If you stand for nothing, you get run over.
National is currently polling at around 29 percent. That is an extraordinary position for a first-term Government facing an Opposition still burdened by the failures of the Ardern years.
I say that with some reluctance. I know from personal experience how difficult it is to lead the National Party, and I have no desire to pretend that the task is easy.
Nor do I claim that the result achieved under my leadership in 2005 was sufficient. We did not win that election. But National secured roughly 39 percent of the vote, some ten percentage points more than the party is polling today.
The question Christopher Luxon must confront is why.
The answer, I believe, is straightforward: too many New Zealanders no longer know what Christopher Luxon’s National Party stands for.
In 2023, voters gave the centre-right a clear mandate to reverse the direction of the Ardern Government. That mandate was not merely about inflation, government spending or administrative competence.
It was also a rejection of the relentless attempts by Labour to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
New Zealanders had watched as co-governance was inserted into public institutions, democratic accountability was weakened, and the principle of equal citizenship was increasingly replaced by racial preference.
They voted for a change of direction.
Yet, nearly three years later, National remains strangely reluctant to articulate a coherent position on some of the most important constitutional questions facing the country.
On many issues, I consider this Government a considerable improvement on its predecessor. But when it comes to racial division and co-governance, its problem is not simply that some of its decisions are wrong.
The deeper problem is that nobody can be entirely certain what National believes.
Consider three recent examples.
First, the Māori electorates.
National’s historic position was clear: equal political rights mean one electoral roll and the same democratic arrangements for every New Zealander.
ACT has a clear position on the Māori seats. New Zealand First has a clear position.
National appears to have no position at all.
Ask five National MPs whether the Māori electorates should remain permanently and you may well receive five different answers – or, more likely, five carefully rehearsed ways of avoiding the question.
That ambiguity satisfies nobody.
Despite successive leaders – Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Simon Bridges and I – holding National’s principled stance that it’s time to abolish race-based seats, Judith Collins broke tradition by running candidates in Māori electorates, and now Mr Luxon runs from the debate entirely.
Right now, the National Party appears to be attempting to have no position at all.
New Zealanders who favour abolishing the seats - as the Royal Commission on the Electoral System strongly recommended if we adopted MMP - do not know whether voting National will advance that objective. Those who favour retaining them cannot be sure that National will protect them.
Is National committed to equal political rights, or has it accepted permanent racial division within our electoral system?
That is not an unreasonable question. After years of silence, voters deserve a clear answer.
Second, National’s own candidates appear free to contradict the party’s supposed policies.
National’s new candidate in Te Tai Hauāuru, Coral Raukawa, currently represents a Māori ward on the Rangitīkei District Council.
In her public comments, she has defended Māori wards and questioned the Government’s decision to require councils to hold referendums on them.
She is, of course, entitled to hold that view.
But it is difficult to reconcile her position with the policy National recently took to the country.
And the failure to correct Ms Raukawa calls into question how committed the party is to its recent pronouncements.
If National has changed its policy, it should say so. If its candidates are permitted to campaign against the party’s policy, that too should be made clear.
Voters should not be expected to trawl through council minutes and old interviews to discover what a National candidate actually believes.
A serious political party establishes principles, selects candidates who broadly share them, and then defends those principles in public.
It does not attempt to be all things to all people.
Third, there is the extraordinary confusion over the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in the school curriculum.
Documents released through an Official Information Act request reveal that on 12 April 2024, the Ministry of Education submitted design principles to Education Minister Erica Stanford that dropped The Treaty of Waitangi as an overarching principle.
Nearly a week later, on 18 April, officials prepared a second version reinstating the Treaty, which Minister Stanford signed on 19 April.
Yet on 30 April, the Minister signed off on the earlier version that omitted the Treaty entirely.
Just over a month later, on 4 June, Cabinet put the Treaty back into the final approved paper.
That amounts to four different positions in under eight weeks - involving two contradictory documents bearing the exact same date and ID number.
This is not careful deliberation. It is a Government arguing with itself.
Parents were promised a return to educational basics. They expected schools to concentrate on literacy, numeracy, knowledge and academic achievement.
Instead, they continue to receive shifting and ambiguous instructions about the role of the Treaty and race-based ideological frameworks in the classroom.
Teachers deserve certainty. Parents deserve honesty. Most importantly, children deserve an education system focused on teaching them, not politicising them.
These examples reveal a wider problem.
Christopher Luxon appears to believe political success comes from avoiding difficult issues and offending as few people as possible. But leadership requires deciding what you believe, explaining it clearly, and having the courage to defend it.
National’s poor polling should therefore surprise no one. Voters gave the Government a mandate to restore equal citizenship, wind back co-governance, and reverse Labour’s attempt to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
They did not vote merely to slow that agenda down.
