Former Prime Minister Sir Bill English has some advice for Prime Minister-designate Christopher Luxon: ‘It’s not a business, okay”.

English made the remarks, in jest, on the Sharesies Shared Lunch podcast, made with BusinessDesk.

Luxon has a long history in the corporate world before coming to politics, most notably at Air New Zealand, and is often parodied for his occasionally unnatural, management consultant vocabulary.

Asked for one piece of advice for Luxon, English said it was to remember the Government was not a business.

 “It’s not a business okay,” he said, going on to say that Luxon appeared to have already learned this lesson.

“What I really like about Chris Luxon is how quickly he’s learned that. He’s only had the shortest time ever to learn it,” English said.

English had other advice for the incoming government, including to remember that the “customer” for a minister’s work is not an official in a ministry, but the wider public. He warned against being captured by the public service.

He said the new government should challenge the way the public service works.

 “Why is that going to take six weeks? Why do you need to write 15-page reports when we’ve already made a decision?” English said.

Prime Minister designate Christopher Luxon greets his caucus colleagues after speaking to media at Parliament. Photo / George Heard

English appeared hopeful negotiations with Act and NZ First would go well for National, a nod to the 2017 election when NZ First and Winston Peters decided to form a government with Labour.

“Winston Peters is now negotiating with a National party that has no history with him. That makes for a clearer air than in the past,” English said. In 2017, many members of the National caucus, including English himself, had a long history with Peters.

The second difference between these negotiations and 2017 is that Peters had been clear he would not go with Labour, English said, meaning he was only negotiating with one side.

English said negotiations would mean the agenda “trimmed somewhat” because no single party had enough to govern alone, however he considered National’s tax promises “non-negotiable” and thought National’s promise of a mini-Budget was plausible.

He believed the three leaders, Luxon, Peters and Act’s David Seymour “have a pretty good understanding between them of the kinds of things the Government wants to see changed”.

“There’s an underlying coherence there that won’t be negotiated,” he said.

English warned Luxon to not get “overly legalistic around the coalition positions up front.

“They’ll get times and space to do a lot more than they have done now… We’re not hearing tub-thumping about bottom-lines that are going to wreck the coalition process,” he said.

English warned the next term of Government would be tough, as the tailwinds that had traditionally propped up the New Zealand economy, like consumer demand from China, were now disappearing.

Thomas Coughlan is Deputy Political Editor and covers politics from Parliament. He has worked for the Herald since 2021 and has worked in the press gallery since 2018.