A couple of days ago the Dominion-Post cartoonist portrayed an air steward addressing two passengers, they shown reading a newspaper with the heading, “Ex-Air NZ boss parachutes into adoring National Party.” The steward is quoted saying, “If reading about the deification of Mr Luxon by the National Party is making you feel unwell Sir, then please use the sick bag.”
That message couldn’t be more inaccurate. Neither the public nor National Party members have been guilty of this deification silliness, rather it’s been solely political journalists.
New Zealand is a quiet country in which nothing much happens. That’s tough on journalists who as a result must “create” most of their “stories.” That’s specially true of political journalists.
Luxon simply had the good luck to manage Air NZ during the best boom years in global commercial aviation history. His departure was opportune as commercial aviation-wise, things are now becoming much tougher.
Under his reign, Air NZ was an absolute disgrace. It’s unbelievably infantile safety videos, price gouging, abandonment of the provinces, appalling incessant intercom babbling by the pilots and coffee-girls, all made it in my fairly extensive travel experience, the world’s worst airline.
That aside his principal credential seems to be John Key’s backing. Do you remember him?
From the moment Luxon indicated a future political career, the print media have been relentless in promoting him as a future Prime Minister. Why for God’s sake?
Politics is a bloody tough activity, specially in the upper echelons. In particular Christopher, who may be a perfectly nice fellow (the happy-clappy sky-baying stuff is a worry, though) will learn a cruel truth about New Zealand’s political media.
Bandwagon climbing, they love to build new political faces-then boom- a small mis-step and they begin a destructive pack hunting to destroy him or her. There’s a long history of this behaviour.
The perfectly human mis-step will be inevitable, unless Luxon’s a Martian, whereupon the first “Luxon’s promise seen as hollow” article will appear to the background tee-heeing from Judith and other leadership hopefuls.