Christopher Luxon can still recover, but not through another reshuffle, slogan, or communications strategy. National must state plainly that every New Zealander has the same political rights and give clear answers on Māori seats, Māori wards, co-governance, and ideology in our schools.
My advice is simple: stand for something – or get run over.
Nor do I claim that the result achieved under my leadership in 2005 was sufficient. We did not win that election. But National secured roughly 39 percent of the vote, some ten percentage points more than the party is polling today.
The question Christopher Luxon must confront is why.
The answer, I believe, is straightforward: too many New Zealanders no longer know what Christopher Luxon’s National Party stands for.
In 2023, voters gave the centre-right a clear mandate to reverse the direction of the Ardern Government. That mandate was not merely about inflation, government spending or administrative competence.
It was also a rejection of the relentless attempts by Labour to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
New Zealanders had watched as co-governance was inserted into public institutions, democratic accountability was weakened, and the principle of equal citizenship was increasingly replaced by racial preference.
They voted for a change of direction.
Yet, nearly three years later, National remains strangely reluctant to articulate a coherent position on some of the most important constitutional questions facing the country.
On many issues, I consider this Government a considerable improvement on its predecessor. But when it comes to racial division and co-governance, its problem is not simply that some of its decisions are wrong.
The deeper problem is that nobody can be entirely certain what National believes.
Consider three recent examples.
First, the Māori electorates.
National’s historic position was clear: equal political rights mean one electoral roll and the same democratic arrangements for every New Zealander.
ACT has a clear position on the Māori seats. New Zealand First has a clear position.
National appears to have no position at all.
Ask five National MPs whether the Māori electorates should remain permanently and you may well receive five different answers – or, more likely, five carefully rehearsed ways of avoiding the question.
That ambiguity satisfies nobody.
Despite successive leaders – Sir Bill English, Sir John Key, Simon Bridges and I – holding National’s principled stance that it’s time to abolish race-based seats, Judith Collins broke tradition by running candidates in Māori electorates, and now Mr Luxon runs from the debate entirely.
Right now, the National Party appears to be attempting to have no position at all.
New Zealanders who favour abolishing the seats - as the Royal Commission on the Electoral System strongly recommended if we adopted MMP - do not know whether voting National will advance that objective. Those who favour retaining them cannot be sure that National will protect them.
Is National committed to equal political rights, or has it accepted permanent racial division within our electoral system?
That is not an unreasonable question. After years of silence, voters deserve a clear answer.
Second, National’s own candidates appear free to contradict the party’s supposed policies.
National’s new candidate in Te Tai Hauāuru, Coral Raukawa, currently represents a Māori ward on the Rangitīkei District Council.
In her public comments, she has defended Māori wards and questioned the Government’s decision to require councils to hold referendums on them.
She is, of course, entitled to hold that view.
But it is difficult to reconcile her position with the policy National recently took to the country.
And the failure to correct Ms Raukawa calls into question how committed the party is to its recent pronouncements.
If National has changed its policy, it should say so. If its candidates are permitted to campaign against the party’s policy, that too should be made clear.
Voters should not be expected to trawl through council minutes and old interviews to discover what a National candidate actually believes.
A serious political party establishes principles, selects candidates who broadly share them, and then defends those principles in public.
It does not attempt to be all things to all people.
Third, there is the extraordinary confusion over the place of the Treaty of Waitangi in the school curriculum.
Documents released through an Official Information Act request reveal that on 12 April 2024, the Ministry of Education submitted design principles to Education Minister Erica Stanford that dropped The Treaty of Waitangi as an overarching principle.
Nearly a week later, on 18 April, officials prepared a second version reinstating the Treaty, which Minister Stanford signed on 19 April.
Yet on 30 April, the Minister signed off on the earlier version that omitted the Treaty entirely.
Just over a month later, on 4 June, Cabinet put the Treaty back into the final approved paper.
That amounts to four different positions in under eight weeks - involving two contradictory documents bearing the exact same date and ID number.
This is not careful deliberation. It is a Government arguing with itself.
Parents were promised a return to educational basics. They expected schools to concentrate on literacy, numeracy, knowledge and academic achievement.
Instead, they continue to receive shifting and ambiguous instructions about the role of the Treaty and race-based ideological frameworks in the classroom.
Teachers deserve certainty. Parents deserve honesty. Most importantly, children deserve an education system focused on teaching them, not politicising them.
These examples reveal a wider problem.
Christopher Luxon appears to believe political success comes from avoiding difficult issues and offending as few people as possible. But leadership requires deciding what you believe, explaining it clearly, and having the courage to defend it.
