Time's up for Luxon
New Zealand didn't vote for a bald Jacinda
Christopher Luxon was supposed to be the circuit breaker. The man who would bring real-world business sense and a no-nonsense leadership style after six long years of Labour's social engineering and tyranny. New Zealanders didn’t vote for him out of love. They voted for change. Now, with the gloss well and truly worn off, it is becoming clear he was the wrong man for the job.
His poll numbers are falling. His support base is restless. The public mood is shifting from frustration to disillusionment. The promises of bold reform and strong leadership have given way to committee politics, compromise, and spin. Instead of being a clear alternative to Jacinda Ardern, Luxon has ended up looking like a slightly more corporate version of her. He has adopted many of the same positions, offered the same kinds of vague reassurances, and surrounded himself with advisors more focused on optics than outcomes.
Luxon talks like a corporate executive on a leadership retreat. He sounds rehearsed, and careful. Governing a country is not a branding exercise, and right now the country does not need another carefully managed public relations operation. It needs leadership. It needs direction. It needs guts.
Luxon belongs in the boardroom. He thrived as CEO of Air New Zealand, where his job was to keep shareholders happy, streamline operations, and give media-friendly soundbites. Politics requires something different. It demands vision. It demands instinct. It demands the ability to read the public mood without a pollster whispering in your ear. So far, Luxon has proven he is lacking all of that.
National's 2023 campaign tapped into a genuine hunger for change. Voters were fed up with Labour's soft-on-crime approach, its obsession with identity politics, and the disastrous way they handled the “COVID pandemic.” Since forming a government, Luxon has been tentative and cautious. He talks about getting things done, but the public sees little action. He talks about economic management, but families are still struggling to pay the bills. Instead of action, we get committees, working groups, and hollow announcements.
Luxon’s political instincts are centre-left, no matter what colour tie he wears. He has no interest in rocking the boat. He wants to be liked by the media. He wants to look “reasonable” to Wellington. This country did not vote for reasonable. It voted to course-correct. It voted for someone who would roll back the excesses of the Ardern years, not preserve them under new management.