but outshone by Chris Hipkins
ANALYSIS: The annual trek to Rātana was a contrast of Chrises: believing different things and making different points, while also having different objectives from the day.
For Christopher Luxon it was mission accomplished, although not particularly well. One of the things that he will have to work on is the fact that a lot of his speeches sound either like a basic stump speech with ‘insert name/sector/audience here’ or they come across as some sort of politics 101 primer.
His speech at Rātana was a bit of both, a staid explanation of how National believes in equality of opportunity, not outcomes. That’s all well and good, but Rātana is a politically aware audience.
His main objective was, however, achieved. He was there to emphasise the fact that National did not support co-governance before also explaining that was because New Zealand had one government and so on. And he made clear that while delivering service to and lifting Māori up was of great importance to him, doing it through co-governance arrangements was not how the Nats would do it.
Link to video and article: Rātana mission complete for Christopher Luxon, but outshone by Chris Hipkins | Stuff.co.nz
