Defying both critics and skeptics, Chris Luxon has secured his position as New Zealand’s prime minister, surviving a critical caucus confidence vote sparked by a series of blunders that had placed his leadership in jeopardy.
In a decisive move, the leader of the National Party convened a high-stakes meeting with party members on Wednesday morning, aiming to quell mounting rumors and uncertainty surrounding his role.
Speculation about a potential leadership shift intensified following reports from the NZ Herald, which highlighted a growing sense of dissatisfaction with Luxon’s leadership just three months ahead of the pivotal November 7 election.
Emerging triumphantly from the extended meeting, Luxon announced that he had successfully consolidated party unity and reiterated his commitment to securing a second term for his conservative coalition.
“This morning’s caucus meeting included a confidence vote on my leadership, and I am pleased to have the full backing of our caucus,” Luxon stated in a brief 75-second media appearance, opting not to entertain questions.
“Now we’re going back to work, and we’re moving on.”
Luxon’s office later revealed low-profile defence minister Chris Penk challenged for the leadership in the meeting.
The prime minister then sacked him for doing so, leaving Penk to announce his intention to leave politics at the November election.
Wednesday’s vote followed a similar caucus showdown in April, when Luxon brought on and won a confidence vote to silence his critics.
The margin of each vote is a tightly held secret, though media outlets have reported the April result was 27-22 in Luxon’s favour.
Rather than Penk, Wellington newspaper The Post reported Erica Stanford, the education minister, was the most likely challenger.
The 48-year-old never confirmed this, and was served a brutal backhander by colleague Nicola Grigg, the minister for women, on the way to the meeting.
“She’s a good friend of mine, but she’s not a prime minister,” Grigg said.
Most observers tipped a successful spill.
One political editor described Luxon’s leadership as “hanging by a thread” on Tuesday night, and another rated his survival as “incredibly unlikely”, making his victory a defiant and triumphant moment for Luxon.
How did Luxon find himself in this position?
Mentored by party messiah John Key, the 56-year-old former Air New Zealand chief executive enjoyed a meteoric rise in politics.
He entered parliament in 2020, became opposition leader in 2021 and won the 2023 election.
However, he has endured a tough run in the top job, failing to deliver on key campaign pledges to improve New Zealand’s misfiring economy and tackle government waste.
His corporate communication style is routinely mocked, and his poor personal popularity is widely seen as a key reason behind National’s plunging poll fortunes, from 38 per cent at the election, to a poll average of 29 per cent.
A run of recent gaffes brought about the second leadership vote.
Luxon told battling small business owners in Rotorua they were “negative” and should instead be “retooling and radically disrupting your business”.
He also defended his use of a defence force plane to fly home after a party fundraiser — a shocking look for a leader who was forced to return a housing entitlement to stay at his own mortgage-free property.
Luxon has also been pushed around by NZ First leader and foreign minister Winston Peters, who in July caused outrage by telling a China-born Greens MP to “go back to your own country” in parliament.
While Luxon said the 81-year-old maverick’s comment was racist, he did not sanction or sack him.
Despite the drama, the National-led coalition remains on course to win re-election on 7 November.
While the contest is tight, the right bloc has consistently kept an edge over the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori, also known as the Māori Party.
The race has been challenged in recent months by the emergence of newcomer party Opportunity, which hit eight per cent support in a TVNZ poll released on Wednesday.
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said the leadership shenanigans showed National was in disarray.
“New Zealanders have had a gutful of politicians fighting amongst themselves … at a time when New Zealanders need them to be fighting for them,” he said.