Good on Chris Luxon for ditching his regular spot on Breakfast. That’s from Tina.
I disagree with Tina. I don’t think Chris Luxon should have given up on Breakfast the way he has, pulling out of his weekly slot. I mean, obviously it’s his prerogative to do it.
And the truth is, in New Zealand—and in our media—we actually have more access to our Prime Ministers than in many other countries. Loads of other Prime Ministers—think Australia—do not take the number of questions after news conferences that Chris Luxon does. They don’t turn up to news conferences as often as he does, or as Jacinda did, or Helen did, or John Key did.
In some countries, like Canada, you can go a very long time between drinks when it comes to hearing from the Prime Minister.
The truth is, Chris Luxon isn’t good at media interviews. A lot of the trouble he’s faced has come from stuffing them up.
You had Tova with the “how many Māori ministers do you have?” stuff-up recently. You had Mike Hosking last year with the “will you or will you not have fired Andrew Bayly?” stuff-up. And then there was the “I don’t know how to be any clearer with you guys” bollocks from earlier this year.
There’s just a long list of mistakes he’s made in media interviews. So if he’s not good in media interviews, on balance, he’s probably better off not doing them—especially in an election year.
The trouble is, people will see this for what it is: that he’s running scared. Or, as Mike Hosking once said of Jacinda when she didn’t want to appear on his show, running for the hills.
He’s trying to get away from situations he can’t handle very well and those situations are media interviews. And by the way, it’s not just Tova O’Brien on Breakfast—it’s Jack Tame on Q+A as well, both on TVNZ.
Now, I don’t think he can credibly blame the Maiki Sherman door-knocking situation or the Benedict Collins perceived bias for this. These are different programmes. That’s the press gallery reporting to One News; this is TVNZ Breakfast. They’re different.
But I don’t think people are going to care. And I say this having analysed the situation: most people out there just don’t care. They hate the media, so they’re going to say, “Fair enough.”
But this is what Jacinda started. When she did it, I said, watch this, this will start a thing and it will happen all over the place afterwards.
And if you didn’t like Jacinda doing it, then you have to hold the same standard. You can’t hate what Jacinda did and then love what Chris Luxon has done.
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