Written By:
- Date published:
10:56 am, August 13th, 2026 - 48 comments
Categories: Chris Penk, Christopher Luxon, national, politicans, same old national -
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What a 24 hours we have just witnessed.
Yesterday morning I thought that Christopher Luxon may be goneberger although I hoped he would stay.
Campaign dynamics suggest that he was safe, after all you do not replace your leader three months out from an election unless you have a Jacinda Ardern waiting in the wings. Even if your current leader abuses small business owners, gets the Air Force to fly him back to Auckland from a National Party fundraiser in Whanganui and then says that his coalition leaders are Yahoo and Numpty all within one week generally he is safe.
The problem for National is that it has no Jacinda Ardern waiting in its ranks.
When I saw reports that Christopher Penk was organising for Erica Standford I thought Luxon was a goner. From National sourced leaks it appears the last leadership vote was pretty close. National’s conservative faction moving against him would and should have spelt doom.
But then the result came out. Somehow the National Party faction that could not imagine retooling the campaign with a new leader won out and the National Party faction that thinks that Luxon is a disaster did not succeed.
Or more precisely the numerous factions that each think Luxon is a disaster could not agree on a successor and blocked any successor from making it.
Then Luxon sacked Chris Penk as a Minister.
Chris Penk has been a hardworking and dedicated Minister and my impression of him as an MP is that he is perhaps the best National MP I have ever engaged with. In my life I have never seen a National MP so receptive to his local communities as Penk. Chris’ Christian views jarred with me but as an MP his dedication to the job I could not fault.
This made me reflect. Chris Penk was described as a stalking horse. He would not have done this for personal power.
From reports he was acting for Erica Standford. Her refusal to pledge support for Luxon when asked at Wellington Airport speaks volumes.
I can imagine how the Caucus meeting went.
Standford did the numbers and realised she was short after Bishop and Willis and Brown blocked her. Then she stood back and let Penk get blamed for it all.
He has since announced that he will not stand at this year’s election even though he had the ultra safe seat of Kaipara Ki Mahurangi.
I cannot blame him. Having to go back into that incestuous bunch of rapacist snakes that will sell their mother’s soul for political advantage and hang you out to dry without hesitation was clearly more than he could stomach.
But shame on you Erica Stanford.
Imagine getting Penk to be your stalking horse, leaving him out to be massacred, and then standing behind Luxon as he announced that he was still PM takes a level of chutzpah that a human being with a normal digestive system would not be able to manage.
And as for Luxon’s tough man persona it appears he only picks on wonded opponents.
He was happy to rule out Stuart Nash from being a future Minister after Nash accused National MP Katie Nimon lazy for taking leave after having a baby. But after Nash had resigned but before this became public Luxon decided to be the tough man and said that Nash would never be a Minister in a Government that he lead.
But when Winston Peters abused the country’s major trading partner, the source of significant support for the National Party and 17% of the world’s population, Luxon goes all quiet on it. Abuse a National MP and with the benefit if seeing you had resigned Luxon will say that you will not be a Minister. Abuse a large part of the world and our most significant trading partner and Luxon is all crickets.
This situation is similar. Penk was someone who was put up by others to kick off the leadership spill. But Penk gets demoted and the others live on.
And they wonder why the general population hold Politicians in such low regard.
Then the latest One News Varian poll was released and it confirmed that National is marooned in the 20s. The relief provided by the recent David Farrar Taxpayers Union Curia poll has been dissolved. Every National Party commentator in the media have clung to that poll result as some sort of liferaft but this has now been removed.
The media should reflect that the cumulative net change in the Curia poll, where some parties gain, and some parties lose is wrong. The figure which should be 0% was actually – 3.2%. Check this if you need verification.
Polls are important. They have the ability to influence public opinion. The worry I have with Curia is that I really worry that the finger may be applied to the scale occasionally to provide PR talking points. My personal opinion is that anything to do with Curia and the Taxpayers Pseudo Union should not be trusted.
The latest poll also showed that NZ First had slumped. Take that Winston Peters. Your 1970s level racism has no place in modern Aotearoa.
