Not a good start, Todd

When Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, he soon realised it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. There was a vote in the Commons about whether the UK could crash out of Europe without a deal. Boris did not win. "Not a good start, Boris" rang out a voice from the backbenchers. And for the first few months those five words seemed to define Boris' reign.

"Not a good start, Todd" would be a fair refrain for how Muller has begun as leader of National.

In an earlier piece, I'd managed to get three days view of Muller and he had delivered a compentent, yet dull speech but then become tangled up in a MAGA hat issue that he had on display in his office. 

On his first sitting day as Leader of the Opposition, Todd started off by saying the MAGA hat would not be on display in his new office, which is in direct contradiction to what this Todd Muller had said to Kristin Hall from TVNZ - he told her the hat would definitely be on display and she could come back and test him.

It would seem he'd fail that test.

Worse was to come for Todd that day when his all white front bench was revealed, except according to deputy Nikki Kaye, Paul Goldsmith was of Ngāti Porou descent. But he wasn't. It spawned the greatest news package I've ever seen done by Tova O'Brien as she hung a series of National MPs out to dry and showed the chaos and disorganisation on display.

Watch it. Watch it many times. I know I have. It is iconic.

It was a complete shambles. But it was his first day as leader so maybe better was to come. Except it wasn't. Interview after interview revealed that Todd had put great thought into the coup, but almost no thought into what would come next. 

He'd attack the government over not having an economic plan, then incredulous journalists would ask what National's plan was and he'd bluster and become the wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man, as he tried to explain that National didn't really have one either. What.

Then there was question time which virtually nobody watches. It's suppose to be high drama and theatre, instead Todd has decided to take a very workmanlike approach to it - or as Stuff reporter Collette Devlin noted, a David Shearer-like "inquisitorial approach". I'm not sure that anybody wants to be compared to David Shearer, except David Cunliffe.

Then the Herald trolled Muller, doing an article asking former Leaders of the Opposition why it was such a hard job. They asked Don Brash, and I'm never keen on giving that old racist a platform, but Brash did offer up his thoughts on the all white National Front bench:

 "My reaction to that is, 'So what?' There are no Asians on the front bench either. He shouldn't be the least bit defensive about that."

Because of course he thinks that.

They also talked to David Cunliffe, in fact the Herald went so far as to say that:

"In some ways, Cunliffe's time in the job is similar to the position Muller finds himself in at the moment."

Oooof.

I don't believe anyone asked opposition leaders why their job was so hard when Simon became leader; so it seems that the media has already decided that Muller is just a bit shit.

Then yesterday there was finally a policy! $10,000 for every business that hires someone and keeps them for 90 days. Because don't forget National wants to reimplement the 90 day probationary period that this Government got rid of for all but organisations with fewer than 20 people.

It was pointed out to the National that you could just fire someone today and then rehire them and boom! Money. In response a party spokesperson said:

We have several months to design robust rules to defeat any rorting of the scheme.

Except the next day the new message became National wanting the Government to pick up this policy and work in a bipartisan approach just to make sure New Zealand gets the best it can. Which is so transparently political. It's National trying desperately not to be Simon Bridges' National; it's saying "oh yeah we'll work with the Government, because we're not just here for fighting."

Except it all just feels a bit on the hoof. This policy was pushed out the door on a Friday of a long weekend. Not a great time for announcements. It must have become clear to National's team that they needed something so they put some rubbish together and rushed it. It was all very underwhelming.

The other response to the question of firing and hiring was that:

We trust Kiwi business people to do the right thing. If circumstances change, they’d need to notify the reasons, but would be given a fair hearing.

Which is precisely the opposite approach that National take to beneficiaries. Why are business owners to be trusted not to rort a system? But beneficiaries have to jump through hoops all the fucking time and aren't trusted "to do the right thing", but rather are viewed with suspicion that they're trying to screw us out of a measly $250 per week?

The other problem that Muller has is that he is boring. And hey, maybe that's not an issue to you and good for you. But it is an issue to a lot of people. When delivering a policy we want to feel hopeful and inspired by it. Instead when Muller spoke we felt bored. It was a ho hum delivery of a ho hum policy.

When I spoke to a right-leaning journalist after the speech he said "policy is fine but unremarkable. If National was at 20 per cent chance of winning before, they're at 15 per cent now."

Not a good start, Todd.