Will the real PM Luxon please stand up?

Meet Mr Luxon, the compassionate. And Mr Luxon, the strongman. Can they co-exist?

Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.

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Background

Yesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors could speak - some had died, some didn’t want to relive the trauma, others didn’t trust the system.

Many care home participants were sent there for trivial reasons, but ended up enduring years of trauma and for some, torture. Māori were disproportionately impacted and over-represented. There were Pakeha survivors. Their stories too, were clearly told and heard. Undeniably, a majority were Māori and the inquiry found a clear link between abuse in state care and the establishment of gangs.

Prime Minister Luxon and Minister Stanford’s Press Conference

Prime Minister Luxon and the lead Minister Eric Stanford fronted the waiting media to discuss the Government’s reaction to the formal findings.

Our Prime Minister tried his best to be empathetic, even compassionate.

He and Stanford read out statements that indicated New Zealand was sympathetic and suitably appalled. They said they needed time to digest the report and would be in a position by November to tell survivors what they could expect. No commitment that they would act faster, or any firm actions by the end of the year.

Mr Luxon’s tone was measured, calm and he remained patient with media questions. But Mr Luxon, the compassionate, also got lost in the woods, once the questions started -

Mr Luxon, do you acknowledge that your policies lacked a real understanding before this ?

Mr Luxon, will you make funding and support available to gang members now?

Mr Luxon, does this give you pause on many of your gang related policies?

And here we saw the more dominant, prevalent, natural Mr Luxon, the Prime Minister that is an authoritarian figure for those who are unable, or perhaps in his mind, won’t help themselves.

‘I don’t care why you are here but I expect you to pull yourself up like a man and do better’, is something I imagine a person like this would say to me if I fell on the street.

Mr Luxon, the strongman, was back in the seat.

The Prime Minister acknowledged gang members came from “dysfunctional upbringings” but he expected them to do, and be, better.

Wait, what did you say, PM?

Dysfunctional upbringings? These people were sent to care on often minor matters, then raped, abused, bashed with wood pieces and kettle cords, for years, and you call that merely coming from a dysfunctional upbringing?

He said “We’re making sure we increase rehabilitation services in our corrections department … to actually make sure that people make the change they need to make.”

In the strongman’s mind, these victims’ path to a ‘good, clean choice’ was clear and easy. They simply needed to “make the changes they need to make” and his government was going to help “make sure” of it.

It must be nice to live in Mr Luxon’s world, perhaps - everything is so easy, and most matters are black and white. Being a morally upstanding and wealthy figure is such an easy thing to do if you so chose it, in his world.

As Mr Luxon often intones in interview after interview, press conference after press conference, he has “clear expectations” and he doesn’t care about the why, how, or what of what’s involved. Your only job to satisfy this man is to comply with the outcome he demands.

After journalists point out that corrections rehab is “the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”, Mr Luxon clued on to the real meaning of rehabilitation, talking about social services investment, and that his government was about making “powerful interventions before peoples’ lives are wasted and in the wrong pathway.”

He parried most other serious questions with very un-serious answers such as “We’re working hard..” “What I’d say to you is…” “That may well be” and “We need time to digest...”

I’m afraid Mr Luxon was not able to reconcile his personalities for long. Mr Compassion had to step aside for the business man, the authoritative figure - for Mr Strongman to come through.

We’ve entered a land of contradiction

But let’s consider, shall we, if it’s true Mr Luxon and his Coalition government are intervening before a path of crime occurs, in what he labels “wasted” lives.

Most of National and ACT’s policies go against unequivocal research and evidence.

On military style youth camps, he’s been told by more than one credible figure that it doesn’t work. It merely enhances crime and the real root causes go unaddressed.

Sir Peter Gluckman, John Key’s Chief Science Advisor, said: “Having a conviction has been shown to increase the likelihood of subsequent offending.” And programs like military style boot camps “do not work and ‘scared straight’ programmes have been shown to increase crime”.

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Yet Luxon has:

• Championed and insisted on policies like the military style boot camp despite all warnings. He is sending kids in the pilot at a cost of $525,000 per youth when that money could be used in much more productive, effective, not to mention, cheaper ways.

• He’s launched a $1.9bn budget over 4 years corrections budget to build a mega prison that criminologists warn will increase isolation and entrench gang membership.

• His corrections budget is primarily about readiness for more prisoners, backed by privatised money, and not rehabilitation

• He’s committed to increasing incarceration rates even though our incarceration rates is one of the highest in the OECD, costing almost $200,000 per prisoner.

• He’s readying the justice system to bring more youth formally into the criminal justice system despite Gluckman’s findings

• He’s refused to address or consider root causes in any of his government’s rhetoric and approaches. Yes, that’s much harder. Yes, that could take years to work. But are we interested in real results or are we interested in cosmetic make up as a country and society?

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We all probably know that numbers can be manipulated. Programs can be made to work. I almost anticipate Luxon at the end of his military style boot camp business boasting that his program succeeded and was far better than the 85% - 94% re-offending NZ has found over the last 50 years - but does that matter?

Spin over substance is tiresome, Prime Minister. You can fool some people some of the time, but not all of us, not all the time.

Perhaps most damaging though is the refusal to address root causes. Poverty, feelings of isolation, inter-generational hardship, and a lack of dignity.

Most of the government’s policies exacerbate the root cause issues: Reducing beneficiaries incomes, cutting foodbank funding, spearheading anti-Maori affirmative rights and dignity, leaving a huge ‘fiscal cliff’ for school lunches, cutting mental health support, reducing social service support, not investing in public education for those who need it most, ignoring the calls of the Far North who told you that many of their people live in makeshift homes.

Meanwhile, your Government gives $153 million to private charter schools, $60-80 million for David Seymour to play with a Ministry of Regulation that has practically non-existent KPIs like “The Minister is satisfied with the advice,” you spend $4 bn on gimmick 24 hour pothole schemes as you break down all our climate and environmental commitments and progress, and an easy $3bn in support to landlords that you then spent hours defending and advertising as good for New Zealand.

The facts are criminal activity requires integrated solutions. And even policies such as cutting frontline customs staff, ransacking our police force with low morale and losing experienced officers, cutting justice and corrections budgets to pay for tax cuts are all backward in the face of your stated objectives.

There’s a lot more that can be said, but it gets tiresome.

In the press conference, Mr Luxon was asked if some funding would be made available to gang members, given the clear link between gang establishment and state care.

He answered “It may well be.”

Remember when his Government spent years attacking Ardern, claiming she was funding the Mongrel Mob, after Labour invested in rehabilitation programs for gangs that were based on a successful pilot and former National Party ideas?

The terminology of the Luxon National Party and Seymour ACT’s was unrepentant in how misleading they were.

And they were successful. And never held to account.

Details don’t matter. Only spin does.

And in this brave new world, it would be nice to see more from Mr Luxon, the Compassionate.