Luxon says no dice but is dragged into game

After eight days of biting tongue, Nats leader rules out Tamaki

Alambasting by the Auditor General over the cost of living payment and the humiliating backdown on a plan to impose GST on KiwiSaver fees marked a torrid week for the Labour Government.

Both instances raise the question about whether Labour’s political antenna is broken — and its willingness to take responsibility for stuff-ups.

Labour appeared blind-sided by the focus on the KiwiSaver fees part of a much wider tax tidy-up bill.

Revenue Minister David Parker is a bit of a geek, and it seems his primary intention was to tidy up a slightly sloppy area of GST rather than a cunning plan to slip through what National has depicted as a tax grab by stealth.

It is perhaps no surprise he did not think through the political aspects of it. But even his better-attuned colleagues did not think through the consequences: that it would end up hitting the savings of the hardworking New Zealanders the party needs to vote for it.

It prompted one of the fastest backdowns seen in modern politics: within 24 hours of the news breaking, the plan was sent to the same farm in the countryside that Labour’s policy for a capital gains tax was sent to.

In doing so, Parker was philosophical enough to quote from Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler, saying in question time “you’ve got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em”.

Labour did not have the same luxury when it came to the problematic cost of living payment. It would be untenable to reverse a policy that was its Budget Day rabbitout-of-a-hat to deal with the cost of living crisis.

The Government may well be hankering for those old Covid-19 days — when its handling of the pandemic overshadowed everything else it did and provided cover for any manner of mishaps. Now Covid is in the background, the smaller things matter again.

But Labour was not the only one to buckle to political reality this week. Luxon too had a taste of it when he finally buckled to calls to rule in or rule out working with the Freedoms NZ party set up by Brian and Hannah Tamaki — a fledgling coalition of an indeterminate number of parties.

On Wednesday, Luxon finally ruled it out unequivocally after eight days of almost saying it, but stopping short because he did not want to take part in what he calls the “beltway game of rule-in, rule-out”.

Something of a stubborn streak seemed to be at play: Luxon had decided he did not want to play the game so he would not.

He even accused Deputy PM Grant Robertson of mounting it as a “distraction” from the GST debacle, despite it being asked by the media rather than Robertson a week earlier.

Luxon’s reason for not wanting to play the game was he wanted to talk about things that mattered to ordinary people. Instead, while all the other party leaders who had ruled Tamaki out were free to talk about such things, Luxon was talking about why he would not rule Tamaki in or out. For eight long days.

He learned not playing was not a luxury he had anymore.

Luxon was probably right to suggest that particular question was a waste of breath given the low chance of the Freedoms NZ grouping getting into Parliament. It was akin to asking him to rule out a coalition with the Fiordland moa.

Nonetheless, that also meant it was easily answered. Instead, Luxon suggested people “read between the lines” on his comments about Tamaki — a dangerous invitation.

Labour read between the lines and made merry, with attempts to link Luxon’s religious beliefs to the possibility he had something in common with Tamaki, and Robertson saying Luxon’s refusal amounted to tolerance of Tamaki’s views on issues such as homosexuality.

In short, Luxon was left with little choice but to kill off such talk.

Don’t like it? Tough luck — because it is not as useless or “beltway” as Luxon might think and it is arrogant to say it is.

In 2008, John Key launched the rule-in, rule-out game himself, announcing he was ruling out NZ First. That was seen as a contributing factor in NZ First’s failure to return to Parliament that election. It was also a risk that could have sent National back to Opposition.

Whether the game is considered beltway or not to individual politicians is clearly situational.

Voters like to know mixes they might or might not be saddled with after each election — and the price it will come at. That is especially important with MMP.

National supporters — and some of NZ First’s voters — certainly wished NZ First leader Winston Peters had played the rule-in rule-out game before casting their votes in 2017.

At almost every campaign event he went to, Peters faced questions from the voters o whether he would go with National or Labour. He wouldn’t say.

The reason the leaders of Labour and National do not like it is because they are nervous about strategic voting: that their voters will think voting for a potential support party is helping them.

Luxon articulated that in an email to National members and supporters, saying the only way to get a change of government was to vote for National. For the large parties, the ultimate trophy under MMP is what it always was: a one-party majority, such as that enjoyed by Labour now, without smaller parties underfoot.

They are also nervous about the obvious follow-up game — in which they are asked to rule in or rule out specific policies of the potential support parties. Last election, National repeatedly claimed Labour would adopt the Green Party’s wealth tax, for example. Ardern equally repeatedly ruled it out.

Peters is the strictest of those who refuse to play the game — he has steadfastly refused to indicate which way he might go in the event he was a kingmaker.

At the moment he is in a position of having ruled out going with Labour again without ruling out going with Labour. He has said he rules out Labour if it puts up co-governance policies that he does not like.

That does not mean he would not negotiate with Labour — because he could negotiate those off the table. And it does not mean he would not side with Labour if Labour did take them off the table.

The Handbrake Rampant lives on!