Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics: How can Luxon sell NZ, if he can’t sell himself?

Greg Dixon’s Another Kind of Politics is a weekly, mostly satirical column on politics that appears on listener.co.nz on Friday mornings.

Like a scatty Labrador, Christopher Luxon always seems happiest when he’s off the leash and running around outside chasing something. So he must be giddy with excitement that he’s getting out of the House once again this weekend so he can dash about with his tongue hanging out pursuing a free-trade deal in India. Good boy! Now bring it back to master!

No doubt he’ll be relieved to have four days away from exploding school lunches, dire poll results and the (surely) creeping fear that he might be leading a coalition destined to be a one-term government.

But that won’t be what’s buoying the Prime Minister the most. It will be that he’s going to be in his happy place: being a bobbing salesman trying to sell something to someone on their doorstep.

When Luxon took office, much was made by some of the political commentariat that he would be a “CEO Prime Minister”. What was meant by this, I gather, is that having spent three decades in trade, Luxon was expected to approach running the country like a steely-eyed CEO -- that he was a bold corporate titan who would use his enormous business acumen to lead us all into the sunny uplands of balanced books, record export receipts and prosperity for all.

Disappointingly, Luxon has instead looked more like Chris from Sales, who, when not apologising for selling you an exploding lunch, sweatily dashes hither and thither trying to flog a dead horse called Brand New Zealand.

His “trade delegations” -- a rather flash description for what amounts to cold calling potential customers -- have thus far achieved nothing of real substance, though his endless tiki tours have reminded one of a backpacker aimlessly bumming his way around Asia.

Luxon’s passport now has stamps from South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Japan and Vietnam as he’s flitted about searching for new trade opportunities.

Now Chris from Sales is adding India to his list in the hope he can make good on his wildly optimistic, pre-election (and pre-Trump) promise of getting a free-trade deal with India sorted by the 2026 election. This after manning a stall at his two-day “Investment Summit 2025″ this week. As an event, the summit sounded pretty much like the government was putting out a begging bowl, with Chris from Sales and his ministers pleading their case to passing international investors, hoping they’ll throw a few coins at us so we can build infrastructure we apparently can’t afford to pay for ourselves.