John MacDonald: Seymour is the fly in Luxon's ointment

Whenever people used to bang on about Christopher Luxon being the next John Key —which, I think we all agree now, he isn’t— but whenever I used to hear that talk, I pooed-pooed it.   All because of what the two of them did before they got into politics.   And the fact that Luxon isn’t another John Key is why we’ve got two new political polls telling us that, if an election was held now, the left-wing parties would have enough votes and enough seats to form a government.   Because his political leadership is invisible. Particularly, in relation to his handling of ACT leader David Seymour.    Seymour is running rings around the Prime Minister and voters are seeing it a mile off.  Which is why last night’s 1News-Verian poll had National down 3% to a 34% share of the vote and Labour up 4% to 33%.   Overall, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would have 60 seats (not enough to form a government) and Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori would have 61 seats (enough to form a government).   And Seymour is the reason. Or more to the point, Luxon’s reluctance to thump the table publicly is the reason.  Before Sir John Key got into politics, he’d been a financial trader. Christopher Luxon, before he got into politics, was a chief executive.  So, what’s the significance of that? Traders thrive on chaos and chief executives avoid chaos at all cost.   Chief executives are like ducks on the water. They like it to look as if everything’s going smoothly, nothing to see here, but underneath the water their legs are going flat out.   And being a former chief executive, that’s how Christopher Luxon is handling David Seymour —“nothing to see hear, nothing to see here”— and that’s why we have two poll results telling us that, if an election was held now, the National/ACT/NZ First coalition would be out the door.   And he was treading water again on Newstalk ZB this morning when Mike Hosking asked him what he could do about Seymour – whether he could actually sack him from Cabinet.   For trying to drive the land rover up the steps at parliament yesterday but, more significantly, doing that stupid thing where he wrote a letter to the police on behalf of Philip Polkinghorne before he was accused of killing his wife and, subsequently, found not guilty.   The PM was saying he didn’t have time to think about David Seymour and it’s natural for minor coalition partners to seek media attention, despite the fact that Seymour has got into a public spat with the Prime Minister over the letter he wrote to the police.   When the PM was asked yesterday about Seymour writing to the police, he said it was “ill advised”. Straight away, Seymour fired back in a media interview saying, “before criticising a local MP for doing their job, you should know all the facts”.   I reckon more and more people are looking at Luxon and thinking “when are you going to tell him to pull his head in?”    Especially when you consider that, in a few months time, Seymour will be Deputy Prime Minister.   Luxon’s approach might be appropriate for the corporate world, but, as the numbers are showing, it’s not the way to handle things in the political world.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.