Shutting up shop

As an export-dependent nation, we are at risk as global conditions result in a worldwide move towards greater insularity.

- JANE CLIFTON

Clearly no one has explained to Christopher Luxon the “togs, togs, undies” gradation that applies to politicians once they clear Customs abroad.

However massive and valid one’s catalogue of complaints about New Zealand may be, it must be strictly stashed with one’s duty-free purchases and not opened again until repatriation. “Snark, snark, gush” might be the best way to shorthand it.

Bagging one’s country overseas is not a great audition piece for someone wanting to become its next prime minister. What the opposition leader has said, both in a London speech and a newspaper think piece, was perfectly fair comment: that New Zealanders have become fearful and inward-looking, and that our businesses had become “soft” after government support through the pandemic. His approach to the world stage is certainly a bracing antidote to that of Jacinda Ardern, which can cause result in biliousness, as she is fan-bombed by other countries’ politicians who are unaware of how her stocks have plummeted back home.

But Luxon’s observations are unlikely to win National extra votes, and they add to a list of tactless remarks that threaten to become his hallmark.

Describing his career speciality as being fi xing “struggling businesses” – having helmed at Unilever Canada and Air New Zealand – was definitely a bit much. And his edict that public transport should be viable without a state subsidy – an idyll that may never have been achieved anywhere in the world – betrayed a staggering lack of basic general knowledge.