The prime minister had a bad weekend. It didn’t get any better during his regular Monday morning chat with RNZ’s John Campbell.
Christopher Luxon had a bad weekend. While the rest of us were working or relaxing, the prime minister spent it defending comments he made to business leaders about the state of the New Zealand economy. Luxon caused a stink in Rotorua on Friday when he told local business leaders that they needed to be more “adult”. Rotorua Business Chamber chief executive Melanie Short asked Luxon how long local businesses could hang on in such difficult economic conditions, Luxon replied by saying, “I think that’s a negative view, to be honest.”
Despite Luxon trying to make himself clear, the story was a political hangover that lasted well past 7.50am this morning, when Luxon had his weekly interview with RNZ’s Morning Report. The conversation began brightly, at least. “Morning John, how was your weekend?” Luxon asked host John Campbell, because there’s nothing like a bit of CEO small talk before the eight o’clock news. Campbell replied that he’d had a very nice weekend, thank you, and it was all downhill from there.
Campbell kicked things off by asking if the prime minister stood by his response to Short on Friday. “Well, look,” Luxon began, before explaining that he was “a bit disappointed” in how his answer had been reported and presented. “What was factually wrong about the reporting?” Campbell interrupted. Luxon paused. “Oh, it’s just more that obviously there’s been a media story about it,” he clarified.
Honestly, you can’t take a helicopter to Kmart without hitting a media story these days, and Luxon’s issue was that he’d spoken at length in Rotorua about all the good stuff happening in the economy, like manufacturing, which is officially “on fire”. Come on guys, focus on the flames! Campbell suggested Luxon’s response was him misreading the room, and then referred to the moment when the prime minister of New Zealand had asked Short, “who cares what the government thinks or does?”
If only the voters would just chill out. “I think you’re taking that out of context,” Luxon told Campbell, because what he actually meant was that it’s about getting up and getting on without the government getting in the way. “I believe very strongly that government, business, community leaders actually are equal in our society. They do different things, but they need to work together.”
It was the perfect segue for Campbell to hit the next hot topic of the morning. Speaking of working together, had the prime minister picked up the blower to speak with his foreign minister Winston Peters about his comments – widely described as “racist” – to Green MP Lawrence Xu-Nan last week? “I haven’t,” Luxon admitted. Why not? “I’ve been on the road, and I’ve been talking through the media.”
Look, prime minister, we get it. It must be tough being on the road in a country where cellphone coverage only extends to 99% of the population, and also, phone calls can be scary. When I was a kid, you rang your friends on the landline and you always had to speak to the terrifying grown up who answered, and perhaps that’s how the leader of the country feels about getting in touch with his foreign minister after they make “racist” comments in parliament.
Everything’s fine though, because Luxon reckoned it was “pretty clear” that Peters had seen and heard what he was saying. I feel things in my waters too, so again, I understand. This was deliberate attention-seeking from Peters, Luxon argued, but Campbell referred to international media that reported Peter’s comments as coming from the New Zealand foreign minister, rather than the New Zealand First leader. Campbell’s questions kept coming. “Should you have called him and said ‘stop’?”
“The comments are racist and offensive and inappropriate, I don’t know how to be any clearer than that,” stated Luxon. Luckily for him, Campbell had at least one idea. “The way to be clearer about it is not to send messages through the media, surely,” he suggested. “Why haven’t you called the guy?”
“John, I will talk to him at some point about it, I’m sure,” the prime minister conceded.
It’s always nice to talk, so Campbell kept pushing. “Winston Peters is getting away with this, isn’t he?” he asked, pressing Luxon further on whether this behaviour ruled New Zealand First out of a potential coalition government in November. Luxon reminded him that we’re in an MMP world, and who knows what could happen on election night. True, although Luxon recently ruled out working with Opportunity Party, so at least he knows that.
“Can you work with him again?” Campbell asked once more. Look, Luxon said, it’s all about finding common ground – just like when I used to call my mates on the landline and had to get past their scary parents first. Then, just as the prime minister mentioned coalition governments having different views, the pips that heralded the hourly news bulletin began to sound over his voice. More annoying media stories were on their way. Luxon’s call was cut off, phone still in his hand, possibly still on the road.
