Heather du Plessis-Allan: Luxon's right to skip some sessions with the Press Gallery

Heather du Plessis-Allan Drive

As you might have heard earlier, the Prime Minister is copping a bit of flak because he’s going to cut one of his regular media opportunities on Tuesdays from here on in.
It's been a convention for years now that the Prime Minister stops on the way to Parliament’s Question Time on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday if he's there and he'll let the Press Gallery ask him questions. That's now going to stop on Tuesday.
Now, the Press Gallery are trying to convince him to change his mind and they've gone public with it - and I suspect that's probably to put a bit of pressure on him.
But I think they're going to struggle to get any sympathy on this, and I'll tell you why.

Let me run you through his media appearances on weeks when Parliament is sitting:

Monday afternoon at 4pm, he's at the Post-Cabinet press conference letting the Gallery ask him questions. Tuesday morning from 7am, he does a round of media interviews with Mike Hosking and other breakfast programmes across radio and TV.

Later on Tuesday morning, he stops on his way into the caucus meeting to let the Press Gallery ask him questions. On Tuesday afternoon just before 2pm, he stops again.

Wednesday afternoon, he stops on his way into the House to speak to the Press Gallery. And on the rare occasion he's in on a Thursday, he stops for the Press Gallery again.

Plus, he's there for any other press conference that he might call during the week to announce some Government initiative.

That's a lot of media to be doing across a week. It's a lot more than you get from other world leaders. Just look at Biden, his press conferences are fronted by his spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre.
This is very different to Jacinda Ardern dropping her media interviews, because the kind of interviews she dropped were the hard ones. You know, the ones with Mike Hosking - arguably the best interviewer in the country - or with Q+A and Newshub Nation which were long format interviews, which means they get difficult.

Or, as you might recall, refusing to take talkback calls because that’s awkward and unpredictable and uncomfortable.

That's different to just seeing the Press Gallery one fewer time in the space of 72 hours.
What is it that the Press Gallery wants to ask on a Tuesday afternoon that they couldn't have asked on a Tuesday morning or a Wednesday afternoon?

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