Luxon Strikes Out.

The PM offers no answers or accountability.

I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.

Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good questions and knows her craft. But Anna can do something that neither of the other two can do. She can look at the person she’s interviewing, steal them in her gaze, and leave them with no uncertainty that she is not going to take any more of their crap.

Think Jacinda Ardern responding to Mark Richardson when he asked about her plans for motherhood. That same look of disapproval and the unmistakable message that someone needs to do better. Much better.

So I figured I’d check out Anna’s interview with the Prime Minister this morning. Fresh from his high energy tour of SE Asia, returning to survey the damage his team have done in his absence. Bit of a rough welcome really. He must’ve looked around the place when he got back and asked himself - have we been burgled?

Bungled might be a better word Christopher, but lets see what Anna has to say.

She began by saying that Three Strikes was back, for a second time, with a few tweaks, for example it now applies to crimes with at least a two year sentence, but little detail. Politely suggesting that the PM might cast some light on it, considering the bill hasn’t even been drafted yet.

Seemed unlikely to me based on all the other interviews he’s done, but hey, perhaps this was the day that he’d put aside the corporate buzzwords, the meaningless waffle he uses to fill air time, and actually say something with meaning.

Can I just reassure any concerned readers that I hadn’t been drinking, my optimism was of a glass half full, not a multitude of empty ones.

Anna was saying things like “no evidence”, Luxon looked thrown momentarily at being questioned. Then he smiled and began to speak as if someone had pulled his chain and one of his prepared statement-slogans started to spill from his smirk.

“Let’s be clear, we’re a government, that’s focussed on restoring law and order, it’s one of the three big things we’ve got to do, there’s a suite of activity we’ve been undertaking, and this is one of them.”

I couldn’t help thinking, really? That’s quite a bold claim considering what you did just yesterday…

The party of law and order are cutting roles that include “workers from teams dealing with child exploitation, money laundering and counter terrorism.” I don’t know Christopher, that kind of sounds like the front line of keeping law and order to me.

Besides which, if you’re so big on law and order how come you’ve sorted out three billion dollars in tax cuts for those with lots of properties, but you can’t settle the police pay dispute? Seems like your priorities are there loud and clear, but they’re not the ones you say they are.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins actually agreed with that assessment, that with Luxon as PM we were sending a message that NZ was “open for business”.

Hipkins said the government had “hung out a great big 'open for business' sign to money launderers, to those who are involved in organised crime, those who would seek to bring drugs and illegal tobacco into New Zealand” by making these cuts.