A Night In The Club With Christopher Luxon

It’s a cold night in Burnside, and the usual paths are being retraced at a steady pace. Tanya and I make our way around the park. We try to stick to the sidewalks, but even off Memorial Avenue the evening is busier than usual, and eventually it’s our nicest trainers into the mud.

It was the other day when I was getting my morning exercise, that I saw a sign down near Avonhead Mall, at the time unadorned, and realised I’d have something to do with my Thursday evening. From there it took only a lick of the patented Ellie tolerance for boredom to talk myself and mum into giving this whole “engaging in the community” thing a go.

I recognise nobody I’ve met before, but I can tell that that’s Chris Luxon, all right, shorter than you’d expect and circling around the packed room, wide and with a half-dozen rows, to get to the front. Feeling like Pattinson’s Batman, it’s soon made clear that I’m not the only one here who knows these streets. He quickly shows to us that he remembers Christchurch, giving the hometown street shtick better than even John Key ever could.

The next day, I visit where he grew up, just barely around a corner from the bowls club. It’s two stories but unassuming brick, no walls keeping my prying eyes out, all curtains no blinds in the middle of the day. Not one of the houses that looks flash.

Luxon’s one of the holy trinity, along with the other man on the sign and Raf Manji, of northwest Christchurchers returning from profits abroad to give back to the people. Though Luxon’s not running here like Manji, he well and truly makes us feel like this is his part of the country he’s running to run. Here is a politician who will tell us that we, as Cantabrians, know what it’s like better than anybody to deal with District Health Boards, not that we’re resilient gits.

The level of connectedness is impressive from both the National candidates back from abroad tonight. Hamish Campbell is a man I only know from the sign, Google, and the candidate car hanging out in the park carpark the other week - the first inkling of who we were dealing with here. Tonight, we meet him first on the pamphlets we’re handed at the door like 19th-century political machines. These flimsy few paragraphs on paper aren’t trying to persuade us to vote for any policy or philosophy, but just showing off his biography and instructing us to tick next to his name. We meet him second by sight and thirdly through his introduction, where he answers the question his biography raises: impressive, to be sure, but why’s a scientist running for Parliament?

The answer is not memorable, but nevertheless Hamish acquits himself well. He stutters the occasional word out in duplicate, is wedded to a woman who makes decisions, slightly quirky in a good way, but he is not the main star of the night. Several times tonight time will be used well, and this is one of those cases: he only gets a couple minutes to talk, because he is National’s guy in Ilam, and so he is very likely to win. All the voters need is an impressive face to put a name to, and he needs the welcome home from Oz (a rare direction of travel in this day and age) and the confidence boost.

National nationally, on the other hand, needs you to hear their hails and give them the time of day. Polling consistently shows that the party is just above or below the waterline they need to be swimming at, with only one in three voters backing the blue plus one in ten with ACT. Ruling out Te Pāti Māori is slashing your lifejacket when you have no clue if the NZFirst driftwood is buoyant enough to grab onto (though an enticing theory suggests they might be able to signal Captain Manji for a rescue).

And Luxon’s personal ratings are in a hole. The latest poll puts him at his lowest: -7%, meaning after eighteen months straight of introducing himself, more voters still dislike than like him. Crucially, Hipkins is at +30% with undecideds; Luxon is at -26%. Hipkins could fall a lot more. Luxon may not have much room to rise.

Christopher Luxon does not act like it. There are rooms like these, rowboats packed with grey-haired and balding sailors, rooms like these around the country ready to vote for National. His laundry list of issues proves why. I need not reiterate the case I have made before in any depth and he keeps it to the right level of brevity too: healthcare is a mess. Education is worse. There’s a crime wave at the moment. In the eyes of the rest of the audience and out of his mouth, debt is too high, tax too high, spending too high.

He sounds good on the solutions, like he has got all of the answers. The thing is, though, when he says that National has a plan…National doesn’t actually have a plan. What we get at the press conferences and in meetings like these are not just examples demonstrative of the wider work: they are the only policies that have been released. Hopefully National has got this all figured out and is keeping their tinder dry for the election; maybe they’re clueless and bluffing. There’s no way of knowing, and it doesn’t matter; he’ll say it and the room will trust.

