New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he had the “full support” of his ruling National Party on Wednesday after surviving a leadership challenge called with less than three months until a general election.<\/p>\n
Luxon has led New Zealand since 2023 but has been unable to reverse his party’s slide in the polls, with a series of gaffes, divisions within his ruling coalition, and rising living costs and unemployment denting his popularity.<\/p>\n
He called an emergency meeting on Tuesday after media reported growing speculation that his leadership was no longer tenable.<\/p>\n
Following hours of closed-door talks with party grandees, Luxon said he had secured their backing.<\/p>\n
“There was a confidence vote in my leadership this morning at our caucus meeting, and I have the full support of our caucus,” he told journalists.<\/p>\n
“Our caucus is united, and it is determined to win this election,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’re going back to work, and we’re moving on.”<\/p>\n
Wednesday’s was the second challenge to his leadership this year.<\/p>\n
In April, Luxon made it through a vote after reports National members were displeased with the party polling under 30 percent.<\/p>\n
Luxon was flanked by two rumoured leadership contenders as he fronted journalists — ministers Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford.<\/p>\n
Immigration Minister Stanford had appeared to have growing support to take on the leadership and would not pledge her support to Luxon in recent days.<\/p>\n
And ex-tobacco lobbyist Bishop has long been said to have interest in the top job, but told reporters on Tuesday he backed Luxon as leader.<\/p>\n
Leaving the caucus meeting, members said they were “united” and “100 percent behind the prime minister”, but as in April they would not say if Luxon had unanimous support.<\/p>\n
– Troubled premiership –<\/p>\n
The former Air New Zealand boss led the centre-right party to election victory in 2023 vowing to tame inflation and bring down interest rates.<\/p>\n
The teetotal millionaire touted himself as a master negotiator from previous business experience.<\/p>\n
But it took over six weeks for him to broker a three-way coalition government with populist New Zealand First and right-wing libertarian ACT, a marriage of convenience he has struggled to manage throughout his premiership.<\/p>\n
His political savvy became a long-running concern with a series of gaffes and miscommunications, and his inability to rein in coalition partners hurt his popularity.<\/p>\n
An example came when foreign minister and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters sparked an international incident last month, telling a Chinese-born lawmaker during a parliamentary debate to “go back to your own country” where “they lie like flatfish”.<\/p>\n
Beijing complained about the comments and while Luxon condemned them as offensive and racist, he did not sanction his coalition partner.<\/p>\n
Peters dismissed the leadership vote on Wednesday as “much ado about nothing”.<\/p>\n
“This pivotal election is less than three months away and we need to give voters a clear and unified message — that we are going to win and make New Zealand great again,” he wrote on X.<\/p>\n
Luxon also drew ire with an attack on small-business owners, a key part of his base, saying they had a “parent-child mentality” towards the government.<\/p>\n
And he topped off last week by calling for a referendum of New Zealand’s mixed-member proportional representation, a wildly unpopular suggestion that caught many in his own government off-guard.<\/p>\n
Polling has suggested some of Luxon’s most senior ministers could be turfed out of parliament when New Zealanders vote on November 7.<\/p>\n
bes-oho\/abs<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he had the “full support” of his ruling National Party on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9293,82265,84259,278739,278742,16427,111,278722,43,139,69,278741,278740],"class_list":["post-566349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-air-new-zealand","tag-chris-bishop","tag-confidence-vote","tag-leadership-challenge","tag-leadership-vote","tag-luxon","tag-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand-prime-minister","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-second-national-party-leadership-vote","tag-unanimous-support"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566349","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=566349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}