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10:40 am, August 4th, 2026 - 25 comments
Categories: business, Christopher Luxon, Economy, election 2026, national, same old national, uncategorized, winston peters -
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As we enter the home strait for the 2026 election National strategists must be thinking “what the f*(k do we do from here”?
Because for National the past week has been a shocker.
And I suspect the Campaign team are busily going through the Prime Minister’s diary and cancelling every event that offers him an opportunity to express his views.
And wondering if he should appear in any debates, especially with Minor Party leaders.
Because dear reader and this is a totally unbiased view not affected by the carnage and the damage this Government has done to Aotearoa over the past two and a half years, Christopher Luxon is a really poor leader .
He talks in a word salad of corporate speak.
He famously prescribed a reading list of management and self-help books to his ministers and department heads to read.
Books like “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t” and “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable”. That latter book has been described as a realistic fable that follows the travails of a CEO who faces the ultimate leadership crisis and must unite a team in such disarray that it threatens to derail the entire company. Luxon must feel like he is living in that book right now.
And he has no idea about small business. His corporate experience involves working his way up the corporate ladder of a multinational entity that sells deoderants and then heading Air New Zealand after Labour set it on its feet and it was already improving.
The latest piece of evidence confirming Luxon has no idea was his recent meeting with Rotorua businesses.
He was told by a local Business owner that business was tough, they were taking on extra costs but did not want to pass them on because they were also getting fewer customers. He was told it was a matter of time for some of them and asked how long could they hang on?
His response was completely and utterly tone deaf. Like he has no idea what it is like to run a small business.
He said patronising that it was a “negative view”.
He then said “if you’re not retooling and radically disrupting your business, you ain’t doing the job. You know, you have to disrupt yourself aggressively before you get disrupted by global events, and if you keep thinking you want the same business model, the same customer mix, the same margin structure, you know you’ve got to be retooling and refinancing and rehoming, and that’s just the reality of business people all around the world.”
Global crisis and Government policy undermining workers earnings and employment causing businesss disruption? It is ALL YOUR FAULT SMALL BUSINESS OWNER.
Then he morphed into mumbo jumbo corporate speak hype. He said:
I’m a business person. I’m building a kick-ass company that actually has commercially superior returns, great customer experience, and awesome internal culture. That is the job of what makes a great company, not a good one, a great one. And so that was my mentality. Come home to New Zealand, and there’s a parent-child mentality. I have literally sat in boardrooms across New Zealand, and the conversation goes: I wonder what the government’s going to do. I wonder what the government’s going to think.”
Boardrooms have been thinking this. Essentially because the abrupt nature of the change of the direction this Government has imposed as well as indiscriminate cutting of budgets has undermined confidence and business conditions.
Then we had a day of explaining his comments. Yesterday on Morning Report he said that he was disappointed with the reporting and the reporting was not his intent at all and that his point was for Government to empower and enable businesses, which when you look at the words above is the opposite of what he said.
Then in the afternoon there was an abject grovelling apology. The focus groups had spoken.
Luxon’s basic problem is that he is wealthy and he is sorted and he has no idea how tough most of us are finding things.
He is also struggling to deal with Winston Peters’s racist rant from last week.
Speaking to John Campbell on Morning Report he admitted that he had not spoken to Winston Peters clearly establishing a breach of the third of the five dysfunctions. He said that this was because he had been on the road. Someone should tell him about phones.
He then said that “the comments were racist and insensitive and inappropriate” and that it was “deliberate attention seeking from a career politician to get the attention on himself rather than on the issues that matter to Kiwis”. But he refuses to sack Peters.
In a scathing editorial the Post had the perfect response:
Mr Luxon’s judgment, that Mr Peters’ comments were ‘racist’ and ‘offensive’ is likely shared by the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders. But, in terms of Mr Luxon’s exercising his constitutional role as prime minister, that is ultimately irrelevant, one way or the other. What matters is that he, Mr Luxon, regards Mr Peters’ comments as racist, and that ministers serve only at his pleasure as prime minister, who alone decides whether or not their behaviour is compatible with holding a warrant.”
Luxon’s complete obliviousness to the harm his Government is doing coupled with his inability to control Winston Peters is making National a laughing stock in the run up to the election.
And it is no wonder that Labour is now considered more adept at handling the economy than National. This is a rare event. Apart from the height of Labour’s Covid era popularity it has been some time since this has been the case.
