Kate Hawkesby: Labour trying to make the most out of Roe v Wade debate

No one in the history of spin has spun more than this current Government, which is why I find it so ironic that Grant Roberston’s accused Chris Luxon of ‘political spin’ when it comes to the party’s views on Roe v Wade being overturned.  
Pot, kettle. 
What Luxon did, was clarify the party’s position, after a personal statement was made by one of his MPs who clearly momentarily forgot that he's part of a bigger machine than just himself. Simon O’Connor maybe should've kept his celebratory Facebook post between him and his nearest and dearest, and remembered that he doesn’t speak for his whole party. 
It does of course suit a left leaning government – and media for that matter, and their agenda, to cast Luxon as some sort of Trump 2.0 and look to whip up a storm over this.  
Which is why Nicola Willis looks like the only politician speaking any sense at the moment. 
She said this whole thing is an attempt by the Government to import American style culture wars into our politics and it's needless fear mongering to whip up anxiety. 
This is what this Government does best, I guess. It’s also an ideal distraction from all the areas they’re failing on, from all the bad press and bad polling they’ve been having, from their weakness on healthcare, crime, gangs and a flailing economy.  
So, for a rogue backbencher MP from the Nats to royally put his foot in it by making some dumb statement, well the timing could not be better for an under fire government to capitalise on it. There is a firestorm of emotion being whipped up all over the world by the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision. So, what better thing to latch onto to maximise political panic at home, than this. 
The inference being of course from Robertson et al, that the Nats will overturn our country’s abortion laws. But Luxon’s already said that won’t happen, it’s off the table, not on their agenda. So, where’s the scandal? Well according to Robertson, ‘Luxon’s hiding his real feelings and is in overdrive spinning’. Well, Robertson would know what that looks like I guess. 
Luxon has been very definitive abortion law will not be revisited under his watch, but Robertson doesn’t think he’s been definitive enough. Does this ring any bells? Not definitive enough… Remember when Grant Robertson had to admit he’d been “too definitive” when he ruled out changes to the bright-line test just before the election? So maybe Grant’s just got a different scale to the rest of us of what 'definitive' means.  
Either way, if the Government’s looking to beat up the Nats as some kind of anti-abortion law party, while they may get traction among their own sympathisers, most of us can see what’s really going on here.  
And don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to have a crack at the National party if they ever did look to back track on this, but you have to weigh up the integrity of the people you’re dealing with, the trust you have in them and whether or not you believe they’ll keep their word.  
On that score, I’d say Grant, bright line test, and ‘too definitive’ is all you need to know there.

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