And this poll does not cover the calamity of yesterday.
We should reflect on how Luxon has responded to crises. has happened.
Abuse our major trading partner and a significant number of Kiwis, all is ok.
Have the termerity to challenge an emperor with no clothes and it is off with your head.
The only MP with any sense of decency has announced that he is not going to seek re-election.
And the prospects of a change of Government look even brighter.
Luxon may have won the battle yesterday but the prospects of National winning this year’s election just became dramatically worse.
Yesterday showed that Luxon won't go, no matter how obviously harmful his staying is.
Nat voters will now fully understand that a vote for National ensures Luxon remains through the next 3 years.
I think significant numbers will refrain from voting at all, because of that realisation.
Not shift to NZF, ACT or TOP because that would be the same as voting for Luxon to continue as Prime Minister.
Yesterday's result was a big win for the Left, imo.
I'd like to think that but don't really.
A small win, maybe. But don't underestimate the swing voters' antipathy to the PM they dumped in 2023 (and no, that is not a call to dump Chippy, he's Labour's leader and that won't/shouldn't change).
It is wishful thinking (common on the Standard!) to equate voters' dislike of Luxon (very strong) with a desire to elect the opposition (very weak).
People dislike Luxon for many different reasons. "Too weak" to a rightie means something different than to a leftie. To non-political people (which is most voters) he's just a dick.
TOP will benefit, and probably NZF and ACT too. Labour a bit, and that may be enough. I hope so.
Chris doesn’t like Chris. He demoted Chris in April. He pushed Chris out of the rapidly descending National plane. He can’t land any hits on Chris because he’s playing smarter politics. Chris prefers playing with Dave and Pete because they don’t call him names. Dave and Pete prefer playing with Chris because they’ll have more of the sandpit. Life’s a beach.
Dave and Pete play with Luxon like cats play with a mouse.
It seems that only the NZ voters can put an end to [t]his misery.
Also… Penk was a decent and popular National man; his caucus buddies liked him.
Luxon, their boss, has sh*t upon their friend.
They'll loathe him for that, if they have a shred of decency in them.
Hang on…
If National lose the election, I hope Rakesh Naidoo gets made Minister of Police and guts the Police management who actively spread misinformation about him and fired him.
I don't think he would have the power to do that.
The appointment of Police staff is a function of the Commissioner, not the Minister I believe.
As per the previous cleanout of tiers 1, 2, 3 and parts of tier 4 at Head Office just a year ago, it really ain't that hard once the Prime Minister makes it clear to the Governor General that the Police Commissioner no longer has the PM's confidence.
The Police Commissioner, by actively going after Naidoo, has made his own position entirely untenable under a Labour government.
And with this weeks' National meltdown, a Labour led government is now more likely.
The Police will know what's coming for them and good damn job.
Were any of them actually dismissed by the Governor General? I thought that the Commissoner chose not to try and extend his term but the term actually finished.
The number two did quit but his position had become untenable. He wasn't fired though was he?
Yes, the idea that Chris Penk was running numbers for himself as leader feels ridiculous. However, the idea that his ethical standards preclude dobbing in the person he was running numbers for even though they left him in the lurch, now that I can believe.
Agreed. They'll want to be re-elected in order to find him a few sinecures for his ongoing silence.
Looks likely a Stanford/Bishop/Mitchell shaped hole in their electability now, all of it their own making.
As always, it's Luxon's "post-game interviews" that make it worse for him.
Surviving a leadership challenge … possible, and in fact, quite normal in politics.
But pretending the challenge was only one MP? Calling a full meeting to sack one MP? Dragging the entire caucus in from their far-flung electorates to sack one MP? Very obviously not true. And everyone knows this.
His insistence on constantly bullshitting the public is intensely off-putting to swing voters (ex-Nat voters, often) who simply want competence and a little honesty.
If you’re asking for a little honesty from Luxon, you might be in for a disappointment. Luxon appears to be struggling with wishful facts, particularly about himself (how Trumpian), e.g., when he tried to re-write his backstory to resemble John Key’s one.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/11/luxons-hard-luck-story-not-really-that-hard/
[also this comment: https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/11/luxons-hard-luck-story-not-really-that-hard/#comment-667575 ]
"And everyone knows this." Yes, lots of very glum Nat supporters posting today. They know alright.