The smooth, convincing earnestness with which he delivers these lines papers over the internal inconsistencies of the content. He insists that we need a government that stops dictating central bureaucracy and starts beefing up frontline workers, giving them what they need, then insists that a politician’s curriculum imposed by Wellington is the priority though no teacher ever asked for it. To have a separate Māori Health Authority adds more bureaucracy, but he prefers systems like DHBs that add even more bodies. He bemoans four national water authorities, a dead letter, without taking a position on whether ten is less or more bureaucratic. Labour cannot afford to make the blunder of undoing National’s decisions, but National absolutely must do what is right and undo Labour’s decisions like the polytechnic consolidation.

Luxon maintains an equal tone and performance across different subjects, from crime (which gets a big reaction in the room) to education (which does not). To the former, he gives standard National talking points any leader, be it Todd Muller or Mark Mitchell, would give in his place: law and order, beat up the gangs, tell the problem kids to pack their bedrolls. To the latter, clearly a passion and a reason to be in politics for him, he devotes fleshed-out analysis: some kids are struggling to show up to school because of the impacts of poverty, or mental health issues.

No mention of how the same factor or feed into crime: the closest we get is how crime can be downstream from educational failures. This unevenness on the substantive is not obvious at all from his constant presentation, which maintains a high floor but never reaches for a rhetorical ceiling like Jacinda might have done. That’ll do fine this election; lord knows Hipkins aspires to nothing higher than landing buttered side up, itself a difficult task usually (though they are dropping from higher than the table).

Luxon is fluent all the way across these different issues, clearly a quick study of a political environment unfamiliar until recently, except for an awkward anecdote about his teen escapades ending in crashing a car into the bowls’ club we’re in, never mind how many older people in the community love this place. This is not a man worried about appearing like another Uffindell - a product of those boys' schools, cocky and unconcerned about the people he hurts - and he does not appear reflective on what that says either about his present wealth, or his hardline attitude against crime, particularly crime involving people in car ramming into buildings nice older people frequent and run.

These are his people, with a whole bunch of Boys’ High old boys in the front rows, and he seals the deal on his Christchurch parochialism with a knowing joke about what high schools we went to. There’s a South African two seats to my right, who let us know that the last seats available were free to grab. Usually I need to specify what kind of South African I’m talking about before I inadvertently sound like a raging racist. This time I don’t need to. You know.

These are the people who cheer on his digressions. Backspacing on Health NZ to call it Te Whatu Ora - a Prime Minister who can’t pronounce short words in our one indigenous and endemic reo, in common usage in his line of work. Calling identity politics a real problem in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. Putting the three Rs in diametric opposition with a waiata, or “wi-atta”. He is not scared of being called a racist or a dog whistler. Nobody in this room is going to do it.

There is no room outside the us vs. them narrative here. Even as Luxon claims his opponents are fanning the flames of identity politics, he gets onto the cook. Renter versus landlord, rural versus urban, Māori vs. non-Māori: you cannot doubt what side he is on. This is the polarised ground the election is going to be fought on, in the hopes of clawing every possible scrap away from Labour. In his latest narrative, even the “coalition of chaos”, reheating a 2014 John Key stratagem, are united together in their leftist desire to misuse your money and undermine social cohesion.

There were not going to be outside perspectives in this room, no quirky moments breaking up the message discipline. There is no concern that TOP is going to win here and no attempt made to contest their worldview. A minute after I’ve sat down, the guy between me and the other Saffa tries to crack an awkward joke about Hamish’s shining pearlies on the pamphlet, and over the course of the night him and his friend give off the impression that they’re here to agitate about vaccines.

They get no such opportunity. Everything is under control here. We start as planned at 5, and after the few minutes from Hamish, Luxon’s laundry list is rolled out. The irony is that he’s so practised and efficient it starts to sound repetitive. The first time he tells you the first thing to do it sounds like he’s cutting right to the core of things; the fourth time, he surely began to lose most of the room in the morass, even though all of the content was entirely coherent. Nonetheless, the overall structure would not leave people wanting: they have a five point plan, and it’s going to sort out the country.

