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Chris Luxon addresses the National party conference, August 7, 2022
Chris Luxon addresses the National party conference, August 7, 2022

OPINIONPoliticsAugust 8, 2022

A deathly dull conference that National will be delighted with

Chris Luxon addresses the National party conference, August 7, 2022
Chris Luxon addresses the National party conference, August 7, 2022

There are few things worse for a political party than an ‘exciting’ annual conference, writes Liam Hehir.

The National Party just had its annual conference. It seems to have been a successful conference. By all accounts, nothing remotely interesting happened, which is the main criterion by which these things should be judged.

No bold or exciting policies were announced. More accountability on the part of those spending public funds was promised. Better enforcement of responsibility from those receiving public funds was another theme.

All standard National Party fare.

I messaged a friend on Saturday afternoon to see how it was going. She couldn’t really say. She had become bored, you see, and checked out for the day.

The biggest “news” was the replacement of long-serving president Peter Goodfellow. The office went to Auckland’s Sylvia Wood. Her election by the board was so foreordained that, the night before, a visiting speaker from Australia’s Liberal Party accidentally let slip that he looked forward to working with her.

An exciting or even interesting conference is not something a political party should generally wish for. When a party’s annual meeting gets interesting the result is usually something of a disaster. Labour’s 2012 conference springs to mind, with members forcing rule changes that ultimately led to David Cunliffe replacing David Shearer as leader of the opposition.

More recently, the Greens managed to score an own goal against themselves at their own annual meeting this year. Co-leader James Shaw was the subject of an ill-conceived defenestration. The fact that he is set to be reinstated will do little to erase the discontent voiced by members and even former MPs.

John Key gives Luxon a ’10 out of 10′ on Q and A, Sunday August 7, 2022

As National’s conference got underway, by contrast, Sir John Key showed up to praise Christopher Luxon to Jack Tame on Q&A. This is itself a bit unusual for National, which does not tend to deify former leaders in the way Labour does. The musings and opinions of Jim Bolger, Don Brash or Jenny Shipley do not really have a lot of pull with the party rank and file.

This does not really apply to Key, whose mystique remains quite strong within the party. Where most political careers end in defeat, as the cliché goes, Key retired from politics while still still very secure in power. Even his former opponents still seem a little cowed by the former investment banker turned Mr everyman prime minister.

All of which is to say that the ongoing confidence of John Key carries unusual weight in New Zealand politics – especially when it so publicly declared.

This comes at something of a mixed few weeks for National. The party has its nose in front in the polls but its rise has noticeably plateaued. MPs have allowed themselves to be put on the back foot through unclear messaging on a number of occasions. Some of the errors have been pretty basic.

The view online from those who will never vote for National is that the party is in trouble. The thinking is that, at a time when people are struggling to make ends meet, verbal miscues on Luxon’s part are going to turn things around for the government. Nothing that happened at the conference will erase that view.

But in many ways, this is all very reminiscent of 2007. Before the National Party conference that year, the Labour government was in full on gloating mode over John Key having been exposed as a gaffe prone lightweight. “John Key should be embarrassed” wrote cabinet minister Steve Maherey, who then launched into an extended list of missteps, contradictory positions and unpopular views that Key had committed in the lead up to conference.

The more things change…

Most fair minded people accept that the government has (within its limitations) made a good fist of governing in some pretty trying times in recent years. Brain dead partisans of the right may not concede it, of course, just as the brain dead partisans of the left will never concede that Luxon is anything other than a disaster for National. Regular voters are not so deranged – they give people and governments a fair go.

But the Labour government feels like it’s all out of ideas when it comes to the escalating cost of living. The one thing it can control is reining in wasteful spending and it seems to be determined to be about as tone deaf as possible on that. Every day brings new stories about sloppiness with public funds that plays into National’s narrative at a time when people worry about affording the essentials.

It’s not for National to fix the government’s apparent exhaustion. It doesn’t have to come up with the answers Labour doesn’t have. It just has to present itself in the way that, when it is on form, has always made it pretty popular with the voters.

That means promising a moderate, pragmatic and (above all) disciplined approach to government. If National looks better than Labour on that score, it will win the election next year – no matter how many supposed gaffes Twitter goes bananas over.

A pretty boring annual conference sounds like a good start.


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Molesworth Street Hospital. Image: Tina Tiller
Molesworth Street Hospital. Image: Tina Tiller

PoliticsAugust 7, 2022

A week in New Zealand politics – Shortland Street edition

Molesworth Street Hospital. Image: Tina Tiller
Molesworth Street Hospital. Image: Tina Tiller

After it’s solved the nursing shortage, our beloved soap opera could help us better understand the political world, too.

Cometh the hour, cometh the soap opera. A dire shortage of nurses in Aotearoa has prompted the government to turn to the most reliable pillar of our democracy: Shortland Street, with plotlines in forthcoming episodes imploring viewers to become nurses, though ideally not psychotic murderer nurses.

