Nats’ big fear: Is Luxon a sheep at the wheel?

• Published date: 27 May 2023
• Publication title: Weekend Herald

This week we got a wee reveal on the state of the party psyche

A newspaper column by party grandee Philip Burdon, a five-term MP who served in Jim Bolger’s Cabinet, exposed a mood of unease that has probably been lurking among the party rank and file — and maybe the caucus, too — for a while.

Burdon, certainly, didn’t hold back: on policy and leadership, National “lacks the precision and appeal of other parties”. The party is trying to be all things to all people. It’s adopting increasingly soft positions on issues, and runs the risk of being seen as “out of touch with provincial and rural New Zealand”.

And then the clincher: Luxon has “conspicuously failed to personally inspire the electorate”. If his falling popularity continues, “it will become a dangerous negative”.

Luxon actually bucked the sinking trend this week. Thursday’s 1 News-Kantar poll saw his preferred PM rating rise by a single percentage point, to 18 per cent. Compare that, though, with the mid-20s numbers he was registering a year ago.

In the run-up to last Christmas, when he marked his first anniversary in the job, Luxon was getting credit for uniting the National caucus and leading a revival in the polls, so much so that the party overtook Labour.

The portents were bright. That wasn’t surprising, given the muddle the Government had got itself into on a number of fronts.

A cost of living crisis, businesses doing it tough, a clutch of Covid-related grievances that continue to linger, the health system wilting under pressure, public dismay over ram-raiding youths running amok — surely National are odds-on to knock Labour off its perch?

You wouldn’t bet the house on it, despite National edging back ahead of Labour in this week’s poll. And the reason you wouldn’t wager your house is Luxon’s continuing failure to touch the imagination. He’s keeping Labour in the race.

After last year’s progress, this wasn’t the way 2023 was supposed to play out for National.

Of course, much has changed since tbixlayhe start of the year. There has been Jacinda Ardern’s exit, Chris Hipkins’ slipping comfortably into the prime ministership, the jettisoning of unpopular policies and the beginning of an election-year spend-up by the Government.

Meanwhile, Luxon’s struggles show no sign of abating. He had a miserable Budget Day, delivering a forgettable Budget Debate speech that essentially recycled his trademark attack lines, and then copping the fallout as National vowed to restore the prescription charges that...