The Prime Minister’s spin doctor Hamish Rutherford used to a lot of fun. We were Twitter buddies back when he was working at The Dominion (later Fairfax); then he went to the NZ Herald as Wellington Business editor, for a wider circulation/better job security (ha!), I guess. There I noticed his tone got more and more trenchant, and quite often anti-(then)-Labour government. He was, as noted, supposedly a Business Editor, but often slid out of his lane into political commentary – and seemed (to me) to favour the Nats.
Maybe he was auditioning?
None of us were particularly surprised when he went to work for the (then) Leader of the Opposition, a newbie MP who apparently “used to run an airline” called Luxon – as his press secretary.
I mean look, it’s not just Luxon’s latest (yesterday) “Well, I’m entitled to the entitlement” blunder :
Remember the ‘Sure, my wife (cough) has a Tesla, and yeah, we claimed the Clean Car Rebate for it, and yeah, now I want the taxpayer to buy another Tesla for me to use.”
It’s really like Luxon is accident-prone, and poor Hamish is part of the clean-up crew.
But this tone-deafness isn’t a new thing with Luxon. Remember the gaucheness of Luxon’s Hawaii holiday belies Te Puke social media post? RNZ:
While he was away, [in Hawaii] a video was posted on his Facebook page where he claimed to be in Te Puke visiting businesses.
In it, he spoke about provincial towns being the backbone of New Zealand.
“Today I’m in Te Puke, the heart of kiwifruit country, and what a great morning we’ve had today,” it started.
Luxon had in fact been to Te Puke the previous week, and had been on holiday when the post was made. He denied the post was misleading.
“Yes, I was on leave last week with my family. I went to Hawaii with my family, as I tend to do in July,” he said.
Now don’t misunderstand me. I don’t feel sorry for Hamish Rutherford nor any of his no-doubt well-rewarded fellow press secretaries & media minder colleagues. No, not a bit. Cleaning up can be lucrative. “Where’s there’s muck there’s brass” as the old saying goes.
But it seems to me Hamish used to have more joie de vivre when he was a simple reporter/editor/bureau chief.
–P
PS And he’s obviously far too flat-out busy cleaning up/clarifying Luxon’s missteps to even update his LinkedIn profile.
Update: Will you look at the state of this guy? Poor Hamish hasn’t even got Luxon’s ear:
“He said talkback hosts […] had changed his mind”. (PM Christopher Luxon’s allowance saga raises questions about politician entitlements – Stuff)
Oh dear me.