National’s poor polling should therefore surprise no one. Voters gave the Government a mandate to restore equal citizenship, wind back co-governance, and reverse Labour’s attempt to divide New Zealanders by ancestry.
They did not vote merely to slow that agenda down.
Christopher Luxon can still recover, but not through another reshuffle, slogan, or communications strategy. National must state plainly that every New Zealander has the same political rights and give clear answers on Māori seats, Māori wards, co-governance, and ideology in our schools.
My advice is simple: stand for something – or get run over.
Dr Don Brash, Former Governor of the Reserve Bank and Leader of the New Zealand National Party from 2003 to 2006 and ACT in 2011. This article was sourced HERE
13 comments:
Is Don advocating that he was a better loser than Luxon is? He didn’t stand for anything and is not even remembered as a leader. The public might remember him as a Reserve Bank Governor but that’s about it. Since his downfall he really seems to have gone down a rabbit hole of division, and all for what? The country may have some issues but they’re related to being broke and lacking economic fundamentals. That’s about it. The rest is noise, division and distraction.
Is it too late though? Why should we trust him given his historical habit of whiffle-waffles? Even if National is the majority party in the next coalition, we have no reason to expect they’ll do anything different then. Voting National has become too risky. ACT or NZ1st are the only real options today for those of us who want a rolling back of all this nonsense.
Dear Don, I could not agree with you any more. I hope all National MPS, especially our prime minister, have a very good hard think about what you have said and finally take some action.
Don used to be eloquent and now he misframes reality by saying National has no position on Maori seats. They do have a position, and it aligns with the overwhelming majority of good, regular kiwis. That Don disagrees is an issue for Don, not reality.
Five National MPs asked about Maori Wards, would give the same answer that Luxon instructed them to say.
Any other response means that their political career is over.
Ask Bayley or Pugh about his bully behavior.
Don’s time is over. It’s kinda sad to watch now. I hope I’m in a better state when I hit retirement. There is so much people can be doing for each other.
There's not only an old political lesson Don, there's also a very well-known nursery rhyme that sums up a certain fence or wall-sitter's predicament that similarly doesn't end well. It would be hard to deny the similarities in both the actions and appearance of that fictional character, whose surname is somewhat ironic and prescient given the current impersonator's likely fate.
Don is right in his title, My advice for Christopher Luxon - Stand for something. However, while I agree that the racist Māori seats should go, there are other issues about Luxon that are concerning.
A PM should not base his views on polls and focus groups. The Greens at least state their views. I disagree with most, if not all of them, but at least state them.
We have a Minister for Women who was not supportive of a bill to define a woman. I wonder if that his her honest view or if she is following Luxon's instructions.
Luxon's view that there is a climate crisis and we can help fix it is ridiculous, as he cannot give a reason for his view.
Don is behaving like Luxon when he makes a post but will not follow up by addressing those who disagree with him.
If the right are lucky enough to win this election, I predict that Luxon will be rolled early in 2027, if not before.
What is the alternative? I’m looking at the insane legislation NZ First is putting up and comment from one of its esteemed candidates in defining words for us. George Ngatai is clearly an ivy-league level policy wonk with his definition: a woman is a person “who know where to shop for clothes and shoes and chocolates”.
With a confused octogenarian at the helm, there is no hope for NZF at this stage. Seymour has moved into personality politics ever since he was dancing for votes. The right has lost its way. Sorry Don.
I dont agree with those commentators who suggest Don is past his use by date.
How can equality be out of fashion?????
I am grateful for the work Don is doing. Maori seats for one thing are no longer needed and it is only National that dont have the guts to say
Don Brash is a tireless champion, for equal citizenship and a colour blind society.
If you disagree, please explain the positives of a counter opinion.
Your headline sums Luxon up perfectly. But I see no hope in a man as woke as Luxon getting it!
I have never known what he stands for.
But my best guess is a non committal cross between Ardern and Key. Left of centre definitely and more left than centre. We know he hated anything to do with the Treaty Principles Bill and displayed zero understanding of the problems Treaty creep has caused, much less the race relations problems it is causing.
The total non response to democracy eliminating non elected council decision makers, eventually followed by dithering to correction then quickly moving on barely acknowledging the change, tells me he is very much a modern Labour acolyte and hated what they had to do.
I cannot help but conclude a decent chunk of Nationals MP's are similarly woke. And its only when their polling is tanking does any decision reluctantly get made.
I'm sure he went into this with the best intentions and possibly the title to compliment his ego, but he is hopelessly ill suited to the job. Possibly worse than any PM I've ever seen.
National under Luxon are sleepwalking to defeat. There is no vision, no leadership and what would appear to be a remarkable record of non-achievement in every facet of government. Frankly I have now arrived at the opinion they no longer deserve my vote!
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