National must be worried. This election could be disastrous for them.
And a true leader would take responsibility for the predicament they are in.
Good to see Hooton is bending his new pulpit to reflect his predilections. it is paywalled, but someone with more time might be able to point to press reader or something?
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361055181/luxons-impotence-makes-him-prime-minister-name-only
Hooton sent an editorial missile at him yesterday, too (including calling him out on claiming to have been a CEO when actually he’s never made it that far). And in November 2023, Hooton wrote a glorious denouement (Whatever happened to Christopher Luxon’s negotiating skills?) on the coalition agreement process, how Peters and Seymour made a complete fool of Luxon, resulting in our having a government now tied to the will of the lunatic fringe.
Post reader-commenters are loving this new ballsy Post, btw.
Yeah, I was playing around with some image making the other day, and expressed my opinion on Hooton at the post….
I need to get better at describing the background as transparent. For some reason a two finger salute came out the wrong way around (pious AI), and the image transcribed as too young. But it wasn’t bad for a headshot to cartoon with a description of what I wanted…
I have noticed a deterioration in the political quality reporting at The Post since he became editor.
Problem is that I just auto-renewed for a year on The Post… sigh
The Prime Minister runs the largest business in New Zealand.
He is in command of far and away the largest economic agent that this country has ever had and for the foreseeable future will ever have.
So the Prime Minister will always have a patrician or indeed patrimonial relationship with ever single business in New Zealand.
Those with large lobbying and legislative drafting budgets like Fonterra, Z Energy, the top 4 generators, understand this and act on it successfully.
It is worthy of nothing but disgust to hear our Prime Minister tell people to "adult" when he holds and wields all the political and most of the economic power in New Zealand, when every single business including his is firing workers left and right.
His statement with the employment numbers tomorrow is going to haunt him.
https://web.archive.org/web/20260803212035/https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361055181/luxons-impotence-makes-him-prime-minister-name-only
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/04-08-2026/you-should-all-be-using-claude-luxon-told-rotorua-businesspeople-so-we-did
In a nutshell, less Lux, more Claude, and No, that’s not an ad for a more masculine soap for real men with hair on their balds. (NB Luxon appears to have hypogonadism)
Surely, there’s a job more suited for the former airline manager such as PR manager at SpaceX or something. (NB SpaceX may or may not have been propped up by US Government)
Don't rain on my parade…
I'm thinking of the success of the book "The One Minute Manager" and contemplating a follow up book for corporate CEOs who want to enter politics, to be called "The One Term Prime Minister".
Chapter 1. Every Christmas, publish photos of you and your family in their matching shortie pyjamas watching the same shallow movie every year". Then go and pound the tables in foreign lands, hammering out free trade deals.
Chapter 2. Go into coalition with minority parties with racist agendas, then tell the media a vote for the opposition might be a vote for one of your erstwhile partners.
Chapter 3. Leaving your coalition partners to the pickings around vote:racism, grab vote:sexist/misogynist for yourself, passing legislation banning gender equality cases from a fair trial.
Etc
😎
Like +100%
"I manage my rhetoric as best I can" – Luxon
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361015488/it-farcical-pm-think-his-foreign-minister-has-been-racist-and-keep-him-we-asked-heres-what-luxon
Lux Flkes Luxxon is rather thin skinned IMHO.
I honestly can't see Winston Peters NZF, Lux Flakes Luxon Nats, or David Seyman Atlas ACT getting back in, If they do I think Winston and NZF will be a major player with +20% at the nexxt General Election in November.
[You’ve already got heaps of approved user handles, so you don’t get to use another one. Pick one of your previous ones – Incognito]
Mod note
The coalition can still win. But Luxon can't. In any possible outcome, he's gone.
The most optimistic scenario for National is that the 3 parties have a majority but with National diminished (nobody, even on the Right, honestly believes they will get 38% plus again).
So a weak PM will become even weaker. Seymour and Peters will demand even more. All this talk of sacking Peters overlooks the fact that he would have to be un-sacked after the election. (Luxon knows this of course, hence the squirming).
Unhappy Nat MPs will do after the election what they should already have done, but are afraid to do now, because of the time pressure and memories of 2020. So Luxon is toast even if he "wins".
I'll go out on a limb here and predict Luxon will decide to spend more time with his family in the near future – say one month.
