All because of what the two of them did before they got into politics.
And the fact that Luxon isn’t another John Key is why we’ve got two new political polls telling us that, if an election was held now, the left-wing parties would have enough votes and enough seats to form a government.
Because his political leadership is invisible. Particularly, in relation to his handling of ACT leader David Seymour.
Seymour is running rings around the Prime Minister and voters are seeing it a mile off.
Which is why last night’s 1News-Verian poll had National down 3% to a 34% share of the vote and Labour up 4% to 33%.
Overall, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would have 60 seats (not enough to form a government) and Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would have 61 seats (enough to form a government).
And Seymour is the reason. Or more to the point, Luxon’s reluctance to thump the table publicly is the reason.
Before Sir John Key got into politics, he’d been a financial trader. Christopher Luxon, before he got into politics, was a chief executive.
So, what’s the significance of that? Traders thrive on chaos and chief executives avoid chaos at all cost.
Chief executives are like ducks on the water. They like it to look as if everything’s going smoothly, nothing to see here, but underneath the water their legs are going flat out.
And being a former chief executive, that’s how Christopher Luxon is handling David Seymour —“nothing to see hear, nothing to see here”— and that’s why we have two poll results telling us that, if an election was held now, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would be out the door.
And he was treading water again on Newstalk ZB this morning when Mike Hosking asked him what he could do about Seymour – whether he could actually sack him from Cabinet.
For trying to drive the land rover up the steps at parliament yesterday but, more significantly, doing that stupid thing where he wrote a letter to the police on behalf of Philip Polkinghorne before he was accused of killing his wife and, subsequently, found not guilty.
The PM was saying he didn’t have time to think about David Seymour and it’s natural for minor coalition partners to seek media attention, despite the fact that Seymour has got into a public spat with the Prime Minister over the letter he wrote to the police.
When the PM was asked yesterday about Seymour writing to the police, he said it was “ill advised”. Straight away, Seymour fired back in a media interview saying, “before criticising a local MP for doing their job, you should know all the facts”.
I reckon more and more people are looking at Luxon and thinking “when are you going to tell him to pull his head in?”
Especially when you consider that, in a few months time, Seymour will be Deputy Prime Minister.
Luxon’s approach might be appropriate for the corporate world, but, as the numbers are showing, it’s not the way to handle things in the political world.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. This article was first published HERE
Because his political leadership is invisible. Particularly, in relation to his handling of ACT leader David Seymour.
Seymour is running rings around the Prime Minister and voters are seeing it a mile off.
Which is why last night’s 1News-Verian poll had National down 3% to a 34% share of the vote and Labour up 4% to 33%.
Overall, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would have 60 seats (not enough to form a government) and Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would have 61 seats (enough to form a government).
And Seymour is the reason. Or more to the point, Luxon’s reluctance to thump the table publicly is the reason.
Before Sir John Key got into politics, he’d been a financial trader. Christopher Luxon, before he got into politics, was a chief executive.
So, what’s the significance of that? Traders thrive on chaos and chief executives avoid chaos at all cost.
Chief executives are like ducks on the water. They like it to look as if everything’s going smoothly, nothing to see here, but underneath the water their legs are going flat out.
And being a former chief executive, that’s how Christopher Luxon is handling David Seymour —“nothing to see hear, nothing to see here”— and that’s why we have two poll results telling us that, if an election was held now, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would be out the door.
And he was treading water again on Newstalk ZB this morning when Mike Hosking asked him what he could do about Seymour – whether he could actually sack him from Cabinet.
For trying to drive the land rover up the steps at parliament yesterday but, more significantly, doing that stupid thing where he wrote a letter to the police on behalf of Philip Polkinghorne before he was accused of killing his wife and, subsequently, found not guilty.
The PM was saying he didn’t have time to think about David Seymour and it’s natural for minor coalition partners to seek media attention, despite the fact that Seymour has got into a public spat with the Prime Minister over the letter he wrote to the police.
When the PM was asked yesterday about Seymour writing to the police, he said it was “ill advised”. Straight away, Seymour fired back in a media interview saying, “before criticising a local MP for doing their job, you should know all the facts”.
I reckon more and more people are looking at Luxon and thinking “when are you going to tell him to pull his head in?”
Especially when you consider that, in a few months time, Seymour will be Deputy Prime Minister.
Luxon’s approach might be appropriate for the corporate world, but, as the numbers are showing, it’s not the way to handle things in the political world.
John MacDonald is the Canterbury Mornings host on Newstalk ZB Christchurch. This article was first published HERE
8 comments:
I reckon more and more people are looking at Luxon and thinking “when is this guy going to deal with the Maorification/co-governance issue, is Luxon the fly in the ointment?”
The problem with this article is that the writer is not seeing the situation from the voters point of view. The conservative voters are now100% behind David Seymour. We see our democracy going down the gurgler. We would only get more irate at Luxon if he tried to dismiss or admonish a member of a party some of our like-minded New Zealanders voted for. The incident is being used to try and discredit ACT. Much of Question Time was taken up with this yesterday. What a complete waste of time and energy. Nero fiddled while Rome burned.
Its not Seymours fault or in anyway his failing that Luxon is clearly not cutting the mustard!
People have to get a grip...the landrover 'incident' was a publicity fundraising effort. What a bunch of purse lipped pearl clutchers.
Sean Plunket is spot on...Nats prudent to consider changing jockeys!
In a few weeks we may get a glimpse of what Seymour would be like sitting the big chair. Interesting times!
Sounds like NZers still prefer to be led by empty deceitful slogans like ‘one source of truth’ and ‘most transparent government ever’?
Luxon seems not to know and practice what every miscreant maori youth does. Always respond in a measured way and the questioner cannot readily determine what is platitude, when the speaker is confident, when not, when sure, when guessing, when lying etc. He gabbles out pat responses and slows noticeably when more difficult.
I do not think the greatest threat to NZ, maori control, is grasped by the general public. The message is not conveyed by the msm; just by niche websites not the fare of the greater public. The masterfully artful maori propoganda exercise and all pervading cancellation threat has been a huge success.
In America citizens have become more aware of the Deep State - a progressive ruling class based on social superiority that have captured government and academia , education and large parts of business and waged war on ordinary citizens to maintain and expand its powers. This had resulted in America in an increasingly oppressive bureaucracy immune to supervision and failing to keep citizens safe. Echos of it can be detected here. Who is really pulling the strings of Luxon behind the scenes ?
John, Luxon made a deal with Seymour and he has to live with it. Before he did what you’re suggesting Seymour would warn harm that if he continued down that path there would be an early election and mutual self-destruction.
Post a Comment