Competing photo ops

Claire Trevett writes:

As Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern gazed around Shackleton’s hut in Antarctic on Thursday and reflected on Ernest Shackleton’s leadership style, she quipped: “I don’t think I can quite compare government with the hardship and endurance of Antarctic exploration. But some days …”

It was only half a joke.

On the same day Ardern was reflecting on her childhood hero, Shackleton, the man who poses the greatest risk to ending those days in government was reflecting on his own apparent childhood hero – Ronald McDonald.

National’s leader, Christopher Luxon, popped into the Merivale McDonald’s where he had worked at a school student.

After slapping mustard onto some buns and pouring a soft-serve, he waxed lyrical about the value of a first job at McDonalds and what it had taught him. …

None of this fazed National at all. The point of the Maccas visit was to highlight to people that Luxon came from humble-ish beginnings and worked his way up from when he was 15.

I think one of the best things you can do for kids is to have them do part-time work while at school. It teaches the value of work, thrift and saving. While at intermediate school I did a paper run (sometimes three), and then at age 14 worked nights and Saturday mornings at Woolworths.

The Luxon photo op, to me, worked well as that reminder of him coming from relatively humble beginnings, and it contrasted well with Ardern being in Antarctica (which I have no problem with, but the timing during a cost of living crisis is unfortunate).