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1:26 pm, April 21st, 2026 - 36 comments
Categories: Christopher Luxon, climate change, coalition of chaos, disaster, election 2026, farming, food, history, leadership, national, newspapers, radio, transport, uncategorized -
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Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon. David Lange knew it and was brave enough to say it.
Luxon is arrogant. I remember him saying at the Victoria University post-election seance that he welcomed criticism as he knew how good he was or words to that effect.
So the media frenzy will go on in public, and the jockeying for position in the National Party caucus in private (more or less!).
In my opinion, Labour would be wise not to get caught up in it, but use the diversion of attention to do some serious work on how they might lead Aotearoa/New Zealand through the upcoming massive changes.
They have the issue right; affordability. The question is how and what will they do anything about it, to lead in the supply-shrunken world that is about to burst upon us.
I'm ecstatic Luxon has kept his job.
It will make a Labour-Green-Te Pāti Māori victory in November more certain. Thor help us if he's replaced by someone relatable, coherent, and cogent. Cue funereal dirge for the Left.
#ThoughtsAndPrayersForLuxon
The obvious conclusion has to be that no one in the National caucus is capable of rolling Luxon and that says a lot.
Like toast with tomatoes.
Given it was by secret ballot, only a few know how many little stabs of doubt were cast.
Luxon expected it to be above 5, there were the ones he knew of and the ones he did not know of.
If MP's have not promised to avoid any sounding out of how close the vote was, then the numbers who know will grow.
Very sad day for New Zealand in a near-perpetual state of emergency in the North Island this year, and a fuel+cost of living crisis, and no money in the budget, and a fertiliser crisis coming in spring.
What to do about that is what I hope Labour is focusing on
Same.
NZ has "No Money"…come off it Ad.
NZ is 92nd in the list of gross debt to GDP. We have room to finance, for instance, a significant reduction in poverty and at the same time subsidise the Electrification of NZ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_debt#Government_debt_as_a_percentage_of_GDP_in_percentage_points
Time spent in caucus: 3 hours.
Time spent in a press conference after the caucus: 3 minutes.
Time spent answering questions: zero seconds.
Time before next National leak/disloyalty/undermining? Days, not weeks.
One more coup strike to go and then he’s out.
He's within cooee of his exit.
"Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon"
Is that true in NZ? Or more precisely what is the evidence for the claim that they don't survive? I can only think of two cases where a leader apparently called for a vote. One was in 1996 when Clark was struggling She called for a vote, won it, and then remained as leader for another 12 years.
The other was when Bill English was being challenged by Don Brash. H also asked for a vote which he lost. Were there any others?
One each way isn't really evidence that calling for a vote is a certain sign of your political demise. Are there other examples that I have forgotten or simply never noticed?
There have been many historical comparisons in the commentary lately. (The 2 you mention, plus National 2020, Labour leaders after 2008, Bolger/Shipley, etc).
But none of these stack up. This is not a struggling opposition leader, but a first term Prime Minister, heading a clear government majority. It's the "honeymoon". Luxon's situation is unprecedented.
His quote "I have the numbers" is extraordinary. For a PM.
I didn't think any of the people you reference actually called for a confidence vote in themselves. The votes, if they occurred, were called by other people in their caucus.
Bridges didn't ask for a vote. Neither did Muller or Collins and Bolger quit without any vote.
What I am curious about is those who call for the vote themselves.
"…they become a dead pigeon."
At my work, we had a couple of dozen unwelcome pigeons.
We fed them grain, they ate it cautiously getting more enthusiastic over a week. Then we fed them slightly different grain. They were dead pigeons an hour later.
They were dead pigeons a week prior, just living on borrowed time.
As an addition.
There wasn't any confidence vote in 2008 for Labour. Clark resigned the leadership in her concession speech on Election night and Cullen did the same shortly thereafter as near as I remember.
You've missed the point by a mile.
All wyn and no sail.
I will repeat my point. The poster states that "Any time a political leader has to put their position to a vote, they become a dead pigeon".
I am suggesting that there is no evidence in New Zealand politics that this is the case. I could only find two examples in our recent political history where a political leader has done this and in one of those the leader went on to lead their party for a further 12 years without any further problems. In the other of case of course he lost the confidence vote. If it only happens half the time it certainly doesn't justify the blanket claim that it happens every time.
