{"id":564597,"date":"2026-08-10T10:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T10:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564597\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T10:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T10:38:10","slug":"luxon-leadership-national-mps-hit-phones-on-possible-change-after-mmp-captains-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564597\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxon leadership: National MPs hit phones on possible change after MMP captain\u2019s call"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MP cited senior ministers Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford as front-runners. <\/p>\n

Other National MPs expressed openness to change, but did not say they were definitely in either camp. <\/p>\n

An MP in Luxon\u2019s camp disagreed with change. <\/p>\n

Both Bishop and Stanford publicly pledged support to Luxon this year, and over the weekend Stanford ruled herself out of any potential leadership run. <\/p>\n

Despite that, several of Stanford\u2019s colleagues believe she is in the running along with Bishop. <\/p>\n

Neither MP returned the Herald\u2019s requests to speak for this story. Both have denied leadership ambitions in the past. <\/p>\n

Three caucus sources spoken to by the Herald said both MPs are potential leadership contenders despite statements to the contrary. Two other caucus sources would not confirm or deny a plot to remove Luxon was afoot.<\/p>\n

This week is a recess week in Parliament, when Luxon usually doesn\u2019t hold a post-Cabinet press conference.<\/p>\n

However, he often holds a stand-up outside of Wellington. <\/p>\n

On Monday, Luxon did his morning broadcast media round, appearing on RNZ and Newstalk ZB. He did not hold a public stand-up. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for Luxon said \u201cthe PM held media stand-ups on both Saturday and Sunday in Wellington, did two media interviews this morning and will be in front of media several more times this week\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe PM does not usually have post-Cabinet press conferences in Wellington on non-sitting weeks and on occasion has not had a media standup on a Monday,\u201d the spokesman said. <\/p>\n

They had not heard leadership speculation and had nothing further to add. <\/p>\n

The Herald spoke to several MPs from the camps of Luxon supporters and detractors. <\/p>\n

An MP on Luxon\u2019s side of the caucus admitted the Prime Minister had had a bad few days in the job, but did not think Luxon should go. <\/p>\n

A senior MP who supported Luxon said the Prime Minister had himself acknowledged<\/a> he had not communicated brilliantly when he insulted small businesses in Rotorua<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Luxon survived a confidence vote<\/a> in his own leadership in April. <\/p>\n

The Herald has been told by MPs that they believed the margin was 27 to 22 in favour of Luxon<\/a>, however, the figure is confidential to the party whips. <\/p>\n

The last public poll \u2013 the Taxpayers\u2019 Union-Curia poll \u2013 had National up half a point to 31%<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Labour was on 27.8% \u2013 down 3.7 points. However, the Opportunity Party\u2019s rise meant the poll showed the coalition clinging to power by a single seat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The MP cited senior ministers Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford as front-runners. Other National MPs expressed openness to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1443,74,3043,115,26632,12974,57374,277870,108561,42,10938,3594,1043,16427,105087,9878,17318,3556,43,90,4762,16792,2063,17398,6046,13109,1361,8229,40,38,41,39,102],"class_list":["post-564597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-about","tag-after","tag-call","tag-calls","tag-captains","tag-change","tag-confirming","tag-discontented","tag-fielded","tag-headlines","tag-herald","tag-hit","tag-leadership","tag-luxon","tag-mmp","tag-monday","tag-mps","tag-national","tag-news","tag-on","tag-party","tag-phone","tag-phones","tag-possible","tag-potential","tag-several","tag-that","tag-they","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}