Mike Munro: From BBQ to pressure cooker for Christopher Luxon

OPINION:

The resumption of Parliament on Tuesday alerts the tip of Christopher Luxon’s honeymoon and the beginning of the unrelenting arduous yakka that his function calls for.
Solely then can we assess whether or not he’s the true deal.

Nationwide’s fifth chief in a tad over 4 years spent the summer season ticking off the standard comfortable media routines for brand new get together bosses.

There was, for example, the compulsory ladies’s magazine interview, leader-and-family picture ops, and requests to share his vacation book-reading intentions (“I’ve bought seven lined up, truly,” he boasted). Luxon’s handlers additionally had him out on public walkabouts and fronting tame, Nationwide-friendly audiences within the provinces.

He seems to benefit from the giddy sensation of being within the highlight and doling out quickfire opinions. This could generally get messy. Luxon referred to as for a inexperienced mild setting for Auckland, then fell silent on the thought as Omicron loomed. He demanded twice-weekly fast antigen assessments for all college youngsters with out realizing that will imply getting 1.6 million assessments per week into faculties. He claimed Australia has 60 accepted suppliers of “RAT” kits, when the precise determine is 23.

He and his Covid spokesman, Chris Bishop, have been out of sync on their border reopening coverage, although what Nationwide thinks has been rendered considerably irrelevant by Thursday’s border bulletins.

The polls since Luxon’s accession have been modestly constructive for Nationwide. At the least 4 since December present the get together’s help getting into the 31-33 per cent vary, having beforehand languished within the 20s.

Within the Most well-liked PM stakes, Luxon’s numbers are about half of these for Jacinda Ardern, which is a marked enchancment on his predecessors’ rankings.

However within the newest 1News-Kantar leaders’ knowledge, practically 40 per cent of respondents couldn’t say whether or not they accepted or disapproved of Luxon. “Chris who?”

The recommencement of Parliament, then, turns into a vital waypoint. The elevated sphere during which Luxon now strikes implies that, day in and time out, he locks horns with the PM at parliamentary query time.

Ardern’s Authorities has troubles aplenty, with the Omicron variant on the march and questions mounting about border reopening logistics, isolation guidelines, fast antigen testing and the general public well being response.

However the problem for Luxon is whether or not he has the political and interrogative expertise to use these difficulties.

The early indicators are unpromising, judging by his first-up effort within the Home after the management dropped into his lap. In a spirit of pre-Christmas generosity the press gallery soft-pedalled on their judgment of Luxon, with most handing him an undeserved move mark.

The truth was that his efficiency was mediocre, blamelessly so that you may argue, as he’d simply taken the management reins and was up towards an adroit parliamentary performer in Ardern.

Luxon bought his talking notes combined up, twice having to mutter “sorry” as he fumbled with them. He additionally had the galling expertise of watching Act chief David Seymour — who had the ground forward of him at query time — ask the pandemic-related questions he’d wished to place to the PM.

Luxon appeared to lack the required agility to recuperate, which laid naked his slender parliamentary expertise.

Issues bought so awkward that Luxon’s colleague Chris Bishop dropped his head into his arms at one level.

Parliament’s debating chamber is a brutal enviornment. Within the hour allotted for oral questions, ministerial reputations might be tremendously burnished or severely bruised. However so can also these of the Opposition interrogators. It may be a wearying, miserable expertise when it doesn’t go properly — for both aspect.

It’s the relative performances of the 2 key combatants — the PM and the chief of the Opposition — that get the closest scrutiny. Whereas it’s the PM and her Authorities being held to account, it’s clear that query time is as a lot a check of the Opposition chief’s mettle as it’s of the PM’s.

As Luxon will come to understand, Ardern goes to the parliamentary debating chamber meticulously ready. She has a formidable urge for food for detailed data and an unmatched potential to speak it.

It was former Prime Minister Helen Clark who set the gold normal for Home prep. As Opposition chief, she and longtime chief adviser Heather Simpson would seal themselves off for an hour’s swot earlier than parliamentary query time. Heaven forbid ought to anybody interrupt them.

Within the Bolger-Shipley Authorities’s dying days Clark was usually beating up Jenny Shipley within the Home, as a result of she had achieved the work and had the agility to outfox her.

After Clark turned prime minister, Ardern labored in her workplace as an adviser and would’ve noticed the significance that Clark hooked up to priming herself for parliamentary fight.

Ardern clearly absorbed the teachings as her personal performances in Parliament reveal.

Whereas most individuals couldn’t care much less about parliamentary query time, the press gallery does. An Opposition hit, a fiery conflict or a ministerial mis-step can shortly develop into the political story of the day on media shops.

For a brand new chief, query time efficiency tends to shortly unmask (no pun meant) his or her true skills and shortcomings.

Do it properly and crew morale will elevate. Mess it up and your colleagues’ shoulders can shortly stoop. And all this occurs beneath the media’s steadfast gaze.

Ardern is now an skilled hand, however Luxon stays a novice.

How he handles his parliamentary duties, whereas on the identical time managing the tempo and quantity of all the opposite gnarly issues that can invariably come at him, will likely be a key measure of his development, or not, over coming months.

Mike Munro is a former chief of workers for Jacinda Ardern and was chief press secretary for Helen Clark.