Luxon needs to grow into the Budget
Comment: Sometimes it takes a circuit-breaker; a trip to the other side of the world to clear your head, re-energise, and gear up for a big moment.
The past couple of weeks, during a longer-than-usual, three-week parliamentary recess, Christopher Luxon has been overseas, pressing the flesh with world leaders. This is where he appears most comfortable; you're often good at what you like.
Earlier in the year, India offered a similar pleasant escape from the domestic turmoil of an exploding school lunch programme, the resignation of minister Andrew Bayly, and some sub-par poll results.
Then too, he looked more at ease alongside the leader of the most populous nation on earth, than back home answering questions on domestic policies and personal blunders.
While away, Luxon and India PM Narendra Modi announced the start of free trade talks. He rubbed shoulders with the business community and spoke about how to harness export growth to make New Zealand a more prosperous country.
Luxon was in his element.
When he returned to New Zealand, he was on a high. Polling was up, trade was on his mind. Then domestic politics took hold – again.
By the end of that sitting block of Parliament, Luxon was answering for the contentious Treaty Principles Bill, as it came up for its second reading. It seems he couldn't escape soon enough.
On the morning the bill was debated for the final time the PM delivered a speech to the Wellington Chamber of Commerce about trade and the possibilities of expanding CPTPP membership to counter Donald Trump's tariffs.
By that afternoon, Luxon was in Auckland making calls to leaders in the Indo-Pacific and beyond; his vision of taking a leadership role in countering the global trade war was starting to take shape.
It wasn't long before he was off to the UK to spend a notable six hours with PM Keir Starmer, where the two spoke about how like-minded countries could bolster the existing rules-based order. Then they inspected their combined military prowess at a training site for Ukrainian forces.
On Monday, Luxon returned to the Beehive, once again riding the high of a successful overseas tour. And he will do well to harness that positive energy as he looks to sell his Government's tricky second Budget to the country. But he will need to start talking about more than global affairs.
Last week, his finance minister did the hard bit; she lowered expectations.
In her pre-Budget speech, Nicola Willis made clear to voters there would not only be no lolly scramble, they would barely get a suck of the lollipop – new spending would be almost halved to $1.3 billion.
Now that's out of the way, the stage is set for Luxon to set the scene for a Budget that focuses on economic growth. It's his chance to explain why he thinks his focus areas will make voters' lives better.
On Monday, with the Budget a little over two weeks away, he used his first post-Cabinet press conference of this parliamentary sitting block to draw attention to the Government's exploits on the world stage.
'I cannot overstate how important trade and investment is to this country,' he said.
Luxon talked about promoting trade as one of the five pillars of his Government's growth plan, the one-in-four jobs that rely on export markets, and how supporting businesses to 'expand, invest and create jobs will help grow the economy'.
'As we so often say, we can't get rich selling to ourselves.'
Luxon has labelled this the Growth Budget – a return to his 'go for growth' mantra.
'Economic growth means Kiwis have money in their pockets, and we can fund better public services,' Luxon said on Monday.
Budgets are lines of figures and projections, engulfed by communications plans geared towards highlighting the good bits and suppressing the unenviable tough decisions all governments have to make.
But they also lay bare the decisions administrations make that affect ordinary people's lives.
As Labour leader Chris Hipkins said on Monday: 'New Zealanders want to see hope. I think they want to see commitment to investment in health, education and housing. I think they want to see a government that's focused on getting people back to work and making sure that work pays.'
Both leaders picked up on the difficult times everyday New Zealanders continue to face, years on from the first Covid-19 lockdowns. It's that feeling that Luxon needs to respond to.
The PM has returned seemingly taking comfort from the wins of incumbents in Australia, Canada and Singapore (just don't mention the Trump effect).
A fortnight is a long time in politics, but if Luxon and his crew can harness that positive energy he should be able to go into this tricky second Budget with confidence.
As much as he believes a strong rules-based system that under-pins increased trade is vital to ensuring economic growth and prosperity back home, and that tit-for-tat tariffs hurt everyday people, trade talk won't be enough to win hearts and minds as Kiwis brace for another grim winter.
He will need to do more than sell the importance of that global story to New Zealand; Luxon needs to sprinkle this pre-Budget time with promises in core areas like education and health if he is to create a sense of hope and expectation ahead of May 22.
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