The press pack pressure a reluctant Luxon on day one as PM-elect. Photo: screenshot / TVNZ 1 News
Our new political leaders got off on the wrong foot this week, with the political press pack by keeping them at arm's length over their negotiations to from the new government. Was this a genuine media freedom issue with the interests of the public at stake? Or just a bit of collective posturing to pressure the politicians?
"This is what we've been reduced to," said RNZ’s deputy political editor Chris Bramwell in 2017, alongside a photo of Press Gallery colleagues pressed up against a Beehive garage door trying to get a peek at who was coming or going.
Political reporters peeking for clues through a garage door in the Beehive. Photo: PHOTO / RNZ Chris Bramwell
Back then, political reporters doorstepped politicians to ask who would be dealing with whom to form a government after the election - and tracked their movements for hints about what might be going on behind closed doors.
"Soon the monarch butterfly will emerge," New Zealand First MP Shane Jones told a media scrum that formed around him on one of those days. RNZ’s political reporter (now deputy editor) Craig McCulloch turned the saga into a children’s story.
At the time, former political editor turned lawyer Linda Clark said the press pack's pursuit of the politicians was driven by FOMO - fear of missing out - rather than the need to know. Others said it felt like 1996 all over again - and the 43 days spent ‘waiting for Winston’ after the first MMP election.
“If there was radio silence, people would be asking what was going on. This is actually MMP and how it works in action," Bramwell told Mediawatch in 2017, defending the media's stakeout tactics.
"In 1996, they probably had one deadline a day. This time there was more information and more transparency about when things were going to happen," she said.
Now in 2023 - history is repeating.
Last Thursday, the political press pack was again badgering the New Zealand First leader at Wellington's airport with questions that he didn't even acknowledge, let alone answer. TVNZ put a video of it up on YouTube marking each of the 27 futile requests.
New Zealand First went into a select committee room at Parliament but more media questions were shut down by the party's president and TV cameras were banned from an area where they’re usually allowed.
“No rhetoric to share, but there's the equivalent of loaves and fishes, guys,” MP Shane Jones told Newshub's crew with an offer of pastries - six years almost to the day since he last treated political reporters fishing for post-election clues with bible verse references.
This time New Zealand First isn't picking the party to lead the next government, but the price to pay for its support is something that the public wants to know.
The morning after the polls closed last Sunday, Winston Peters made a point of saying promises made during the election campaign are “not worth confetti."
On Monday the media weren't happy to hear the incoming Prime Minister tell them not to expect too much from him.
“We're not going to be negotiating that through the media. And you probably won't get a lot of comment from me about that,” Christopher Luxon said bluntly.
But in the same media conference he said he'd already been talking to partner parties.
“He keeps talking about these ‘parlour games’ that the media likes to play, which is terrifically offensive. Christopher Luxon - If you're listening - it's actually called reporting the news to the New Zealand public,” said Newstalk ZB political editor Jason Walls to ZB listeners that afternoon.
Ahead of the first post-election caucus meeting the next day, the incoming Prime Minister stuck to his guns.
Railing against 'reckons'
“I've read a lot of punditry and commentators over my two-and-a-half to three years in politics. Often it's often very wrong. Again, I'm not interested in too many people's reckons,” Luxon told reporters.
One way not to be wrong with the ‘reckons’ is to get the right stuff from the horse's mouth.
But you can lead the incoming Prime Minister to a media conference, but you can't make them talk.
Luxon was adamant that democracy and the media's role in it would not be diminished by that.
“You've got a very important role to play as media, I fully respect that. And I want to have a strong positive relationship because I think it's very important - but I’ve got a different approach,” he insisted.
But if that approach is: ‘don't approach me yet about something we're discussing behind closed doors’ - it's never going to wash with the media.
On his news site for subscribers, veteran political editor Richard Harman had reported that National’s relationship with New Zealand First had not got off to a great start.
He said the incoming Prime Minister “was understood to have offered Winston Peters the role of speaker” to lock in New Zealand First’s support.
Politik reported Winston Peters as saying: “Do I look like I'd be interested in the Speaker's job?”
The next day Harman wrote that National was trying to keep the negotiations as quiet as possible.
At that fraught media conference on Tuesday, Richard Harman himself asked Christopher Luxon if he was insisting that other parties in coalition talks must not talk to the media either.
“I think the leaders of those parties will actually want to work together . . . rather than do it through the media,” he responded.
If the allied parties want time to talk amongst themselves in private before briefing the media isn't that fair enough? And maybe even in the public interest?
Harman has covered every MMP election and the configuring of coalitions that have followed.
“We've seen some rather pointless stuff at the airport this week, doorstopping politicians coming into Wellington and trying to get some sort of negotiating position from them,” Harman told Mediawatch.
“They're highly unlikely to tell you if they've got one. And they're even more unlikely to tell you while they're at Wellington airport. What you've got to do in a situation like this is trying to get behind those closed doors metaphorically - and work contact to try and find out what's really going on,” he said.
“I don't think we've ever had a situation where a leader has come out and held a press conference and said: ‘This is what we discussed today and these were the positions.’ But in 2017, the National Party organisation was very keen to find out what was going on in the talks because they were concerned that particularly Steven Joyce might be willing to make too many concessions to Winston Peters,” he recalled.
“Luxon ... does not have sovereignty over Act or New Zealand First. They can make their own minds up who they talk to,” he said.
“Prime ministers are always going to set rules for their engagement with the media. But there's no law that says the Press Gallery has to follow them. I think (Luxon) has unrealistic ideas about how government formation talks work, because he talks about them as if they were a merger or acquisition. They're not,” he said.
Are reporters demanding comment and transparency from Luxon really seeking to find out about coalition talks? Or trying to impress upon him from day one that he shouldn’t can't keep media at arm's length like this?
“In the (election) campaign I've observed a growing impatience with Luxon. There's a frustration with his insistence on just not answering questions. Really, he just pushes talking points all the time. And he seems to regard his meeting with journalists, as if he were meeting with the advertising department,” Harman told Mediawatch.
“I don't think he's going to have a particularly good relationship with the press gallery - but he's not the first prime minister to be in that situation,” he said.
“What Mr Luxon is going to have to get used to is that every political party in parliament leaks. I'm absolutely certain that once they start firing public servants, the Public Service will start leaking as well. He can't control any of those things,” he said.