When this CoC took power it was obvious that having two egotistical ideologists on two points of the triumvirate would be an extremely difficult and thankless task for the National PM. Even at the time, when most were still celebrating the fall of Labour, doubt were being cast as to Luxon's abilities in this respect. He coped for two years, largely by allowing Seymour and Peters to do and say pretty much what they wanted with the perennial excuse that it was part of "a coalition agreement". But in the last year his lack of leadership skills have become so glaringly obvious that they can't easily be dismissed. The National caucus is full of frightened desperate members looking at defeat while Seymour and Peters try to hide delighted smirks behind their hands. National know that they should have replaced Luxon earlier this year but they didn't have the balls to do it and now it is too late to do anything else but try to exert maximum damage control.
National's problem is they really have no competent people to replace Luxon.
There’s Pete and Dave, Sir John, Paula, the Ghost of Muldoon, so plenty of material to craft a winning team with. All they need is a steady hand and a large tube of super-glue. It’s not wabi-sabi but perfection is the enemy of progress, as the National-lame Coalition has shown so aptly.
Imo, that is because they choose most of their candidates based on surface impression and not on the substance – or more correctly the lack of it – which lies behind it.
It's not so much about competence.
It's about finding someone who's competent, senior enough to plausibly take over, able to separate themselves from the politically toxic parts of the coalition's record and Luxon's narrative, and willing to take the insane risk of becoming leader in these circumstances.
MtLefty – Great summary of the whole debacle. Laurels.
Willis would've been a fair replacement.
And if they lose, Willis will be in.
Nicky-no-Boats has a net favourability that’s even worse than Luxon’s, but perhaps not quite as polarising.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/13-08-2026/yesterday-luxon-won-again-who-lost
48 seats – it has 43 electorate seats and 5 list seats
32 seats at 30%
It would have to lose more than 11 electorate seats to gain any off the list.
It is not going to lose that many to Labour when they are at 30% as well.
Shrillis?
I don't think so.
Gordon Campbell points out an obvious fact that for some reason seems to elude (or fool?) many.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2608/S00034/on-nationals-long-whimper-of-discontent.htm
I'd only partly agree with the OP headline.
There's obviously a natural focus on the core question: the two groupings, government v opposition, Luxon v Hipkins, Nat-led or Lab-led after Nov 7.
But the second question is almost as important: what kind of government?
There is a roughly 50-50 chance of National being one of the parties in a majority. We could call that a "win" for them.
But not really. There's a near-zero chance of National being the dominant (38%) party that they are now. Luxon's weak leadership will be even weaker when NZF and ACT and Opp are calling the shots. (Expect those 3 parties to gain at National's expense). Winston can have any job he wants.
Yesterday was the last chance to get a National-led government, in any real sense. They blew it.
Chris Penk MP for Botany 2027, after the by-election.
RNZ has an article quoting Luxon that he is sure no-one else was involved but Penk.
I've always been one of those people who believe in conspiracies around JFK assassination. One of the biggest reasons in my mind is that the District Attorney said that Lee Oswald's time in the Soviet Union proved beyond reasonable doubt that he was the only one involved. He said that within hours of Oswalds capture. I've always thought that, faced with Oswald's Soviet life, one would have to dig deep to be certain it didn't involve the Soviets – not that my money’s on the Soviets or Cuba.
So, here we have a similar situation. Within hours of the coup, Luxon, who does not investigate it beyond Penk, despite Penk assuring people he wasn't the guilty one, had decided there's no evidence linking Stanford or Bishop. I wonder if it's because he's afraid to look.
All we need is for Penk to shout "I'm just a Patsy"…
From a leftie, RIP Penk. I don’t think you’re the ‘lone nut’.
I, being a conspiracist at heart, can't help seeing a parallel between Luxon's calling meetings to reinforce his "authority" and Trump's assassination attempts.
Also, without proof, do we know that there even was a ballot?
