Christopher Luxon’s Leadership Victory: You Come At The King, You Best Not Miss

Jo Moir,
Political editor

Analysis:
National MPs who tried and failed to take down Christopher
Luxon on Wednesday should be embarrassed and
ashamed.

After plotting, leaking, and destabilising
the party enough to pressure the National Party leader into
calling an emergency in-person caucus meeting, the agitators
could not get the job done.

In the process they’ve
left Luxon wounded and limping his way to the election with
a caucus, which as far as the public is concerned, is more
interested in itself and its own ambitions than the
cost-of-living crisis much of the country is
enduring.

Luxon has identified one of the detractors
and made him the fall guy. After fleeing Parliament for
Auckland, the prime minister sent out a statement saying
Defence Minister Chris Penk was to blame for the
destabilisation after launching a leadership challenge this
week, resulting in the confidence vote.

“This makes
his role untenable and as such I have removed his
portfolios,” Luxon said.

By 8pm Penk had given up any
pretense he could stay on in the party and announced he
wouldn’t seek re-election in November in his safe seat of
Kaipara ki Mahurangi – a seat once held by Sir John
Key.

It’s
a bold call to punish his opponents, and a bit of a farce
when he’s only gone after one of what is clearly a group of
disgruntled MPs.

But he could hardly demote senior MPs
like Erica Stanford and Chris Bishop – two of his best
operators – who were clearly being lined up as the true
leadership contenders.

So for now Luxon has to leave
it at one and hope that that has sent a strong enough
message to the rest of the anti-Luxon brigade to keep their
grievances to themselves until the election has run its
course.

The instigators of a second round of
confidence vote chaos have now had their chance and must
accept the mess the party is now left with until the
election.

Luxon looked like he had been through 12
rounds in the ring when he fronted the media after a three
hour caucus meeting.

He spoke for a total of 75
seconds where he confirmed he had won a confidence vote, and
had the full confidence of a caucus that was “united and
determined to win this election”.

In a complete repeat
of his April confidence vote, he made his remarks following
the meeting in the Banquet Hall – the least prime
ministerial room in Parliament – and took no questions from
the waiting reporters.

Unlike in April he didn’t label
the whole saga a “media soap opera” or blame reporters for
the speculation and rumour. Instead he trotted out
National’s tired promise to “fix the basics and build the
future”.

Yet National has failed in the basics of what
is a functioning caucus – being unified behind its leader.
Likewise it hasn’t looked like a party with any idea who
might be its leader tomorrow, let alone in the
future.

Within hours of the short and sombre press
conference ending, the party was trying to return to some
sense of normality with a media advisory from Bishop about
an announcement on Thursday morning and an education press
release from Stanford.

Meanwhile, Luxon was straight
back to Auckland to prepare for the arrival of the
Vietnamese president, who up until 1pm on Wednesday would
have been wondering who he would be meeting the next
day.

Exactly
what Luxon said in the caucus room to persuade enough MPs to
back him will never truly be known. Any leaks to the media
would have to be taken with a grain of salt.

More
surprising than Luxon successfully rallying his MPs to swing
in behind him was the failure by his detractors to make a
more convincing argument for change.

While Luxon’s
stared down his challengers, he’s now crawling his way to
election night with a target on his back.

Chances of
him surviving after the election are slim and the uphill
battle to get the party’s polling up in the next 86 days has
been made all the more difficult.

The pressure on
Luxon intensified after he won the first confidence vote –
it just ramped up again after coming through a second
round.

Every blunder, gaffe, miscommunication or
misjudgement will be analysed, scrutinised and tucked away
as ammunition for a later date.

If Luxon can blow
things out of the water in the next three months and get the
party in a position to form a strong National-led
government, not controlled by its coalition partners, he
will have proven his opponents wrong.

After such a
brutal and public display of self-absorbed petty infighting
this week, that could be a tough
ask.

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