Is the Prime Minister About to Lose His Job?

Christopher Luxon's role as leader of the National Party is being questioned again, after a week of mistakes and reports that his own MPs are unhappy with him.

The NZ Herald reported on Monday night that National MPs had been ringing each other all day, talking about whether Luxon should be replaced. One MP, who did not want to be named, was quoted as saying: "There's going to be change in the top job. It's just a question of who is going to be it." (RNZ)

RNZ spoke to about ten National MPs on Monday night and got mixed answers. One MP said the quotes sounded like they were based on something real. At least one other said it was nonsense. The National Party's full group of MPs was due to meet online on Tuesday night. Parliament is not sitting this week. (RNZ)

The talk comes after a rough patch for Luxon. On a Thursday, he went on talkback radio and announced — without telling his own MPs first — that if National wins the next election, he wants to hold a public vote on whether to keep New Zealand's current voting system, known as MMP. That system decides how seats in Parliament are shared out based on each party's share of the vote. He then had to explain why he used a military plane to fly home from a party fundraising dinner, on the same day news broke that unemployment had hit an 11-year high. (RNZ)

Luxon also had to apologise to business leaders in Rotorua after he criticised them for having a "parent-child mentality" and leaning on government too much. On top of that, he faced questions about his foreign minister Winston Peters, who had called Luxon's own comments about another MP "racist" — and was not told off for it. (RNZ)

On a Saturday, Luxon was asked whether a vote he held in April 2025 — where MPs were asked whether they still backed him as leader — had been close, with 27 voting for him and 22 against. He replied: "I have the support of my caucus — I'm very confident in my leadership." (RNZ)

That April 2025 vote is the background to what is happening now. Luxon survived that vote, which came six months before the election and during a run of poor poll results. Reuters reported that several polls showed National struggling to get above 30 percent support, with some suggesting the government might not win enough seats to stay in power. (Reuters; The Guardian)

The polls have been heading in the wrong direction for a while. The RNZ-Reid Research poll in July 2025 showed National down 2.1 points to 28.7 percent — its fourth drop in a row in that poll, and its worst result since Luxon became leader in November 2021. In March 2026, Reuters reported National had fallen 2.9 points to 28.4 percent, with the drop blamed on a weakening economy. (RNZ; Reuters)

The leadership tensions in April 2026 were well covered. 1News reported on 17 April that Luxon's leadership was under fresh pressure because of the poor polling. The NZ Herald, using sources, reported that Luxon had avoided an MP who tried to tell him support was falling, and that he faced a possible challenge that fortnight. The same report said MPs who did not back Luxon were put under heavy pressure, and that the whip — the MP in charge of keeping the party's MPs in line — was "ghosted" by Luxon. (1News; NZ Herald)

At a press conference on 17 April, Luxon told reporters he was "very confident" he had the full support of his MPs and that if an election were held that day, the government would be re-elected. (Reuters)

The NZ Herald reported that Luxon claimed five "moaning and frustrated" National MPs were leaking information to the media amid the leadership talk. He later backed away from that claim. The MPs he was referring to denied they had been leaking. (NZ Herald; NZ Herald)

The pattern is a simple one. National has been sitting at around 28 or 29 percent in the polls for months. Luxon has survived one formal vote on his leadership, but if the reported 27-to-22 result is right, he does not have much room to lose more MPs. The phone calls and the unnamed MP's bluntness suggest the question is no longer whether MPs are unhappy — it is whether someone else could get enough support to replace him. The Tuesday night online meeting will be the next real test of whether that conversation happens openly.

The problem for anyone who might want to replace Luxon is timing. The election is close, and changing leaders right before an election is risky in itself. The same low poll numbers that make Luxon look vulnerable also suggest that swapping him for someone else might not actually improve things. The mixed answers RNZ got from its group of about ten MPs show that tension: some think the leaked quotes point to a real shift; others want the whole thing to go away.

Luxon's stumbles — the surprise MMP referendum call, the military flight, the Rotorua apology, and the questions about Winston Peters — have each given his critics more to work with. Whether that is enough to tip MPs who are on the fence into backing someone else is the question the party will have to weigh when it meets.