National’s candidates project a confidence that they do not feel in the outcome of the election. Perhaps they could also do with a bit of a blow to their egos. On two years of experience, Chris Luxon is going to be Prime Minister. Jacinda Ardern had nine and was dogged with questions of inexperience before she nailed crises; do you think Luxon will get the same treatment? Hipkins has had fifteen and he still looks like a hedgehog caught in headlights. Luxon can deride the Wellington consultants all he wants, and fair play to him, but when he wins, how long will he take to figure out how to pull the levers of government? A year? Three? The last thing we need is another government incapable of governance.

Luxon is far more fluid when he comes to the Q&A portion of the night. He wants people to introduce their name and where they’re from, and I have to hope that I can deflect by just saying I hail from Waimakariri and complimenting Matt Doocey, one of several MPs and candidates in the back or scattered around the room. I never got to ask my questions, and I don’t mind that fact. But I know these rooms won’t be the ones to ask them, and sadly the journos probably won’t either.

Early in the session, a woman’s “question” goes on and on about the healthcare sector. What feels bizarre as the backdrop to all of this is, as we hear yet another mention of midwives, the third or fourth in the evening, nobody seems to feel the need to mention that the sitting MP for Ilam, who Hamish is running against, is the most experienced midwife in Parliament in a long time. Nobody here needs to vote for Hamish Campbell - National will get him or a better substitute in on the list. If their chief concern was midwifery, it would seem there’s a case to engage with about voting for her, for valuable input on new laws like ACC finally covering horrific birthing injuries. Nobody in the room feels the need to preempt their opponent. This is a black and white situation: Labour has ruined the situation, National will fix it.

Luxon waits patiently through this expository spiel, then returns to nurses. She cuts him off, saying she’s not just talking about nurses. He clarifies that he understands, but he wants to start there. Over the course of the coming questions, he goes where the people want to go, on major issues and on cul-de-sacs, even as Hamish, a local candidate, without having been reminded by any minders, starts to step in and say that he has to go. Luxon is totally unbothered, taking a “the plane will wait for me” attitude, cracking Air New Zealand jokes. He has no fear of appearing dismissive or egotistical.

We get his second non-sequitur of the night, answering a question about sport with vague allusions to Pacific foreign policy and mental health before an incoherent diversion about immigration concluding on social cohesion. You can understand what he’s trying to say - many Pacific countries play rugby; getting out and planting in that muddy grass is good for you; many immigrants come from countries he wants closer ties with, like India, where cricket or rugby are popular, and even if our different groups lack much in common with each other, we can share an enjoyment of those activities. It’s all lost in the delivery, but not because he’s rushing - he’s not - he’s just in a space of international ideas where, once he goes beyond our borders, he seems familiar with a much higher level of thinking, and forgets to make sure that the room is keeping up with him.

In his last moments, fearless charger Luxon reveals that he is scared of two things. He is scared, firstly, of the moment when Tanya leans over to me and jokes that he’s lost her vote. In that case, it’s produced by a joke to the room encouraging us to have more kids. He’s not bothered by the connotations of appearing to be a very Christian parent like Bill English, dedicated to creating a large family. No, he’s talking about raising the population rate, and this joke signals the essential sanity of New Zealand politics: there will be no policies pertaining to raising fertility rates; population growth comes from immigration.

Immigration would be the likeliest thing core to the National charter to alienate this room. One in four people in Burnside is Asian, vastly more than the rest of the country, but I see only one Asian face tonight, no Māori, no Pasifika. If you showed me this room without partisan context and told me they were waiting for a politician to show up, I’d probably guess Winnie was coming down to the bowls club.

