Karl du Fresne: Luxon still hasn’t got the hang of politics

“I’m not going to play that game,” Christopher Luxon said – rather lamely – when Tova O’Brien asked him how many Maori National MPs were in his cabinet.  

“It’s not a game,” countered O’Brien, doubtless trying hard to conceal her glee at having so easily caught the prime minister out.

Oh, but it is a game. The game is called scalp-hunting and it’s commonly practised by journalists and broadcasters who mistakenly think their role is to make politicians squirm.

The funny thing is, no one can recall the game being played when Jacinda Ardern was PM. Ardern appeared to be surrounded by an invisible but impenetrable shield that protected her against awkward questions.

It wasn’t so much that such questions harmlessly bounced off her. They just weren’t asked. And if they were, as happened sometimes on Mike Hosking’s breakfast programme, her response was to stop going on his show.

O’Brien would have been thrilled at causing Luxon to stumble yesterday when he couldn’t answer her question. It was the equivalent of a bowler stumping the opposing team’s opening batsman with the first ball. You could almost see the thought bubble above her head: “Howzat!”

Luxon should have seen it coming. O’Brien has built her reputation on hatchet jobs and would have been eager to make an impact in her new role as presenter of TVNZ’s breakfast show. The hapless PM obliged by walking straight into her trap.

Then he compounded his mistake by saying that the newly promoted James Meager, who is of Ngai Tahu descent, is a cabinet member when he’s actually a minister outside cabinet. O’Brien pounced again and left Luxon looking like a possum in the headlights.

It was depressing evidence that even after four and a half years as leader of the National Party and two and a half as prime minister, Luxon still hasn’t got the hang of politics.

His rise to the top of the corporate ladder was no preparation for the shark tank he now swims in. He still exhibits two fatal frailties: he lacks a killer instinct and he’s far too keen to be liked. Those are dangerous political weaknesses that leave him vulnerable and make him an easy target for aggressive broadcasters and journalists, to say nothing of his political opponents.

Far from developing the agile - and sometimes necessarily forceful - verbal and mental responses essential in his position, he appears to rely on stilted, formulaic talking points supplied to him by his communications advisers. Not only do these not resonate with the public, but rigid adherence to them leaves him exposed and floundering when an unexpected question lands.

A more street-smart politician would have known how to deal with O’Brien’s mischievous query (and it was mischievous, since its clear purpose was not to enlighten viewers so much as to catch Luxon out).

Yes, it might be argued that Luxon should know how many Maori National MPs are in his cabinet. But his response should have been that the ethnicity of cabinet ministers is irrelevant. It's competence that matters.

He said he wasn’t going to play O’Brien’s game, but he did. Rather than feebly protesting at her question, he should have gone on the front foot and challenged her attempt to reduce cabinet appointments to a matter of identity politics. Luxon and his ministers need to constantly remind themselves that one of the reasons New Zealanders so emphatically rejected Labour at the last election was that they were desperate to be extricated from that ideological morass.

For all his faults (and God knows, there are plenty), Winston Peters wouldn’t have given O’Brien the satisfaction of claiming his scalp. That’s the difference between the two coalition party leaders, right there: Peters is a born politician whereas Luxon is still on trainer wheels.

Karl du Fresne, a freelance journalist, is the former editor of The Dominion newspaper. He blogs at karldufresne.blogspot.co.nz.