Why stop there? As we strive to inform young people about civics, politics and power, let us tell our important stories through the medium of soap opera, too. After all, as is written in the Hippocratic Oath, the truest doctor is the spin doctor. Here’s a handful of docudrama scenes from the week just gone. 

INTRO MUSIC

IOU, or you owe me, got some cash from IRD. I think a change is what I need. If I’m looking for unbridled power in a unicameral Westminster-style legislative system, or to dream, Molesworth Street. 

INT. OPERATING THEATRE

SURGEON-IN-CHIEF JACINDA ARDERN: The vital organs were swelling, the middle squeezed. We moved swiftly to administer pulmonary remunerative protocols. 

PATIENT, LURCHING UPRIGHT, GRINNING: Thanks!

APPLAUSE.

ARDERN: I’ll come to Jessica, then Tova. 

EXT. BOTTOM OF CLIFF 

EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN DAVID PARKER, PARKING HIS AMBULANCE: Hello. 

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF RANDOM PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD GETTING PAID $$$ FOR NO OBVIOUS REASON: Hello.

DOCTOR NICOLA WILLIS, HEADING TO THE BURNS UNIT: Hello.

EXT. THE BEACH, OWHIRO BAY, WELLINGTON 

NUTRITIONIST JAMES SHAW, ANKLE DEEP IN WATER, ALONE, GRAINS OF SAND BETWEEN HIS TOES: I stand before you today, bruised but undeterred. In a battle against nobody, I lost. I hear the message from my people – I have not listened as I might have, and I have not yet halted anthropogenic global heating. Anyway, round two, we meet again. And this time I hope very much to defeat nobody, ideally, if that’s OK.

INT. ‘THE I.V. BAR’

CHIEF EXECUTIVE FLYING DOCTOR TOPHER LUXON: Rubbish. On the hoof. Insulting to taxpayers. What I would say to you is that the people running the Molesworth Street hospital are a shambles. It’s like something out of The Office.

DOCTOR CHRIS WARNER: Love that show.

LUXON, CHILLED OUT, GRABBING HIS GUITAR, SINGING: I got bills I gotta pay. So I’ma gon’ work, work, work every day. I got mouths I gotta feed. So I’ma gon’ make sure everybody eats.

WARNER: Sing it, Topher. 

LUXON: Yo momma got bills, yo daddy got bills. Yo sister got bills, Yo auntie got bills (I got bills). Yo uncle got bills. Everybody got bills, everybody got bills, uh.

DIRECTOR OF NURSING CARRIE BURTON: You’re not in Te Puke now, Doctor Luxon.

EXT. THE BEACH, OWHIRO BAY, WELLINGTON 

THE WATER RISES. SHAW, KNEE-DEEP, GLARES AT NOBODY.

INT. ‘THE CAF’

NURSE CHRIS HIPKINS: You said the muffins would have blueberries and then oh no they don’t have blueberries any more and then now you’ve changed your mind again and it’s all blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. Blueberries!

CHEF CHRIS, A BISHOP, BLOOD WEEPING FROM A BULLET WOUND IN HIS SNEAKER: Sir, this is a scone.

HIPKINS: What kind of an internally divided, U-turning, Humpty Dumpty, flip-flopping caf is this?

BISHOP, THRUSTING IPAD INTO HIPKINS’ FACE: Please tell me that is not your penis.

HIPKINS. Oh, no it isn’t. That’s Chief Medical Officer Andrew Little’s penis.

EXT. THE BEACH, OWHIRO BAY, WELLINGTON 

THE WATER RISES. SHAW, NOW SHOULDER-DEEP, PERFORMS TAI CHI.

NOBODY: You OK, James?

INT. OPERATING THEATRE

ARDERN, PARKER AND HIPKINS ARE STATUESQUE, COVERED IN SEVERAL DOZEN LAYERS OF PPE, HOPING WE CAN’T SEE THEM. WE HEAR A BEEP, ANOTHER BEEP, THEN ONE ENDLESS LONG BEEP, YOU KNOW THE SORT OF THING, AS IN SOMEONE JUST DIED. 

THE CORPSE GRABS $350 AND EXITS.

JAMES K BAXTER: Alone we are born. And die alone. 

DOCTOR CHRIS WARNER: I was thinking the same thing, James K Baxter. We too will one day see that red-gold cirrus over snow-mountains shine, and face, unchaperoned, the ultimate cost of living. 

APPLAUSE.

EXT. OWHIRO BAY

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE. WINSTON PETERS SURGES TERRIFYLINGLY THROUGH THE SURFACE, RIPS OFF A SNORKEL, AND THEN A RUBBER FACE, REVEALING HER TRUE IDENTITY – NURSE CARLA CROZIER. 

ROLL CREDITS.

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