio and television since the 1970s. Currently, Soper's main role is political editor at Newstalk ZB, a radio network in New Zealand.