Analysis: Rumour and innuendo over dinosaurs has seen a new low for the campaign, writes 1News political reporter Felix Desmarais.
It’s the final week of the 2023 election campaign and Christopher Luxon is talking about dinosaurs.
It’s not by choice — it was spurred on by a query by comedian Guy Williams, based on a rumour.
The rumour goes that National leader Luxon, while chief executive, blocked an Air New Zealand in-flight safety video based around dinosaurs from production because he didn’t believe in them.
Luxon has clarified he does believe dinosaurs existed and that the rumour about the in-flight safety video is rubbish.
It may have been a genuine (comedy) question from Williams, but the question of it soon proliferated, unironically it appears, from left-leaning social media accounts.
The inference from many of those was clear and it was mischievous — that because Luxon is religious he doesn’t believe in dinosaurs.
What a miserable state of affairs.
By all means criticise and critique politicians for their policies — and there’s always room for light-hearted questions to politicians — but that undertone shows that some think grasping at rumour and innuendo is a reasonable response to poor polling.
New Zealand deserves better.
There does appear to be an increasing desperation from the left, not seen since 2008. Facing poll after poll showing a right-leaning government is more likely than not, in this past week many online have been pointing out how small percentage swings will make a difference to the outcome. It’s true, they will. It is a close election. Tonight’s 1News Verian poll attests to that, as well as confirming the flight of many voters to minor parties.
Today, Luxon laughed about the dinosaur distraction but he seemed frustrated also that it had become part of the discourse while New Zealand was facing some real issues.
He’s correct on that point. But it’s been a campaign so full of negativity and finger-pointing, without much vision or inspiration from either major party one can hardly blame a comedian — and some of the public — for wanting to spark it up with a pterodactyl or two.
It’s the reason why Luxon has coasted on decent poll numbers but never been able to capitalise on what he calls a mood for change.
Out on the campaign trail, that does appear to be the prevailing feeling among the hoi polloi, but he’s hardly convinced the masses to flock to National. We can see that in the neck-and-neck preferred prime minister stakes, which has Labour leader Chris Hipkins and Luxon on 25% each.
If Luxon becomes prime minister after Saturday, he may well convince more people in the following three years. But he hasn’t swung the dial for National enough to keep it safe for his “preferred” coalition deal with ACT alone. He's probably going to have to pick up the phone and call Winston Peters.
Hipkins has performed similarly with less fortunate baseline circumstances. In walkabouts this week, he appeared to hit the kind of energy that would best befit the first week of a campaign.
At a walkabout in Auckland's Commercial Bay, it was as though he’d just remembered he was one of two people vying to become the prime minister. He bounded up to every person who made fleeting eye contact with him, and seemed in high spirits. It may be too little too late.
Both major parties have rolled out the policy but nothing has gripped the nation for anything more than a 24-hour news cycle at best. The prevailing political conversation in the final weeks of the campaign has been Labour and National swiping about supposed holes in their respective fiscal plans.
None of it illuminates the public, it’s just bickering. No hearts and minds, just heads in hands.
Whether fiscal plans stack up or not is incredibly important. But this campaign’s to and fro has surely reiterated the argument for why an independent body to provide advice to the public on that is so sorely needed.
An independent policy costing authority was floated in the last term but it was on ice by December 2021 due to a lack of political consensus. Some — mostly National — argued such a body could undermine the Opposition’s role. Labour was broadly supportive of it, so it will be interesting to see if that switches should Labour enter opposition.
But done well it could, quite possibly, separate the huff from the puff. Without that noise this election, perhaps we would have heard a captivating vision from either major party.
Then again, some politicians quite like the sound of their own roar.
SHARE ME