I think this interpretation is a bit more dramatic than the evidence requires.
If we assume none of the people involved are stupid, the simpler explanation is that Penk was acting as a stalking horse for a more senior candidate who could not afford to be visibly attached to a failed challenge.
Someone had to test the numbers. Penk was senior enough to do that credibly, but sufficiently expendable that, if it failed, Luxon could sack him without detonating the entire front bench. He presumably understood that risk when he agreed to do it.
That doesn't mean Stanford cynically fed him into a woodchipper. She may have, but we don't need that explanation to account for what happened.
Once it became clear the numbers weren't there, what exactly was she supposed to do? Walk into Luxon's office and say, "Yes Chris, I was the instigator of the coup which just failed"?
That wouldn't demonstrate admirable loyalty to Penk. It would demonstrate a fairly basic lack of political fitness.
Likewise, Luxon has his own incentives. If Stanford was involved, sacking one of his most senior and electorally valuable ministers three months before an election would turn a contained leadership challenge into a much larger crisis. Penk, by contrast, was visibly involved and politically punishable.
So I suspect Penk isn't really paying the price for his coup. He's paying the price for being the one semi-expendable member of a wider anti-Luxon effort whom Luxon could actually punish.
That's brutal, but it doesn't require betrayal or cowardice. It just requires everyone involved to understand the game they were playing and behave rationally once the numbers weren't there.
That the conspirators failed in their mission to dump Luxon seems astonishing. Those involved must have known that falling short would seriously damage the party's electoral chances – they could not afford to try and fail – and yet they did. Penk, with his military/strategic background should not have misplayed the action; he must have had confidence of success before making any attempt at a coup de grace. There must have been an intervention from outside of the caucus, at the last moment, to scuttle the plan.
I reckon Key and the monied backers he manages stepped in and said, no. They'd only have to talk with one "key" MP – my guess would be, Stanford. They would have said, not yet. We'll install you after the election.
We don’t know what unfolded in the caucus room. My guess is that there was an opportunity to speak & discuss before a confidence vote was taken – hard to fathom that they took a vote at the beginning and then had a 3-hour chat about fixing the basics and building the future. This is the window in which numbers can change depending upon who says what and with what kind of (any?) conviction. If only Penk and Luxon spoke and the rest stayed schtumm, the numbers would have been pre-destined pretty much. However, if other strong (real?) contenders spoke with strong conviction & vision, the numbers could have changed considerably, but still not enough to oust Luxon. Because Luxon and his supportive MPs claim that it was a lone-wolf action on Penk’s behalf, I conclude that at least one coward stayed in the background quietly.
"We don’t know what unfolded in the caucus room."
Yeah, we do – the cold, leathery wings of the devil-beast!
I thought that only happened in the dungeons of the Beehive when the Three Horsemen perform their Coalition rituals and worshipping.
You're such a fantasist, Incognito! Stick, as I do, to the Facts of the Matter.
Luxon's a plasmic blob, Peters is a pinched dwarf and Seymour's a shot-glass of straight vinegar.
To be fair, there was, and still is, a reasonable case for keeping Luxon.
Sure, the narrative is hella bad, but the numbers still give the coalition a better-than-even chance of being returned. And who knows, their internal polling may be telling them something we don't know.
The other problem is assuming everyone involved had the same incentives.
From Stanford's perspective, taking over three months before an election means owning a campaign she may well lose. And the alternative might actually be worse: narrowly winning, then spending three years trying to manage Seymour and Peters while rebuilding National at the same time.
If the numbers weren't comfortably there, stepping back and letting Luxon own the election is a perfectly rational choice. If he loses, the leadership probably becomes available anyway. If he wins, she hasn't inherited the campaign or the immediate political mess.
Despite badly bungling the new curriculum, Stanford can at least count.
"From Stanford's perspective, taking over three months before an election means owning a campaign she may well lose. And the alternative might actually be worse: narrowly winning, then spending three years trying to manage Seymour and Peters while rebuilding National at the same time."
Then why would she even consider doing it, which she must have done, given Penk's offer to run the numbers for her?
