Hard-working New Zealanders who pay only passing attention to the news may have gained the impression lately that the Fourth Estate has a self-appointed duty to remove the prime minister from office, without an election. Sure, the arithmetic shows that ten or more National MPs could lose their seats, if an election were held today, and opinion polls show that Christopher Luxon is not a popular leader, but how close is the PM to walking the plank?
The story is everything, and this one has many authors.
On Friday, senior National Party MPs moved to assure the public that “there is no coup” after The NZ Herald’s Thomas Coughlan detected some precursor coup-like activities. Mr Luxon, later that day, tried to reassure reporters that he has the support of his caucus. Saying it just once wasn’t enough, however – the media pack prodded him aggressively to elicit any sign of weakness, like a bunch of unruly sans culottes.
Ordinary Kiwis may be worried about the energy crisis and the cost of living, but the press gallery, along with some unnamed MPs, wanted to dispatch the country’s prime minister to the guillotine. By Friday afternoon, however, all that political editors RNZ’s Jo Moir and Stuff’s Jenna Lynch could offer their readers were musings from the Wellington whisper-mill – and no bald head on a plate.
Newstalk ZB’s Heather du Plessis-Allan, however, wasn’t only declaring that Luxon go, she was calling for a snap election. Before things get even worse, “replace Chris Luxon with someone else and call an early election”, she insisted, as if it were up to her. In her Sunday column she backed Mark Mitchell as interim PM to take the fall.
Realistically, things are not looking grand for National. On Thursday, another published poll (by Talbot Mills) had National in that uncomfortable sub-30 zone, this time on 29%. More remarkable was NZ First on 15%, which is higher than their best-ever election result (13.35% in 1996).
On Friday, Luxon used the polls to argue that his three-party coalition would be returned to office if an election happened today. But Sunday’s 1News Verian poll didn’t support that idea, as it projected only 58 seats for Luxon’s coalition as against 66 for a Labour/Green/TPM government. (NB: that was only one poll, and it assumed TPM would win 6 seats, for an overhang of 4, which is highly unlikely).
Replacing Luxon has risks, however:
National lacks an alternative figure whose leadership capital is rising, as Ardern’s was in July 2017.
The change may not turn the tide of public opinion. As Labour found in 2023, a leadership change may be followed by a temporary boost in polls (and a weather emergency helps too), but then you lose anyway. A snap election to try to capitalise on a new prime minister’s “honeymoon” (if he or she gets one) can backfire if voters smell a rat. Just ask the UK’s Theresa May.
National’s poor polling is not just down to Luxon, it’s also thanks to Winston Peters whose party has been gaining at National’s expense. And Peters regards coalition agreements in personal terms, signed between leaders. A leadership spill in National betrays the trust embodied in the coalition deal and hands a rhetorical advantage to Peters. He could use that against National on the hustings, regardless of whom they put in place of Luxon.
If National do switch leaders, they need someone who rises above the populist style of Winston Peters, the man who’s stealing their voters (never mind Hipkins). It’s not hard to figure out how to beat a populist, but does any National MP have the personality to pull it off? Chris Bishop, for instance, lacks the necessary gravitas and style.
The political recipe that starts with “First, find a great leader” hasn’t worked for National since John Key’s time. But great leaders, unlike the “tyrants” that Pope Leo XIV spoke about recently, seem to be in short supply.
As for the Labour Party, their major asset at the moment is their opponent, the incumbent prime minister, Christopher Luxon, whose approval ratings are solidly net-negative. Labour can just sit back and watch their lead widen over National, for the time being.
National could be heading downhill closer to that dismal election result of 25.6% they suffered in 2020 when Labour hammered them – although that, of course, was an exceptional year. It’s unlikely, then, that we’ll ever look back on the 2026 election and say that Labour got hammered when voters rewarded National for a sterling effort in response to the energy crisis.
Amanda Luxon, a self-confessed introvert, came out and talked to Dom Harvey, loyally sticking up for her husband’s personality and leadership. She feels that we aren’t getting the full story about the authentic Christopher, which is a fair point. But, with due respect to her, a part of the job of any modern political leader is to project a positive persona through the media, in spite of the limitations of media coverage and framing – and even when journalists act like a pack of bloodhounds. Very few members of the public will ever get to know the real person, and never as well as a spouse does.
Luxon has given political leadership his best shot, and it isn’t working well in the eyes of the public. But National has no rising star, time is running out, and no such change will make the energy crisis go away or National’s polling jump back over 30 and stay there. They first need to figure out why they’re bleeding supporters to NZ First.
What do you reckon?
If Luxon does go, I’ll be reminded of Enoch Powell’s dictum.
“All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.”
Enoch Powell, Joseph Chamberlain (Thames and Hudson, 1977), p. 151.
Never interrupt your enemy while they are making a mistake, that applies equally to keeping Luxon or replacing him
Luxon’s government, bursting with Neoliberalism pride, hubris, and a cult worship of austerity, might be advised to slow their roll and reflect on where the world is, and where Kiwis are in that world. And then maybe offer something that makes sense, because repeating nine times, “I’ve got the support of my caucus”, isn’t a plan, it’s the cries of a Prime Minister who knows he has lost the room, and possibly his job.