An absolute circus is one way to describe David Seymour’s Treaty Principles Bill.

Or you could say that the thousands at Parliament today to protest against it is what democracy is all about.

Either way, if you want to point a finger at anyone for creating this shambles, don’t point it at David Seymour. Point it at Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

Who kept telling us last year how much of an expert he was at negotiations. Mergers and acquisitions was what it was all about. And, as we know with negotiations, it often means all parties doing a bit of give and take to get something across the line.

But for someone who likes to go-on about his real-world business experience, it amazes me that he’s created this shambles by acting in a way that no chief executive would. More on that shortly.

But I reckon people are thinking less about Christopher Luxon’s negotiation skills and more about his leadership skills right now. And I bet he is ruing the day that he agreed to include this sham in his coalition agreement with David Seymour.

I also bet he is losing a lot of people’s respect. He’ll know that. If he doesn’t, then someone needs to tell him. His MPs won’t say so, but I bet he’s losing a lot of their respect, as well.

It’s obvious. You talk to pretty much any National MP about the Treaty Principles Bill and they’ll shuffle uncomfortably in their seat. They’ll look away. They’ll say “oh yes, but not past the first reading” blah blah blah.

They’ll try not to let it show in their face. But look into their eyes, and you can see the dread.

That’s because they are embarrassed to be associated with this thing. And they have every right to be embarrassed when you consider that it was only agreed to, to get a deal across the line. Agreed to in a way which means it’s not actually going to go anywhere.

All it’s going to do is give David Seymour a platform for the next election.

Now before you start saying “hold on a minute, hold on a minute - it was only the other week mate that you were saying that we —as a country— seem to be incapable of discussing this sort of thing without it turning into a bunfight."

Yes I did say that. I wasn’t saying I supported the Bill, I was saying that, despite how advanced we think we might be as a society, when push comes to shove, we are incapable of having this “national discussion” that the pointy heads like to bang on about without it turning to custard.

And we’re seeing that play out today. Which Christopher Luxon knew would happen. He would have known full well that there’d be people who would go nuts over it.

But he went with it and, as a result, his leadership is looking weaker by the day.

Because if he had approached his negotiations with David Seymour in a way you would expect a seasoned chief executive to, then he would have done what any chief executive worth their salt does and determine whether a deal is going to do good things or bad things for the interests of the company.

The best chief executives —and I’m talking the absolute best of the best— what they do, is they base all of their decisions on what’s best for the business or organisation that they lead. And, if they're really good, that can sometimes mean making decisions that might even see them lose their job.

I’ll let you decide whether the company, in this case, is the National Party or the country. But this deal with Seymour isn’t good for his party and it isn’t good for the country.

And, if Christopher Luxon is the leader he claims to be, then he needs to show some genuine leadership —some genuine backbone— and use his business skills to get us out of this mess.

If he doesn’t, he will be toast. He will be toast as far as his MPs are concerned and he’ll be toast as far as the majority of voters are concerned.

Because, if he did do what I’m saying he needs to do, then I would respect him infinitely more than I will if he does nothing. If he keeps on with this charade, if he keeps on banging on about how unhelpful the Bill is, how divisive it is.

Keeps on trotting out that nonsense, and then sticks with the plan.

I don’t care about his leadership experience until I see some genuine leadership in the here-and-now. To get us out of this treaty principles mess.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you’ve got solar panels on the roof, you’ll be loving the blue skies.

And a solar energy advocate is saying today that those of us who don’t should be getting financial support from the Government.

Mike Casey says New Zealand is one of the few western countries that doesn’t provide subsidies for solar energy. He says, in Australia, people can get subsidies to convert to solar and - guess what - more of them have. Way more.

I think this is brilliant thinking - but not necessarily a brilliant idea. Because, if we could do all that magic wand stuff - which we can’t - but if we could, I’d say yep - Government subsidies for anyone and everyone.

But there’s no magic wand and so we can’t. So I reckon there should be Government support to get solar into all new builds.

I was talking to someone who, as they put it, went down the solar panel rabbit hole - in that they looked into it. But they just came to the same conclusion that I think most of us have - and still do - and that’s that the numbers just don’t stack up.

You can spend the money getting the panels on the roof, but it’ll take you years before the savings in electricity costs justify the spend.

But getting more and more people onto solar energy is a much more realistic way for the Government - and I’m not just talking about the current Government, but all Governments - it’s a much more realistic way of trying to get those power costs down.

Because what other options are there? The Government of the day can thump the table and tell the power companies to stop ripping us off.

But that’s rarely worked with the supermarkets. So as if thumping the table is going to work with the power companies.

The other option up the Government’s sleeve is restructuring the electricity market. But when do you think we’re going to see that happen?

I was reading a history of New Zealand’s electricity reforms back in the 80s and 90s and it took about four years for those reforms to happen. So any changes the Government wants to make to the current electricity market is going to take a fair amount of time, isn’t it?

So, if it wants to, the Government can do that. But I think it needs to be looking for some quick-wins at the same time. And subsidised solar conversion would be a quick win. Because, like anything in life, if you focus on the things you can actually influence - then that’s when you start to make progress.

And providing taxpayer support to get solar power happening more widely, then that would be something the Government could make happen as soon as it wanted to.

There are about two million occupied homes in New Zealand and around 60,000 of them have solar panels.

It took New Zealand more than seven years to get 30,000 houses with solar. The other 30,000 took three years. And so now we’ve got 60,000. Which is about 3 percent of houses connected to the national grid.

Compare that to Australia, which heavily subsidised solar, simplified the installation process, and invested in workforce training for installers and the general figure is about 35 percent (compared to our 3 percent).

In many neighbourhoods in Australia, though, 50 percent of houses have solar panels. In some, as many as 80 percent. Thanks to government subsidies.

Which our Government could bring in today, if it wanted to.

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.