Chicken Luxon.
In the case of the missing nuggets.
So Christopher Luxon (CL), the Chicken Little of the campaign who has been telling anyone with a TV camera that the sky is falling, has now become a little chicken.
Poor old Chippy got the Covid, like a lot of Kiwis have before. Like most of us Chris tried not to let anyone down. He had an important debate that he couldn’t attend, but no matter, he did the same as any of us would do. He tried to arrange to have someone else fill in for him, or failing that to reschedule. Fair enough.
The problem is that CL doesn’t really want to have a debate. There are some big questions that he’d be asked, which he didn’t want to answer. Awkward questions on the size of the holes in his fiscal plan, or the missing revenue in his tax plan.
Given the impossibility of maintaining public services, while slashing the funding of them to pay for tax cuts, people would want to know just how much austerity his government was planning. And why on earth would he want to stand in front of the nation and answer that?
That’s before you even get into the whole coalition discussion and how he’d have to pretend that Seymour and Winston will play together nicely in one big happy centre-right coalition. A very broad church, ranging from far right neoliberalism to old fashioned conservatism, with the only thing binding them all together being a shared dislike of Māori aspirations or of doing anything about climate change.
So presented with some alternatives CL said yeah nah. Can’t do it. Maybe you could get my deputy to debate their deputy instead. Not the deputy PM mind you, I don’t want Carmel, she is definitely not what we’re looking for. Nope not Robertson, sure Nicola and Grant are the best ones to answer most of the questions but after that Jack Tame interview we’re not allowed to mention Grant’s name around her, or Jack’s name either.
No I want that quiet guy Kelvin, he isn’t a confident debater and he’s Māori - so that seems like a win/win and a great chance for Nikki to get her mojo back.
Oh, Labour won’t agree, well I’m afraid I’m busy on the other nights. Yes, all the other nights between now and the election. That particular night? Hang on I’ll check. Turns out I’m washing my hair, so sorry. Oh, and can I just say - take all the time you need Prime Minister.
It’s easy to see why, at this stage in the campaign, CL would prefer not to answer questions about coalitions, or Winston Peters, or National’s faith based fiscal plans.
But the problem that this sudden shortage of nuggets for the fight gives CL is that the nation won’t be receiving the well crafted, professionally planned, soundbites he would be loaded up with prior to a debate. The answers to these questions will be provided in Thursday’s minor parties debate by the headless chickens in his would-be coalition - and who knows what they’ll say!
Yes, in the absence of Chippy vs Chicken III the voices that the public will most hear, in this first week of voting, are those of the other leaders in TVNZ’s debate hosted by Jack Tame.
So instead of it being CL looking into the camera and explaining to the nation that his coalition will work. It’ll be Winston Peters and David Seymour demonstrating to the country just what a CL coalition would look like. But, I hear you say, it’s just a minor leaders debate, do you think people will actually watch?
Tame vs Winston II? Just days after Winston essentially threatened Tame that he was going to become the Minister of Broadcasting just so he could sack Jack? I rather think they might.
