Stuff: If Luxon's looking for a new direction, he could start by investing in our kids

Read the original article on Stuff.

Imagine if, one day soon, Christopher Luxon stood up and announced: “I’d shave $1 billion off the cost of Super – and spend it all on early childhood education.”

I’m not saying I think he’ll definitely do that. But it’s the kind of option that’ll be in the mix as National’s new leader contemplates where he wants to take his party and, potentially, the nation.

Although elections aren’t usually won or lost on specific policies, the public does want what the British comedy The Thick of It called “a policy flavour”: a rough sense of the set of ideas Luxon would implement if he became prime minister. (In the show, the term is used satirically, but it works in a serious sense, too.)

Even centre-right commentators have noticed that National needs new ideas as it tries to define what it is to be a conservative party in the 21st century. Columnist Matthew Hooton has lamented the lack of fresh thinking on display. Pollster David Farrar wants the party to advance a new vision for why government exists.

Several paths are open to Luxon. He could focus less on specific ideas and more on ‘’ability to deliver’’ characteristics like competence, openness and national ambition. But although that would highlight Labour’s Achilles heel when it comes to delivery, a John Key 2.0 approach just isn’t enough these days.

Politics seems darker, the conflicts more pointed, the dangers more menacing. Luxon has to offer some way to unpick the twisted knot of widened wealth inequality, global pandemics and climate change.

New National leader Christopher Luxon, with deputy Nicola Willis, has promised to be “ambitious for New Zealand”. What that means remains to be seen.

Speaking of conflicts: Luxon could of course lean into the culture wars that American right-wingers love so much, and with which Judith Collins flirted. And superficially there would be material to work with here.

Although three-quarters of voters recently surveyed by pollster Michael Ashcroft supported legalising abortion and assisted dying, 51 per cent believed the Government “has done too much to recognise Māori rights” and just 47 per cent thought that “somebody who identifies as a woman is a woman regardless of biological sex”.

But quite apart from the morally repugnant stances that a culture-war campaign would require, it’s unlikely to work. As Ashcroft – himself a centre-right figure – has argued, “There is no mileage for the right in trying to politicise questions like transgender rights, which voters from all parties [say] they consider a private matter of personal decency and social acceptance. Launching any kind of ‘war on woke’ by putting such cultural questions at the forefront of party political debate would be regarded as horrifyingly American and met with distaste.”

Former National leader Bill English talked of social investment – identifying which government programmes have the greatest collective impact, and directing money their way. That’s one option for Luxon to revive, writes Max Rashbrooke.

Another approach would be for Luxon to turn libertarian, slashing taxes and the size of the state. But there’s little public appetite for a hard right shift – especially post-coronavirus, now we’ve all seen government save the economy from meltdown.

As Farrar argues, New Zealanders may spend the next decade feeling “much more positive about a big state than they have in the past”. That forces National to think about repurposing government, not hacking it back. “You need to be able to advocate an alternative vision of government – a smarter government, a more agile government, a tech-friendly government.”

Luxon has already hinted he might revive Bill English’s social investment approach, describing it as “another thought that we need to be able to bring to life”. Social investment is, at its simplest, an attempt to identify which government programmes have the greatest collective impact, and direct spending their way.

It got a bad name because of the brutal way that Paula Bennett, in particular, tried to implement it, but at its core is, in fact, a recognition of the immense, rippling-out benefits created by social spending on schools, hospitals and the like.

Max Rashbrooke: “Rather than an imported culture war or vacuous lines about being ‘ambitious for New Zealand’, I want a proper contest of ideas and scrutiny over public spending.”

Hence this column’s opening pitch. Luxon could, as the economist Susan St John proposes, increase the tax rate paid by wealthy superannuitants who are still in work, shaving $1 billion from New Zealand Super without harming anyone’s well-being or provoking howls of protest about means-testing.

He could then invest the money in transforming the life chances of the youngest, most vulnerable New Zealanders, through stronger early childhood education and related schemes. This approach would play to National’s image as careful economic managers and force Labour to work harder to justify its spending decisions. Indeed, it would show up the current nebulousness of the Government’s much-touted ‘’well-being’’ agenda.

I’m not saying I’d endorse this approach, exactly – or that National would care either way. Luxon has to attend to what will win him power. My interests are wider. Rather than an imported culture war or vacuous lines about being ‘’ambitious for New Zealand’’, I want a proper contest of ideas and scrutiny over public spending.

Maybe I’m being naive; politics is a dirty business, after all. But it doesn’t seem like too much to ask.