\u201cCan I be really honest with you, I do not care about some left-wing journalist Nicky Hager, and I also don\u2019t care about the Taxpayers\u2019 Union.\u201d<\/p>\n
The book includes comments Luxon made during a 2021 appearance on Williams\u2019 Taxpayers Talk podcast. Then National\u2019s local government spokesman, Luxon thanked Williams and his members for \u201call the work you do\u201d, adding: \u201cI really enjoy what you guys do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also referenced a comment in a Taxpayers\u2019 Union campaign document that claimed Luxon had told the group to \u201cbe louder\u201d when Luxon was asked how the group could help National\u2019s electoral fortunes.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of the launch, Hager criticised Luxon for his comments and condemned what he described as the group\u2019s links with right-leaning political parties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI ask, what was Luxon doing keeping company with these people?\u201d Hager said to the audience at his book launch.<\/p>\n
A reporter asked Luxon for his response to quotes that he supported what the Taxpayers\u2019 Union did and whether he stood by that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not care, and New Zealanders do not care about this topic,\u201d he said before walking away.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon speaking during the final parliamentary Question Time under the 54th Government. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell <\/p>\n
Act leader David Seymour also grew frustrated with media questioning, initially answering a few before shutting them down.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh shit, you guys, look I\u2019ll tell you what, this is the end of a three-year term, we have done spectacular things for New Zealand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added he was happy to talk about the Government\u2019s work but said: \u201cIf you want to ask more questions about [the book], then ask someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I think people will be looking at is a press gallery that is obsessed with one guy who had written a book that is full of factual inaccuracies, quoting disgruntled former staff members of an organisation frankly I have nothing to do with.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cCan I be really honest with you, I do not care about some left-wing journalist Nicky Hager, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,1443,74,2108,16426,5782,55672,3602,5903,40392,300242,18439,13489,16427,3556,111,43,139,20309,69,4762,35115,17146,71831,300241,35028,4483,4576],"class_list":["post-609375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-about","tag-after","tag-book","tag-christopher","tag-comments","tag-dirty","tag-earlier","tag-election","tag-hager","tag-hagers","tag-highlighted","tag-leader","tag-luxon","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nicky","tag-nz","tag-party","tag-praise","tag-questions","tag-rebuffed","tag-rebuffs","tag-taxpayers","tag-union","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609375","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=609375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}