Does not make sense.
Stanford can count?
So can Penk.
Stanford's efforts with education, show that, like Willis, sums are not their strong point.
The problem with the Curia poll was the 7.2% other. This "other" vote is usually 1-2% and represents fringe groups like hunting and fishing and anti-vax. It is never 7%.
It was 3% in the Verian poll and that is high. So where had Farrar taken the 4-5% from? Certainly not from the CoC parties you can be sure.
When men
broke open
the miraculous power
of the atom,
The first thing they did
with it
was deliver it
into the hands
of the schoolchildren
of Hiroshima.
Joseph Fasano
Though I have no liking for Penk I feel he was hung out as the Sacrificial Lamb and also Thrown Under the Bus by Luxon and those National colleagues who let him be sacked.
I think those National MPs who wanted to get rid of Luxon but did not back Penk should hold their heads down in shame. They have shown a lowly level of Cowardice.
But it's likely that like all Self-Serving, Selfish and Opportunistic Troughers they didn't want to be sacked and therefore lose out in their sense of Entitlement i.e the pay packet and the perks of the role. So they protected themselves and let one of their colleagues be blamed by Luxon.
They made Penk walk the plank. It says so in the Cabinet Manual: collective responsibility and so on.
I find it hard to believe that Penk pulled a kamikaze stunt all by himself with no backing and no new leader for his loyalty. Even knowing & reading a little about the man and his beliefs & convictions relegates such thinking to Fantasy Land. Then again, National Party voters have been known to be pretty gullible at the best of times.
Yeah… I also don't buy the lone Penkman theory.
My assumption is that he was only part of a coup that didn't quite have the numbers, and was simply the only member of it junior and politically expendable enough to sack.
Because going after the actual challengers would require Luxon to admit publicly that there were actual challengers: and then behave as though he had enough authority and caucus support to punish them too. And if he doesn't, he's demonstrated his weakness; if he tries and fails, he probably just triggers another coup attempt.
That turns Penk's sacking into something slightly different: not proof that the rebellion was just him, but potentially proof that he was the only rebel Luxon could afford to make an example of.
National Party voters, "pretty gullible"?
Like Monica Lewinsky?
"They have shown a lowly level of Cowardice."
Actually, a HIGH level of cowardice.
The knowledge that all people have certain needs, water, food, housing etc. should be knowns for a politician. But as we know there are known knowns, and unknown ones, some beyond comprehension.
For the fast-moving 'jetmen' and women politically slightly above ground at all times or with 7-League boots, the providing of basic needs in a well-off country is just a matter of contriving, planning and supervising.
It amazes me how homelessness and the inability to provide options for regular food seem to be deliberately enabled by National, even Labour, and so they are mentally stretched when even more complicated matters crop up. Looking confident is not a prime need for citizens, but an earnest desire to do the necessary scoping work, and then keep the country fizzing with energy, work and circulating money from useful projects employing locals who receive good returns in return is The Thing.
This on Homelessness is an example of the desperate state of ineffectual, inadequate and mendacious government we have. That so many have not realised this condition for decades implies that we are a similar type or have no pride in our country provided that we personally aren't too disadvantaged. But it's getting worse and the sludge will sweep over most very soon. Time to demand responsibility and mend our faults, darn it.
https://wellington.scoop.co.nz/?p=182467
‘Cost effective:’ fewer homes for the homeless August 13, 2026 from Lindsay Shelton
Best Comment I think: Simon: While I think “cost effective” is the wrong term and acknowledge the need for social housing, both central and local governments need to be realistic.
The original plans for 16 buildings were costed at the time at $1.4m each. This excludes land cost (its council land) and any development margin. Adding those likely gets to market value of $1.8m unit – more than double the current average house price in Wellington.
For comparison the average cost of a KO new build last year was $574,000.
It’s not tenable to spend 3x the national average or 2x the average house price to build social housing – especially in a city where there are vacant private dwellings. (My old house is valued at just over $100,000. I think the problem is that there is no concept in contracted-out projects to economise. Drawings from Singapore's architects or other cities with high rise social units might be referred to?)