There’s no reason to doubt the prime minister’s claim that his caucus is united. Provided you ignore all the reasons to doubt his claim that his caucus is united.
If Christopher Luxon was clear about one thing at his press conference yesterday it was that National is fixing the basics and building the future. But if he was clear about another thing, it was that his entire team is united behind him. The current and possibly future PM announced that the second emergency confidence vote he’d called on his own leadership in six months had again revealed that morale is high and everything is A-OK in National’s ranks. “There was a confidence vote in my leadership this morning at our caucus meeting, and I have the full support of our caucus. And our caucus is united, and it is determined to win this election,” he told media.
It was a clear and definitive statement and there’s no reason to doubt its veracity. Provided, of course, you ignore this Andrea Vance piece from November 2025 claiming senior National MPs had reached “2.7 on the coup scale”. The Post’s national affairs editor detailed a nascent leadership takeover attempt from transport and infrastructure minister Chris Bishop (he denied it), motivated by falling polls and growing discontent with Luxon’s regular political flubbing.
It would also pay to ignore reporting from April 17 that Luxon had evaded a senior National MP who was trying to furnish him with evidence of flagging support for his leadership. According to the Herald’s political editor Thomas Coughlan, ructions within National had reached a point where party whip Stuart Smith was obliged to inform the PM. But he couldn’t make an appointment with his leader, in what Coughlan branded an “extraordinary state of affairs”.
Smith later denied he’d been chasing Luxon for a meeting, but you should probably also ignore Luxon’s own words from a few days later, when he told RNZ’s Morning Report he was dealing with a “small handful of dissatisfied MPs“. He even put a number on that handful, telling Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking that five “moaning and frustrated” MPs were leaking to the media.
The day after Luxon took aim at the Moany Five on the radio, he stared into their whiny eyes in the caucus room, calling a leadership confidence vote on himself and winning. The Post would later report that the vote’s margin was extremely tight, with 27 MPs voting for Luxon and 22 against, and that’s another data point you should probably take no notice of if possible.
If you want to believe that National is united behind Christopher Luxon, it’s also advisable that you should avoid reading Coughlan’s report from Monday this week, which detailed a burgeoning mutiny within the party’s caucus. It said discontented MPs were hitting the phones to gauge their colleagues’ support for rolling Luxon as leader, with one telling the political editor there was “going to be a change” in the PM role and “it’s just a question of who is going to be it.”
We all know what happened next. Luxon called another leadership vote and survived. After insisting he had the full support of the caucus, he sacked Chris Penk, saying the defence minister had mounted a leadership challenge against him and his position was untenable.
It’s worth ignoring that as well. Because if you put all that aside, what Luxon told the media yesterday was undoubtedly accurate. He has the full support of his caucus, barring the ones who have been near-openly braying for his political blood for the better part of a year. Now it’s time to move on. There are basics to be fixed. A future to be built, and National’s future will absolutely have Luxon in it after November 7. After all, he has the full support of his caucus.
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