What's going on with Christopher Luxon's job as National Party leader?
Christopher Luxon's position as leader of the National Party is under pressure again, with some of his own MPs making phone calls about whether someone else should take over.
A caucus meeting — where all National MPs gather together — is scheduled for 9:30am on Wednesday, 12 August, at Parliament. Backbenchers, the MPs who do not hold senior roles, believe a change is achievable, according to the NZ Herald.
The latest round of speculation started after Luxon said last Thursday that he would support a referendum on MMP if National wins the election. MMP is New Zealand's voting system. Under MMP, voters get two votes: one for a local person to represent their area, and one for a political party. The number of seats each party gets in Parliament roughly matches how many party votes they received.
It is unclear whether Luxon will call another confidence vote in himself at Wednesday's meeting. A confidence vote is where MPs vote on whether they still support their leader. He held one just four months ago after media reports of a possible challenge (RNZ).
RNZ analysis describes Luxon as a marked man heading into election year, under pressure to improve National's fortunes as polls flatline (RNZ). The pressure is not new. In April, 1News reported that Luxon faced renewed leadership pressure from within the party due to poor polling, with National at 34% and Labour ahead (1News). A 1News poll shortly after showed Luxon drop 4 percentage points to 16% in the preferred prime minister rankings — his worst result (1News). The preferred prime minister ranking measures which politician voters would most like to lead the country.
By June, polling showed Chris Hipkins overtaking Luxon in those rankings, at 19.2% (up 2.1 points) versus Luxon's 19.1% (up 0.3 points) (NZ Herald). National MPs publicly backed Luxon after that poll, with one MP saying he "hasn't put a foot wrong" (NZ Herald.
Despite those numbers, a "poll of polls" — which combines multiple surveys for a broader picture — gave the left-leaning Opposition bloc of Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori just a 3.2% chance of being able to form government (NZ Herald).
Simon Bridges, a senior National MP, said talk of a leadership ticket with Luxon was "just chatter" but did not deny having discussed it with him (RNZ).
There is no obvious single challenger within the National caucus to replace Luxon, according to RNZ, but several names stand out (RNZ).
Finance Minister and deputy leader Nicola Willis is named as a potential successor, though her standing is seen as increasingly tied to Luxon. Chris Bishop, who handles Housing and Transport, was discussed during late-last-year coup chatter that amounted to nothing. Erica Stanford is widely considered a contender, having impressed as Education and Immigration minister, but lacks finance and economy experience. Senior MPs Simeon Brown, the party's campaign chair, and Mark Mitchell have been floated as more likely deputies than leaders (RNZ).
The broader context here is a party caught between two pictures. The overall polling still suggests National can form government, since the combined left-wing parties have only a 3.2% chance of doing so. But individual polling on who voters prefer as prime minister tells a different story, with Hipkins pulling ahead of Luxon. That gap is what gives MPs who want a change their argument. The question for caucus on Wednesday is whether the MMP referendum announcement — which started this latest round of speculation — was a mistake Luxon can recover from, or a sign that his political judgement is no longer trusted by enough of his colleagues to lead them into an election.
