Ryan Bridge: Buckle up Luxon's going rogue
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Christopher Luxon's going rogue.
The risk when making constitutional policy pronouncements 92 days out from an election, blindsiding your colleagues and diverting attention from your key messaging, is that you look erratic.
At best, voters might see this as a distraction play. They might see this as a means to regain the oxygen.
But it's not something anyone's actually asking for.
The top seven things' voters care about, in the latest Ipsos poll, are as follows. In order.
Inflation - 62%.
Health 38%
Economy 34%
Housing, unemployment, poverty, petrol.
Guess what's NOT in the top 20? MMP.
The twentieth line item is defence/foreign affairs/terrorism at 2%.
So, two-fifths of bugger all people want him to be talking about the electoral system.
It's like somebody putting Creed on the jukebox and wondering why everyone stops dancing.
It's a big call. It's risky business.
The problems are two-fold.
One. It'll never happen because It's not even National's policy and even it if it was, won't get support from other parties to pass. Not being able to do what you say want to do, when you're the Prime Minister, could be seen as weakness.
Two. And most importantly. You risk pissing off your co-workers. They looked a mix of confused, bewildered and frustrated yesterday.
They've now spent an entire week walking back and explaining things their boss is saying in public. There are 2mre weeks till advance voting opens.
The polling companies will be on the blower today and if there's no MMP bump, or a dip, the rogue agent may yet be put out on the cold.
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