National’s Christopher Luxon grandstands on grandstanding

ANALYSIS: Debbie Ngarewa-Packer laughed when National’s Christopher Luxon held a news conference early on Wednesday, to officially rule out working with Te Pāti Māori.

“What’s changed,” she asked, between bouts of giggles on Parliament’s black and white tiles. “Today is a great day for te iwi Māori,” her co-leader Rawiri Waititi added.

Still riding a high from convincing a Labour minister to cross the floor, this rejection from Luxon just added a cherry on top for Te Pāti Māori.

Remember, at the 2014 and 2017 elections Te Pāti Māori was severely punished for partnering with the John Key-led National Government. That coalition, even though Te Pāti Māori secured significant policy wins such as Whānau Ora, eventually led to the party being kicked out of Parliament.

READ MORE:
* National leader Christopher Luxon: Grant Robertson doesn’t understand the economy
* National officially returns to the Māori electorates, after more than 20 years

For months, Luxon has refused to rule out working with Te Pāti Māori. Instead, he has used a very specific response, saying it was “highly unlikely” National and Te Pāti Māori could work together after the election.

The “highly unlikely” line was carefully crafted in the National leader’s office to purposely leave the door slightly ajar, in the event Te Pāti Māori holds the balance of power in October. (Based on current polling, this is a possible outcome.)

Last month, a Waikato Times reporter in Morrinsville heard Luxon telling some dairy farmers that, in short, he would not work with Te Pāti Māori. But Luxon’s spokespeople tried to downplay that comment, saying he really meant it was “highly unlikely”.

So, what changed between the dairy farm meeting on April 13 and Wednesday’s news conference? And what has changed in the six days since Luxon reconfirmed to The Post he still wasn’t ruling it out.

At his news conference, called on Wednesday specifically to discuss Te Pāti Māori, he said the “events of the last few weeks” had changed his mind. He also said it was a captain’s call, although Shane Reti said Luxon had discussed it with him but not the entire caucus.

“We’ve seen grandstanding from Te Pāti Māori,” Luxon said.

“What New Zealanders need right now is none of this stuff, none of this stuff that’s been happening over the last week.”

He said the left bloc, which he’s nicknamed “coalition of chaos”, were too focused on party politics and not “the major issues”.

And Parliament has become a bit obsessed with itself in recent weeks.

But with MPs Meka Whaitiri and Elizabeth Kerekere now back in Parliament, Wednesday could have been the day politicians refocused on policy and not, as Luxon framed it, “personnel issues”.

By sending a statement on Wednesday morning, and then inviting reporters to a conference about Te Pāti Māori, Luxon added fuel to the ongoing saga of defecting MPs.

In recent days, the National Party has taken aim at these political dramas with advertisements criticising the Government of spending too much time talking about itself – rather than stuff that matters. Following Stuart Nash, Whaitiri, and some other dramas as well, it has been a messy month. And that works well for National.

Luxon said he wanted to be straight up with voters by ruling out Te Pāti Māori, but he then refused to say if he’d work with New Zealand First. The reality was, he’d actually been pretty clear anyway – so Wednesday’s announcement made little tangible difference.

And if it really was Waititi’s “grandstanding” that tipped him over the edge, then was the way to go about it by scheduling a media conference to do some more political posturing?

Luxon rejected the suggestion his political announcement was in itself grandstanding, but he did acknowledge the main point of it was “framing to New Zealanders” that Te Pāti Māori was closer to Labour than National.

In Parliament “framing” is another word for spin.