OPINION

Christopher Luxon really needs a quick remedial lesson in Cam’s Rules of Politics, particularly the first rule. Clearly, he seems unaware of the rule which is ‘Explaining is losing.’ He sure has been doing a great deal of explaining, that is for sure.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon got quite prickly in his press conference yesterday when faced with questions about why the reinstatement of interest deductibility on investment properties had changed since the coalition agreement was signed with Act.

Of course it is not unusual for election promises to be diluted or changed in post-election negotiations with other parties. But once the deal is sealed, it is unusual to see a deviation so soon – the upshot of the changes is that the phasing-in has been changed to reduce the overall cost, but the overall cost is still $800 million beyond what National estimated in the election campaign.

The trouble with Luxon’s response to questions about changes to the sealed deal is not what he says but how he says it. He dismisses it as though it weren’t important enough to even ask about. It was something picked up this morning by Mike Hosking when Luxon appeared in his regular Tuesday spot on Newstalk ZB. It is reasonable to adjust a fixed plan as circumstances allow. But it should not be dismissed as something done lightly. And if it has to be changed now, when the ink on the coalition deal is barely dry, what else might change?

A lot of the 100-day plan was pushed through under urgency, but it has been two issues unconnected to it that have had a resounding impact: the plan to cut the school lunch programme by up to a half and the PM’s entitlement to the entitlement – his $52,000 housing allowance, since repaid. A poll last Friday (by his party’s own pollster) suggested Luxon has taken a big hit in popularity, but today he rejected the suggestion he has lost his political radar. “I think we’ve done a kick-arse job on the 100-day plan, to be brutally honest with you,” he told Hosking.

NZ Herald

Explaining is losing.

Here are the facts for you Christopher, plain and simple. You have reneged on a deal. You’ve changed the terms. That’s what most of us see.

But it’s not the only deal you’re reneging on is it? See there, I just used Rule Eight: Never ask a question if you don’t already know the answer.

Christopher Luxon has the same problem now as he had before the election: he appears insincere, inauthentic and overly rehearsed. To make matters worse, when challenged he quickly retreats. I’ve heard some French generals have heard about these quick reversals and are trying to get here to study more efficient ways of retreating in short order.

Then you add on his effeminate wrist flopping, his tiny girly hands and talking like a whoopsy, not to mention his bald head, and you can start to understand why National still have not cracked the 40 per cent mark. He really is fast gaining the nickname Prissy Chrissy.

Quite simply he is failing the blink test: he fails‘the ‘blink test’ because too few people can close their eyes and imagine him as Prime Minister. Alternatively, it is the first impression people have of you in the time it takes to blink.

Luxon may well be Prime Minister, but he is there because of David Seymour and Winston Peters. If he disrespects his coalition partners and changes the deal then he runs the risk of having his policy agenda put to the vote each and every time: never really sure if his partners are going to support them. Life starts becoming very difficult.

Then, when Labour wakes up and starts leaking polls that show terrible negative ratings consistently for Luxon then it is just a matter of time before he leaves ‘to spend more time with the family’.

It is actually quite simple. He’d best get schooled up on this quickly.

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As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news,...