Chris Luxon - Day One

Nov 30, 2021

"New Zealand is over it, the National Party members are over it, and the caucus is over it. So we want to turn the page and go forward together. "We are going to do things differently from here on through. It's very clear from today and you've watched this contest be different from previous contests, that actually we're turning the page, we're putting the baggage aside, we're trusting each other, we're doing that work..." - Chris Luxon, newly appointed National Party Leader, 30 November 2021

Day One of the new Luxon-led National party went with a few hic-cups. But they were illuminating hic-cups.

In his post-annointing speech in Parliament's Banquet Hall, he made this chilling remark (@ 0.45):

"I bring a fresh set of eyes. And What I see is that this place and this country, needs a real shake-up."

With a global pandemic impacting on every single aspect of our lives, the last thing Aotearoa New Zealand needs right now is "a real shake-up".

We need steady, calm hands on the tiller of this ship. One might say we need "certainty" - to dredge up a word that has become synonymous with business interests with an obscenely bloated sense of entitlement.

With global deaths due to covid19 now at 5,230,196 (and possibly higher - double - with unreported deaths); new mutant strains of the virus threatening the viability of our vaccines; our lives constantly restricted one way or another to contain the spread of Delta; thousands of our fellow New Zealanders trapped overseas; businesses struggling to cope with the necessities of pandemic control strategies - a "real shake-up" is probably the last thing we need to add to our stresses.

His comment appears rooted in the mistaken belief that somehow the global covid pandemic is no longer a "thing".

At 1.47 he stated:

"But today I want to be very clear with you about one thing. New Zealand is at a critical crossroads as we grapple and emerge from a global pandemic."

We are not "emerg[ing] from a global pandemic". Far from it, covid is not yet done with us.

Any belief that we are "emerg[ing] from a global pandemic" is not up for partisan debate. This is about lives.

On economic matters, in the same speech, Mr Luxon referred to raising wages for New Zealanders:

@ 11.20

"Either we want to be a higher wage economy or we don't, and we need to do that..."

@ 20.24

"...we want to see a more productive economy that drives higher incomes and wages."

But Mr Luxon's views on raising wages were made crystal clear when he made this post on Facebook:

We've been down that road before, during the Key Administration. Promises were made to raise incomes to better match Australia's, to stem the flow of our "brain drain".

Instead, we got the infamous "Hobbit Law" in October 2010. Workers in the film industry were denied the right to be treated as employees; join a union, and engage in collective bargaining for higher wages and conditions.

And other excuses not to raise wages:

“Key acknowledged there were problems with rural rest homes workers paying for their own travel, effectively reducing their wage below the minimum wage of $13.50 an hour. “Travel is one of those areas where we are looking at what we can do,” he told TVNZ’s Breakfast programme. However, the Government could not afford to give DHBs the $140 million required to enable rest homes to pay their staff more. “It’s one of those things we’d love to do if we had the cash. As the country moves back to surplus it’s one of the areas we can look at but I think most people would accept this isn’t the time we have lots of extra cash”.”

Seemingly dismissive of covid as well as regurgitating John Key's "talking points" on raising wages (while at the same time suppressing workers' rights).

Not exactly an auspicious start to the reign of the Not-The-Messiah?