I still think that's more likely than not, but then again I've thought that for many months ("That must be the last straw … no that is … no, there's another straw …"). Repeat, repeat.
It's no surprise that National MPs have no moral compass. It is more surprising that they can't see where this is going, and for many, at the expense of their own jobs.
They still have time to emulate the Little/ Ardern scenario. When Willis appeared with her post summer holiday make-over, my first thought was: she's trying to do an Ardern… look slim, lots of smiles and tumbling curls. I wonder if she's preparing for a leadership challenge should Luxon lose the plot? The same goes for Stanford.
Well, he appears to be losing the plot, if he ever really had it, so hang on… another month and it could all be on.
IMHO Stanford is a nasty piece of work, with a quick temper and a vindictive nature, as well as being totally owned by the Atlas Network, as is Willis.
Both will be sharpening their knives, and probably Bishop and Potata too. There's no lack of aspirants; talent, not so much!
Which is not to say they wouldn't be better leaders than our CEO!
I think that is highly unlikely.
The Little–Ardern switch worked because it was Andrew Little and Jacinda Ardern in 2017. It depended on a particular combination of personalities, political circumstances, party position, public narratives and electoral opportunity.
It is not a sequence National can simply reproduce by changing the name and face on the billboards.
Any hypothetical new leader would face the same uphill climb and the same structural problem with NZF and ACT Even if National recovered to 38 percent, it would still probably need both David Seymour and Winston Peters to form a government, while lacking the electoral leverage to impose meaningful discipline or conditions on either.
They may achieve a temporary narrative reset: but converting that into an Ardern-style recovery would require the new leader to change the coalition dynamic as well as public perceptions of National.
That chain of events is fragile, highly contingent, and far from guaranteed.
Luxon may be making the situation worse, but the underlying problem is structural rather than personal.
Oh I agree entirely that the Little/Ardern switch worked because of who they were and the collegiate manner it was carried out. But that wouldn't necessarily stop their opposite numbers trying to pull it off, especially if their poll numbers continue to remain dire.
Bear in mind they have a massive treasure chest and could back them up with a US style advertising and scaremongering campaign. That is how Muldoon came to power in 1975. They could do it again and the current climate is ripe for such a campaign.
The important point isn't simply that Luxon has made a series of mistakes. Politicians recover from bad weeks all the time. Nor is it even that he may not be a particularly effective Prime Minister. Being a poor leader is not, in itself, politically fatal.
The deeper problem is that he appears to have lost control of the political narrative around himself, his leadership, and the government he putatively leads.
Increasingly, he seems less the shaper of events than their victim.
The Rotorua comments, his handling of Winston Peters, the subsequent explanations and apologies: viewed individually, none are necessarily fatal.
But they are no longer being judged individually. Each is interpreted through an existing narrative that he is detached, politically weak, unable to control his coalition partners, and unable to articulate a compelling purpose for his government.
That is the trap.
And, at least so far, Luxon has shown little sign that he possesses the communication ability, political nous, or authority within his own government needed to escape it.
Once a leader loses the ability to define what events mean, others do it for them. Opponents, coalition partners and the media all become authors of the leader's political identity. Attempts to explain or clarify don't reset the narrative; they become further evidence of it.
Because politics is ultimately about agency.
Successful leaders persuade voters that they are shaping events, not simply responding to them. At the moment, Luxon increasingly appears to be reacting to crises rather than defining them.
That, more than any individual gaffe, is what should worry National.
National are in a bad spiral – they continue to back a plummeting fool and everyone can see it.
I'm happy to see them in such a dire situation.
Can’t see Lux Flakes and the COC surviving the next General Election in November 2026, if they do I can see Winston and NZF having a bigger influence as they will likely get 15-20% of the vote, potentially 20%+
Luxon is now so desperate that he is openly considering a nrew referendum on MMP, perhaps returning to FPP. Plus having a referendum on a possible 4 year Parliamentary term.
This is ON TOP of voter suppression by removing same day enrollment/voting and enrollments two weeks leading up to the election.
It seems if he can't win by the rules; change the rules. In other words: "radically disrupting" our electoral and Parliamentary system
But also the madness of you lecturing other people about doing their job, when poll after poll shows people think you aren’t doing yours.
And then he can’t handle coalitions, so he wants to ditch MMP, without consulting anyone it seems like.
What t f is going on?