He did it in a sit down interview where he was asked about being seen as out of touch, and he was saying he was because he talks to people all the time. He said -“It’s been a belief system of mine, talk to the customer, to the public, to the people and the voters."
At which point the interviewer basically told him to ditch the corporate speak.
I don’t have a problem with this, do you? This is not a big deal.
When I was at university studying postgrad politics, we often referred to voters as stakeholders. As in stakeholders in the Government of the day. That's a corporate term, that's not unusual.
It's also not unusual to see voters in a transactional relationship with a political party. If anything, it's actually not a bad thing for politicians to see us as customers - customers who will only come back for more from a political party if we get what we want.
Policies that we like, promises that are delivered and not broken, and so on.
What's the problem for a voter in that? You vote for a party, you get what you want. That is arguably the opposite of what the last Labour Government was doing pretty much the entire time on, for example, crime.
We kept saying, as customers - we don’t like what we’re getting, can you go harder on the gangs?
And they kept responding with - you’re imagining it, you're wrong, we're going hard on the gangs.
They might have had a better showing at the last election if they remembered the mantra- the customer’s always right. And many ‘customers’ didn’t come back for more.
Also, Luxon needs to stop apologising for the corporate speak.
Bringing a corporate approach is part of some of the best stuff that he’s done - and doing. His quarterly targets for the Government, managing the various parts of the coalition, trying to get efficiencies out of the public service...he's a manager, he just needs to lean into it.
Yes, sometimes you want less transaction and more principle in politics, but ultimately - Luxon's onto something.
He's a guy selling us a product and his product is the National Party. We are the customers and we want what we want out of the National Party. Being seen as customers is not a bad thing.
Heather du Plessis-Allan is a journalist and commentator who hosts Newstalk ZB's Drive show HERE - where this article was sourced.
3 comments:
I assume this refers to the Guyon Espiner interview. Luxon wasn't saying that voters are customers. He was referring to the importance of talking to people and saying that applies to customers, the public and voters. That is correct. In some contexts voters need to be treated and respected like customers rather than what the previous government did, who just talked to people who agreed with them like gangs and climate alarmists, then relied on spin doctors, propaganda and a woke media.
I rather being called a customer than "comrade", a "pale, stale male" or worse "tangata Tiriti" as the opposition parties refer to me. Maybe they should learn some lessons from business.
You have got it in ONE, Anon.
Unfortunately, Luxon is going to be hounded, criticized and pilloried by the Left Wing media.
This is the same media that gave Comrade Ardern and her disastrous regime a very easy ride.
If Mr Luxon had done time in the Army he would know the motto, ‘never explain, never complain.’
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