Luxon's Breakfast.

"You can't have a tax cut without breaking a few eggs."

The Prime Minister elect had his silver fern badge on. He wore it to remind viewers he was supporting New Zealand, that was his team. Despite the fact it made him look like a concierge, or a welcomer in a Koru lounge.

Anna Burns-Francis, the Breakfast presenter, asked if he felt a bit daunted having the top role, after just one term as an MP?

He looked a bit mystified by the word daunted. It wasn’t as if he was taking on any ministerial responsibilities himself. He was going to be the boss and rate the others on their performance. Then he realised he had to stop thinking, because the presenter was still talking.

She was asking why it was such a priority to insist the english name of government departments came first, and how was it going to improve the lives of New Zealanders, given that many Kiwis were used to the te Reo name now.

“We listened to voters and they said the Māori names were confusing, so we’re going to put the english names first. We’re focussed on the things that matter most to New Zealanders”, he replied.

She continued, “I’m just wondering how this was weighted in terms of how vitally important it was, given that we have such sticky inflation, that people cannot afford to put gas in the car, they can’t even afford to buy all the groceries they want to at the supermarket. A whole generation is realising they can’t own a home, and we’re worried about something we’re all quite used to?”

Luxon looked bemused. Who were these people that didn’t own a home? What, not even one extra house? Where did they go when the first one was being renovated? More to the point what was he supposed to say? “Those other problems are really hard to solve so we’re getting rid of the Māori names, it’s all about runs on the board”?

Instead he made a big show of saying he personally was quite happy with the names. Which made me wonder, if the whitest man in New Zealand politics, with the mono-cultural past and present he clearly has, can make an attempt at pronouncing names in the language of the first people of this country, then why not other National voters?

Perhaps even ACT voters one day? Meanwhile Anna had moved on to the next soundbite. She was asking, can you afford the tax cuts? At least he knew how to answer that one.

He moved the stylus above the track which said “we have promised New Zealand tax relief, and that is what we will deliver,” and prepared to lower it. But Anna was still talking.

“When the payoff is that you repeal Smokefree legislation and we have an entire generation that will keep smoking, that has an ongoing cost. Can you actually as a country afford to make the cuts that you need to to give people a really small tax cut for the next year or two?”

Mr Luxon looked mystified, he didn’t smoke why should he care? Good grief it was bad enough asking him about signs in te Reo, it wasn’t like he was Māori. Why did these reporters keep asking him about things he obviously didn’t give a stuff about?

What was he supposed to say? Shouldn’t she be praising him for finding a high calibre Māori medical professional so willing to throw his constituents under a bus? Hmm, he wondered if he should just repeat what the good doctor had said.

“The cigarette thing is brilliant; with no foreign buyer tax, keeping people smoking for longer will fill the fiscal hole to give landlords a sweetheart deal and a modest tax cut for the wealthy.

The vice tax take is large, and lung cancer also saves money for the health system as it's usually so quick. More smoking will also save masses of money in Old Age Pension they won't have to pay.”*

* Please note, Dr “Cigi” Reti didn’t actually say that, it was Chris Bishop**

** Ok, it wasn’t Bishop either, it was my friend Simon.

Luxon didn’t say that, he completely ignored Smokefree and starting talking about how they were getting rid of the first year of tertiary study being free instead. How they were not proceeding with the Working For Families changes, that provided most of the benefit to lower income households, they had advertised prior to the election.

You know a policy is pretty grim when they start babbling about cuts to education and canning promised gains for struggling families rather than talk about it. Best to ignore the mortician in the room, people were talking about this enough already.

Some people had been giving poor old Dr Shane quite a hard time.

Anna wasn’t easily distracted by his non answer. Oh good grief, and now she was going to quote his own words back at him. He hated when that happened.

“In 2019 you said that when one in four people in this country die from cancer associated with smoking, I think it’s something we should all be committed to addressing and doing something about. Why would you u-turn on that?”

Luxon replied with utter nonsense about the risk to shop owners if there were fewer shops selling tobacco. Completely ignoring the fact that selling cigarettes was the problem for dairies in the first place and if they just stopped selling them they might not end up with Luxon, Seymour, service station flowers, and a camera, turning up outside their shops.

He then claimed the Smokefree legislation would lead to a huge black market problem, without any evidence, and that it’d be absurd that one day a 36 year old would be allowed to smoke but a 35 year old wouldn’t be. I thought - maybe ask the 35 year old’s family, or doctor - they might say something other than “absurd”, perhaps something like “thank bloody christ for that”.

I don’t often watch Breakfast, but I was warming to Anna, she wasn’t letting him off with that nonsense. Poor old Christopher must have been wondering where Jenny-May was, she wouldn’t give him a hard time.

“But just to clarify, you need the revenue right?”, she asked, sidestepping the steaming manure that had been delivered.

Luxon blathered about there being revenue from lots of measures. Really? Like what? You’ve lost the income from foreign buyers, what are these streams of revenue? He wasn’t saying they were reversing Smokefree and didn’t even need the money, was he? I couldn’t work out whether that would make what they’re doing worse, or not.

Mostly though he just talked about tax relief and completely ignored the health consequences of what he was doing. As if he didn’t even care. Unfortunately for him it seemed like Anna cared, or at least figured viewers might. Besides, the election was over - what was the harm in asking a tough question now?

“Nicola Willis was asked yesterday how many more people will die because of the decision to repeal this smoke free legislation. How many people will that be Mr Luxon?”, Anna asked, in a surprisingly upbeat tone.

Christopher didn’t give a number, or even indicate whether he, Nicola, and Dr Reti had discussed one. He trotted out the same ridiculous answers about dairies, black markets, and 35 year old non-smokers.

Anna wasn’t giving up and asked if he would be increasing the health budget to cater for the growing number of people that will have health problems because they still smoke. Luxon looked annoyed and started to play with his ear piece as if he couldn’t hear. Or perhaps he was waiting for instructions.

He looked quite angry actually, and started using words like “rest assured”. Which is a phrase he uses to indicate that he means the words that follow even less than the rest of what he’s said, and it’d be better if we could just go ahead and believe him.

If you didn’t see it what followed was the same speech he gave on the campaign trail about improving health and education. Not with specifics, more as something that was conceptually good and pressed the right buttons with voters. Seriously dude, put the campaign speeches away - you’re in charge now, like really, not hypothetically.

Anna asked how mini the mini budget would be. I was getting serious Dr Evil from Austin Powers vibes. So Luxon started singing from Nicola Willis’s songsheet. You can expect to hear this one on high repeat in coming weeks…

“It’ll be a disaster”, “more hidden surprises”, he started to rant. Talking about the upcoming Treasury briefing that he hadn’t had, not his pro-smoking agenda, or in fact Nicola’s plans.

Anna said “hopefully you’ve got a bit more of a plan than just waiting for those numbers, what have you got for those on low incomes, or the squeezed middle, what’s their Christmas gift in the mini budget?”

Again he started saying things like - “financial surprises”, “useless and hopeless at running the economy”, and “given their incompetence”. He meant Labour - who he’ll be blaming for everything for years to come.

But I definitely had visions of Nicola in front of a white board, having drawn a nearly completed hangman. Bishop asks if the solution is “cull the poor”. Nicola glares at him, and stands aside to reveal the partially solved problem, “__ll the poor”.

Bishop asks if the first word is “sell”, Nicola smirks and says “if that was the case, who’s going to buy all those cigarettes?”

They both laugh.

Always loved Cold Chisel, this track takes me back a few decades..