Luxon's Empty Words; Hipkins' Would Be World
Mark Mitchell informs Australian media on Kiwi deaths as Luxon pivots from joy to solemnity. Plus: Jobs data, Polls, Floods, and more
Hipkins asks New Zealanders to help unseat first term government in 2026 election
Henry Cooke reports on Labour’s first 2026 rally, with Hipkins acknowledging that it will not be an easy job to unseat National:
“We are asking New Zealanders to do something that they don’t often do - change a government after just one term….
The odds are against us. History is against us. And make no mistake, we are up against some very powerful interests. The wealthy donors who’ve done very well under this government and want to keep it that way”
Luxon failed to mention climate, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Māori relations, housing or child poverty in State of the Nation speech - but his media training consultant was full of praise for his speech
The PM’s State of the Union speech this week was checkered with corporate talk, and PR befuddle. Absent was any conviction or mention of significant issues: environment, climate, Treaty of Waitangi, housing, child poverty etc
As Andrew Riddle mentioned, in addition to these, it was also absent notes on our health system. Luxon’s “recovery” was all about business and $$$, and even then, it was unimpressive.
Jonathan Milne however, reports that Luxon’s media training consultant, Mary Lambie, who Luxon has relied on since 2023, considered it all “calm and measured” and light on jargon. That makes sense given Luxon has been under her tutelage for well over 2.5 years.
Lambie can also apparently be credited with getting Luxon to stop saying “Let’s be clear” which is a relief because Luxon’s assertions of clarity fail to match up to reality.
Mark Mitchell confirmed two fatalities from climate events to Australia’s National Broadcaster ABC yesterday. Twenty minutes after, PM Luxon issued a public statement.
Luxon won’t attend the annual Rātana celebrations but will travel to the East Coast to visit flood ravaged regions, which is being touted by NZME reporters as “one of the first political events of the year.”
Luxon had spent the last days electioneering, and taking PR publicity shots marked by joyous laughter, even as the country flooded, homes were destroyed, towns were cut off, and Kiwis went missing.
The mood appeared to turn solemn for the PM after Mark Mitchell told Australian media that there are at least 2 confirmed deaths in Welcome Bay Tauranga, and at least 6 missing, including children. Luxon subsequently issued a press release last night, acknowledging the “profound tragedy”.
Searchers remain “desperate” and firefighters, many of whom were in action around the country, have cancelled their planned 1 hour strike this Friday.
National’s claims that “We are in recovery” is on fragile grounds
Despite all the talk of “green shoots” from National, ACT and affiliates, the graph below shows what happened after National won.
The red line is Election 2023 and back then, Treasury was still forecasting consistent positive growth while noting that the National led Coalition “inherited better finances than expected”.
Employment forecasts at the time didn’t account for the ~140,000 Kiwi citizens who fled our shores under National. Despite this, unemployment levels broke 10-15 year records around the country.
Ditto business failures.
National is keen to spread the “green shoots” message with multiple Ministers, including Chris Penk and Chris Bishop pushing the narrative, while the official National Party accounts boosts Luxon’s message that “The recovery has arrived”.
However, they conveniently ignore the cause and effect e.g. construction bosses last year clearly putting the responsibility for faltering at National’s feet.
New Zealand Certified Builders Chief Executive:
“The main catalyst behind [the construction crash] is severely reducing the pipeline of work coming out of central Government.
Civil Contractors NZ chief executive:
“Towards late 2023 we were really busy, looking good. First quarter 2024 literally fell off a cliff.”
Poll shows Labour continues to outperform but potential left wing Coalition partners underperform
The latest poll from the non-professional standards abiding Curia Market Research shows Labour continues to forge ahead, gaining ground on National.
The Green Party continues to slide, with static progress from TPM, putting a left wing coalition out of reach due to the weakness of the left bloc overall.
There’s still time of course - the election remains 288 days away1
National holds at under 32%, but NZ First remains the consistent winner on the right. The ~12% mark is one of its strongest polling results but the party has held true to 9% for a long time now.
Polls this far out are still highly amendable, and there’s a reason Luxon chose an election date that is the latest since 2011.
A Quote Worth Heeding
David Williams’ excellent Newsroom piece, titled, Luxon, splendid optimist, makes his pitch to the country has this important detail:
In his book The Men Who Killed The News, Eric Beecher says, in a passage dedicated to the US cable channel Fox News, “propaganda techniques work even more effectively when they’re hooked into topics that evoke fear, anger or grievance”.
Ideally, those topics would evoke all three, the author wrote
This explains the success of the right wing channels and influencers in recent years.
William’s Climate Change update article today is also a must read
Post From National MP Carlos Cheung is Emblematic of the National Party - Auckland Puketāpapa Local Board Member’s Jon Turner
Other News
Manage My Health has still not notified all affected patients, but says that some victims of the data breach are already receiving scam emails. Be on alert for phishing or in other cases, blackmail.
Inflation likely to stay higher than Reserve Bank forecasts. ASB, which forecast annual inflation of 3.1%, did not think the RBNZ would be “in a mad rush” to change the Official Cash Rate (OCR) from 2.25%. But it cautioned the central bank may step in if the economy began to heat up too fast, and inflation remained stuck near 3%.
A Mother thought her family would die on the rooftop of flooded home in Punaruku. Huia Ngatai and Roderick Cooper, along with their children aged 3, 9, 11,17 and 19, were rescued by helicopter only once water receded and they made their own way off the roof of their home in the settlement near Te Araroa on the East Coas
New Zealand police have apologised after admitting they told a film crew about the Tom Phillips shoot out before advising the family. In response to an Official Information Act (OIA) request from Mata, police refused to say when the Phillips family and the mother of the children were notified about the incident. However, media were able to piece the timeline together.
The Green Party has a new Chief of Staff, former Green MP and strategist, Kevin Hague. Laura Walters reports that Hague is looking to bring in a more disciplined strategy and focus. The Party co-leaders also marked the end of year by saying that their focus would be on building trust, and building New Zealand’s commitment to Te Tiriti, recruiting powerhouse figures such as Tania Waikato to the party.
I wish Chippy would stop repeating that it will be difficult to unseat the govt after only one term. Stop this messaging because people will believe it.
All he needs to do is remind us EVERYDAY of one of the many decisions hurting NZ, undermining NZers, wasting taxpayer dollars, lack of leadership, cruelty- Chippy is awash with these potentially election winning messages - when he hammers these messages out, daily, we will remember how we felt at the time and we will vote this coalition of cronyism and cruelty out - being a one term govt term won’t matter!
I (personally) commend the Greens for their commitment to Te Tiriti, however it's clear now that it won't get them elected any more than National's tobacco company tax breaks got them into government... The Greens need to pay attention to Zack, Jeremy, Bernie, Zohran, Claudia, and so on, and win the opportunity to protect social good through a 100%-economic sales pitch.