She is a life member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. This is a transcript of the Premium Politics newsletter. To sign up, click here , select Premium Politics Briefing and save your preferences. For a step-by-step guide, click here. Ukraine and Russia will dominate the official programme, but it will be a good opportunity for Luxon to press the flesh of the other leaders β including perhaps a newly hatched British PM, Sir Keir Starmer, after what seems certain to be a landslide victory.
Luxon has a strong interest in United States politics, so will also be keen to meet with US politicians β Republican and Democrat β to get the vibe there, especially after that debate between former president Donald Trump and President Joe Biden. There will without doubt be a fair bit of chatter in private among them all about what the potential return of Trump might mean for Nato and the other countries β but Luxon will have to be diplomatic about his views on how that contest might shape up.
Yes, Labour is still in the post-loss stage known as the year of listening. It means that wherever Hipkins goes, he tells people he is listening. Too often politicians only listen to those they want to hear from. The guest speaker at the Labour caucus retreat was not exactly a Labour luvvie. It was Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. In wooing Auckland, Hipkins has two disadvantages.
First, he is not an Aucklander, whereas his political rivals Christopher Luxon, David Seymour and Winston Peters are with a bit of Northland mixed in for the latter. Hipkins is also closely associated with the second reason he gave for Labour losing the election: Covid National will now have to get support from the Opposition to get the bill passed. And with his Emergency Management hat on, Mitchell went back to Wairoa to announce a quick review would be done on the management of the Wairoa River bar after Wairoa mayor Craig Little accused the regional council of delaying too long in getting diggers in to open the bar ahead of the rain last week.
Politicians alternated between loving them and loathing them, but they delivered an edge and unpredictability that unnerved a succession of political leaders and kept the rest of us on our toes.
