Josie joined Heather du Plessis-Allan and Trish Sherson on the Huddle to discuss the government's plan to ban social media for under-16s, and Labour's new election slogan.

Both sides have their cultural passwords. The right signifies membership with an ethnic nationalism that waves flags and blames immigrants and foreign governments for economic pressure. The left responds with its own shrill culture war, instead of advances like improving voters’ incomes, health care, security and education. Sure, you may support wealth taxes, as I do. But if taxes are your solution then we also know that you probably rank climate change as a higher priority and we also know your position on Gaza and whether you call the Treaty “Te Tiriti”.

The rituals, language and priorities of the culture war displace the concerns of everyday families about the cost of groceries, power, insurance, mortgages.

The uber rich are lucky in their opponents. Most of us pay our taxes in exchange for having our children educated, our illnesses treated and our homes kept safe. Instead of a plan for those, political parties switch to cultural differences. The Greens oppose data centres. Labour opposes energy security. Opportunity wanted to try 25-year-olds in youth courts. Te Pati Maori supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Voters want rid of culture wars. They want an economic model that doesn’t treat them like unfortunate but unavoidable roadkill.

Josie's Post column is here.

Josie, Trish and Heather react to National's leadership challenge.

On current polls, around 16 National MPs will be out.

If they don’t lose electorate seats, then Nicola Willis and Speaker Gerry Brownlee could be at risk because they are running on the party list, and Chris Bishop needs a list place. For them to be re-elected, they need National to lose electorates. So senior members of the National team have an interest in sitting National MPs losing seats.

Like desperate punters taking ever longer shots to recover their losses, backbenchers will be telling themselves that Christopher Luxon can turn things around. Nothing in public opinion polls supports the case. The public have made up our mind about the Prime Minister. His high negatives are locked in and placing a hard cap on National’s support.

National’s own strategists know he is a drag on the ticket. Local MP flyers usually feature the party leader’s picture alongside messages from the candidate and bullet points of policy wins. Luxon does not appear on the leaflets I have seen. On a drive across the countryside, National’s billboards bang on about tax, Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori. They do not mention National or the PM. He may not have noticed this, as those hoardings are hard to see from the window of an Air Force plane.

Which brings us to the other problem: the daily blunder.

Josie weighs in on The Post.

Josie joined the Huddle on Newstalk ZB to discuss a poll of polls and National's bad political week.

I have heard about a poll that shows three-quarters of us rank the cost of living in our top three issues. But the other quarter don’t rank it in their top 10. We call that slice of society “breakfast radio hosts.” Luxon has put himself on their team.
You can tell that his strategy team know he is a liability because he is not exactly prominent on National’s billboards. There’s only one reason for leaving the leader out of your pitch to voters.

The problem with Luxon is not his personality. It’s tempting to assume that leaders who repeatedly put their foot in their mouth have hidden depths that haven’t yet been revealed. Tempting but usually wrong.

When business was Fifa-flopping, Luxon made an apology he didn’t mean for a statement he didn’t really regret. He could have held to principle. Sure, businesses are struggling but for National, the way out of the darkness isn’t government handouts. I am old enough to remember when business would preach to the rest of us the soul-cleansing virtue of self-reliance and self-respect. They used to say the market should solve our problems. Now? Now the queues of lobbyists out the Beehive door are longer than the queues for food banks and social housing. Every dollar that goes from government to a Rotorua business is a dollar that isn’t going to a hip operation, a child’s reading lesson, or a cop preventing a ram raid. That makes a high bar for helping businesses.

Luxon didn’t say any of that. He caved.

https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/361058286/make-change-national-or-country-will

Josie joined Phil O'Reilly and Andrew Dickens on the Huddle. The Migrant Association is under fire for their stunt where they guillotined an effigy of Winston Peters.