People may believe that the claim in the post is true but doesn't appear to be any evidence that it actually happens. That is why I would like to have any examples, other than Clark, English and of course Luxon of a party leader actually calling for such a vote so that we can see if it really does make them a dead pigeon. In Helen Clarks case it certainly didn't and it may just be a myth which need not be relevant to Luxon's future.
That is my point. What is yours and why do you make it?
I'll repeat my point, what I'm saying to you is, how can I be any clearer to you guys??
Effectively, you’re a diversion troll, Alwyn.
What on earth have your comments got to do with Luxon and National’s predicament?
I am suggesting that the first statement in the post may not be true. If it isn't true Luxon doesn't have a predicament but he, accidentally or otherwise has got commenters here, going on about the topic. If Mike Smith doesn't want people to think about Luxon's pigeon status he might do better not to mention it.
" Luxon's pigeon status"
Are they like Trump's bone spurs?
Yes, I understand that you cannot believe either what’s been happening with Luxon since he assumed the position of PM and, more recently, with his free-falling popularity that is dragging his party down with him. I understand that you’re trying your utmost to deny that Luxon is toast and could be gone by lunchtime. I understand too that you do your usual nit-picking to negate the over-arching message and try to counter the nit with mostly irrelevant historical stuff. You’ve picked your nit and made your minor point of order that has already been countered by others here, which you chose to ignore, so give it a rest, as you’re becoming more than tedious.
https://youtu.be/K8nL8B3DJ5Y?si=lLo3BlZnIO7G27pw
Nationals campaign theme…
Great choice.
I had to look, I was sure it would be Six Months in a Leaky Boat.
Just saw the 6pm news.
Peters will collapse the govt at a time of his choosing. Peters will create/adopt a crisis that will help launch his campaign. He will shaft National.
Labour & Greens need to be ready for an early election.
Peters won't imo. Anyone who does will be punished by the voters who are already fed-up by politics and Governments of all stripes. All parties will turn their scorn on Peters if he plays such a cynical hand.
Triggering an early election could depress Winston First's party vote slightly, but he’d still be in the mix after. And it would make NAct, and Luxon in particular, look even weaker.
It will, however, be Luxon's last rodeo – if that’s what Winston and/or the voters want.
At first I thought he was blancmange, but now I see that Luxon is stiffened egg-white.
Nick Rockel calls it:
"Forget the calls to replace Luxon with Bishop, Stanford, Mitchell, or Willis; what we really need is to replace him with Chippy. "
"https://nickrockel.substack.com/p/butter-chicken-tsunami
This is the same National Party which rolled Bridges, then Muller, then Collins (well, the country did that).
Luxon was brought in with great fanfare about how he brought stability and discipline but he has done no such thing.
They haven't changed and haven't learned a thing.
It’s easy enough to promise & deliver stability (aka certainty) when things were already stabilising & improving after Covid. It’s easy enough to draft & deliver a 100-day plan that’s mostly repealing & reversing but not constructing & going forward – for Luxon this was mere political scent-marking and establishing dominance of the narrative, but for Atlas-adjacent David Seymour and ACT it was an opportunity to entrench their cult ideas. Together, they have taken the country backwards in an avalanche of austerity ushered under urgency and damaged both the economy and democracy in NZ. And at the first sign of a crisis Luxon and ‘his team’ flopped & floundered in spectacular fashion.
Great summation of self-serving NAct MPs' deliberate wrecking to tilt the NZ landscape further in favour of their backers. Approaching the election, Winston First is becoming less ‘CoC-compliant’, but Kiwis need the CoC to derail ASAP – get NZ Aotearoa off their hopeless austerity track while there’s still something left to salvage.
That to me is the crux. And it is sure going to be a slog to repair the damage done to Aotearoa/NZ (embedded and otherwise)
Still…why we fight, for Future NZ !
Whilst we still have a climate and can do something to bend the warming curve downward, not just try and adapt
Whilst we still have some infrastructure to build extra state homes to take people off the streets and out of cars
Whilst we still have a largely functional public health system
Whilst we can still reverse cockwomble act ideology becoming engrained in law
Whikst we can continue to have mature conversations about giving some effect to treaty of waitangi
Etc etc
Next week's news in advance:
The next poll is from the Post (Freshwater Strategy), out before the end of April. Expect more bad numbers and more questions for Luxon.
Does he really think this is going away?