I see no such signs of alienation. He sails headways into these waters. He (smartly) lists his whole crew, betraying his second fear: that he expects voters to vote for Chris over Christopher, and that he needs the team too to get the voters to steer closer to his Scylla. His shoutouts to Matt Doocey in the back get a warm response. He’s right north of here, rural, all about suicide prevention, and Tanya recognised a fellow farmer on the way in - people will have come from north of the Waimak to see Christopher today.

His shoutout to Erica Stanford, as he aptly notes a common sight on TV, gets the warmest response that there is. This is a room of older, white, predominantly men most enthused to vote for a young woman who will let other predominantly young women, nurses from the Philippines and South Africa and Wales in. That is the kind of fresh-faced internationalism that will serve him in good stead in my eyes.

This loops us nicely around to his first fear. Having gotten through a few questions, there is apparently more and more time pressure on him to go. Hamish, a total newbie, tells the leader of the party that he must stop now. Chris says it’s fine; the hard deadline of a flight is, apparently, mutable. Chris asks for two more questions, now from women, and there’s no way that this room will let me put my hand up.

He needs their votes - not mine, but the median voter: statistically, Pākehā women in their 50s, socially liberal but opposed to the greater presence of te ao Māori in the white world, concerned about this Labour government spending all the dollars they worked hard for. His unpopularity with them is why he is underwater. Convince the women to get first on the lifeboat, and Captain Luxon is sailing high. He doesn’t need to be dragged down by the bewhiskered gentleman next to me insistently jumping up and down and grasping for a microphone.

And it all goes like clockwork. The first woman does not fit that demographic; she’s a Young Nat, and not the Rodd n Gunn white guy kind either. I turn in my chair for her, acutely aware the two of us are an endangered species here tonight. Her question is National’s idea of what a young voter wants - the retention of fees-free, never mind any values about parents working hard to provide for their kids’ education. He takes a shot at giving kids of wealthy parents a free ride, fair cop, while speaking about how he got to go to university back in the day. Once again the Luxon charm smooths down all the bumpiness in what he’s actually saying.

The second does fit: she tells a beautiful story you might just have seen on the news, organising sporting activity amongst women affected by breast cancer, and she wishes the government would chip in more to fund their activities. If only the government would spend more on those of means. Tragically, she was hit by crime, and now her house feels like a fortress; nobody’s response seems to contemplate the need to identify and look after mental health in this instance. She also knows Christopher, from just a few weeks ago on the other side of the country. Now she’s here and she’s coming back in to hear the same speech, and to ask him the last question of the night.

Christopher goes into his response at no rush at all. At some point he flags for us that he’s coming to his closing remarks, without ever breaking up his speech or going through the obligatory “sorry I couldn’t get through all your questions”. He shouts out again a favourite theme of his he never bothers to elaborate on: though he portrays a lot of problems, we’re a country with great potential to solve them. Then, having left us to produce our own, mystical faith in the ability of our country to course-correct, he’s out and Hamish is apologising that not everybody got to ask questions, offering to send any to him as though that’s a substitute. Nobody tries to ask any of us to sign up with National at the door.

I came out more confident than ever that Luxon is going to win this election, because he speaks exactly to what these people want to hear. On reflection, it’s going to be close, because Luxon does not notice so many things that ordinary people will, and if he thinks his image is being needled now, it will sting when he comes more and more into contact with ordinary reality. After his dogwhistling to one kind of New Zealander instead of a bosun’s call to all of us, I am more confident than ever that neither he nor Campbell will get my vote.

We don’t have pick up outside - dad couldn’t be bothered coming out on a cold night, and it’s for the best; the car park is full. Tanya texts the boss back, then we start making our way back in the dark. This time we cut straight back home through the park, under the trees.

We get back home into a cozy house, where the gas fire makes for a beautiful sight and an embracing air. We begin our usual evening ritual, flicking on Better Call Saul. We watch a rampage - young people in beanies and jackets converting money into drugs and drugs into money, smashing a car window with a baseball bat, bursting into a gas station and back out, waking up from the bender and resolving to do it all again.

And a permissive, slimy officer of authority, with a wink and a smile, lets them know that they can shrug off their responsibilities and do it all again.

Dad speaks first: “That’s what the world has come to these days.”