{"id":571460,"date":"2026-08-17T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571460\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T07:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:00:11","slug":"luxon-confident-in-backing-from-stanford-bishop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/571460\/","title":{"rendered":"Luxon confident in backing from Stanford, Bishop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he is confident Erica Stanford and Chris Bishop fully support his leadership and played no role in last week’s failed leadership challenge.<\/a><\/p>\n

National MP’s were called to an emergency caucus meeting in Wellington on Wednesday amid mounting speculation over Luxon’s leadership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, then-Defence Minister Chris Penk <\/a>mounted an unsuccessful leadership coup before the caucus backed Luxon in a confidence vote <\/p>\n

Penk was subsequently stripped of his ministerial portfolios and later announced he wouldn’t be standing at the upcoming election. <\/p>\n

Stanford moved to shut down speculation<\/a> about her role in the turmoil yesterday, saying she backed Luxon \u201c100%\u201d and had not been involved in the challenge from Penk. <\/p>\n

Her comments came after she declined to publicly back Luxon when questioned at Wellington Airport ahead of Wednesday’s caucus meeting.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RNZ’s Morning Report this morning, Luxon said he had no doubts about Stanford’s support. <\/p>\n

\u201cI know I have her full support \u2014 always have,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Prime Minister said Stanford had expressed her support privately before the caucus meeting and he did not feel the need to question her over her earlier silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty intense situation when you turn up at an airport and you\u2019ve got a media scrum that\u2019s in full white heat mode. It\u2019s not a surprise that some of my caucus will freeze, or fight or flight about that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Erica<\/p>\n

Erica Stanford. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Stanford yesterday acknowledged her decision not to answer questions about whether she backed Luxon “didn’t work out that well”, but insisted she had supported him “a million times”. <\/p>\n

“He (Luxon) has given me an incredible opportunity to do the job that I’m doing to raise achievement, close the equity gap, and it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be able to be doing this. And many of our other ministers as well owe him a huge debt of gratitude,” she said. <\/p>\n

Stanford added that she wanted to remain Education Minister “for the next nine years”.<\/p>\n

Christopher Luxon says dissident minister Chris Penk had to go but refuses to give caucus vote count. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n

Bishop had also faced speculation over whether he was involved in the leadership challenge, which he denied.<\/p>\n

Luxon told Newstalk ZB this morning Bishop had assured him he had his full confidence, describing both him and Stanford as \u201coutstanding ministers\u201d.<\/p>\n

“They weren’t involved with Chris Penk, it was a sole action, and they fully support the Prime Minister,” Luxon said. <\/p>\n

Bishop echoed that sentiment earlier today, telling RNZ Penk had acted alone and the message he had received from the public following the leadership vote was to move on. <\/p>\n

“Very strongly people saying it’s good you’ve got it sorted,” Bishop said.<\/p>\n

“Get on with the job. This country’s got too many challenges to spend our time fixated on this sort of stuff.<\/p>\n

“So just get on with it, and that’s exactly what I and the rest of the team are doing.”<\/p>\n

Penk’s retirement will leave his Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate seat vacant. Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith yesterday ruled out standing in the seat,<\/a> with National yet to announce a replacement candidate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he is confident Erica Stanford and Chris Bishop fully support his leadership and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11508,11507,111,43,139,69,135,270122],"class_list":["post-571460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-christopher-luxon","tag-national-party","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-politics","tag-vote-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571460","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=571460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}