One of the reasons former Prime Minister Rob Muldoon (who served from 1975 to 1984, while leader of the National Party) remained so popular was his remarkable sensitivity to public outrage. When something happened to make conservative New Zealanders (and that’s still most of us) say “What the heck!”, a lacerating public quip from New Zealand’s most populist prime minister since Richard Seddon (who served for 13 years from 1893) was seldom far behind.

Informed that record numbers of New Zealanders were emigrating to Australia, Muldoon dryly observed that those departing would raise the IQ of both nations. Not all of his remarks were quite so witty. In the midst of his no-holds-barred 1975 campaign to oust Labour’s Bill Rowling from the prime minister’s office, Muldoon told a hall filled with what would soon come to be known as “Rob’s Mob”, that he had seen the shivers running all over his opponent’s body “looking for a spine to crawl up”. How they cheered.

Another example of Muldoon’s populist style was occasioned by the Third Labour Government’s decision to ban cats from the local dairy. The policy outraged cat lovers and dairy owners in equal measure, prompting Muldoon to promise that the moggies would be let back in the moment he became prime minister.

In one of the world’s great cat-loving nations, the Opposition leader’s comeback could easily be dismissed as a political no-brainer. But Muldoon understood instinctively that when people heard about something that didn’t seem quite right, they needed to hear their leaders confirm that it actually wasn’t quite right. Not only did such responses reassure them that their own political instincts were sound, but they also confirmed that the politician endorsing their intuitions was a true "man of the people" – one of them.

Perhaps the most impressive example of Muldoon taking steps to reassure New Zealanders that their perception that something wasn’t quite right was, in fact, correct, is to be found in his response to the convictions of Arthur Allan Thomas. The brilliant forensic journalism of Pat Booth and David Yallop had convinced a significant number of New Zealanders (including their prime minister) that Thomas’ convictions for the murder of Jeanette and Harvey Crewe were unsafe. To the utter consternation of the police and the judiciary, Muldoon secured a vice-regal pardon for the twice-convicted man. Evading a by now hostile New Zealand establishment, Muldoon found an independent Australian judge to chair a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the case. This duly confirmed the public’s worst fears that, in “an unspeakable outrage”, Thomas had been fitted up by the cops. In 1980, Thomas was awarded just shy of a million dollars by way of compensation.

In spite of being carried to electoral victory on a populist wave, Christopher Luxon has yet to display any evidence of Muldoon’s readiness to confirm the voters’ perceptions that something’s not quite right. Certainly, he has yet to demonstrate any special talent for recognising in apparently small events all the elements of much wider public concerns – and giving those concerns the prime ministerial seal of approval.

The US President Theodore Roosevelt often referred to his office as “a bully pulpit” (“bully” being a colloquial term for “excellent” in early 20th-century America) and used it with considerable success to rouse the conscience of the American people. Being Prime Minister of New Zealand similarly offers multiple opportunities to reaffirm the general public’s understanding of what is right – and what is not. Luxon needs to seize these opportunities with both hands.

Take, for example, the incident which took place earlier this week at the New World supermarket in Ōtaki. An elderly woman, wearing a T-shirt testifying to the reality of biological sex differences – “Men aren’t women, even if you squint” – incurred the wrath of a transgender member of the Ōtaki New World staff, who allegedly prevailed upon the supermarket manager to eject the elderly shopper and have her trespassed from the only supermarket in the small Kāpiti Coast town.

Thanks to the power of social media, the treatment of this shopper (and her alleged treatment of the trans staff member) threatens to become a cause celebre for both sides of the transgender issue. It is highly probable, however, that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders reject the notion that an elderly woman can be justifiably ejected from, and banned from returning to, a supermarket for wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with a forthright political message.

The Bill of Rights Act guarantees to all New Zealanders the right to free expression. What’s more, it is illegal to withhold goods and services from individuals on account of their political beliefs – just as it is on account of their religious beliefs and/or ethnicity. It is precisely these much larger and politically vital issues that make the Ōtaki incident a suitable subject for prime ministerial comment.

While reaffirming that all citizens, regardless of their station in life, are entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect, Luxon should also reaffirm emphatically the individual’s right to give voice to their opinions – or have them printed on a T-shirt – even if, by doing so, those opinions strike other citizens as wrong and/or offensive. He should take the opportunity to remind us all that there is no legal right to shut down speech that does not contravene the law. There is no right NOT to be offended.

Luxon should also address the elements of the Ōtaki incident that have angered and alarmed so many New Zealanders. That a supermarket has arrogated to itself the right to determine what may – and may not – be communicated to staff and customers on its premises. He should make it very clear that it is not the function of retail outlets to double as the nation’s censors, and that if they make a habit of doing so, then National and its coalition partners, Act and NZ First, will quite happily do something about it.

Those New Zealanders angered by Ōtaki New World’s actions will, of course, exercise their legal right to protest peacefully outside its property and encourage Ōtakians to purchase their groceries elsewhere. Entirely unsurprisingly, the manufacturers of the offending T-shirts have experienced a sharp uptick in demand for their merchandise. Doubtless, the owners of the New World brand will be tasked with calculating the upside – and downside – of Ōtaki New World’s unusually robust defence of trans rights.

In this regard, they would be greatly assisted by a prime ministerial comment from Luxon. As New Zealand’s political leader, it is his duty to reassure his fellow citizens that, no, they are not going mad. That it is still perfectly reasonable for a person to wear a political T-shirt in the local supermarket without suffering the hurt and humiliation of being escorted off the premises for doing so.

Certainly, Rob Muldoon would have left them in no doubt.