Christopher Luxon has reportedly beaten back a leadership push from Chris Bishop – for now. But the forces that fuelled the bid have not gone away, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin.
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The leadership coup that wasn’t
Christopher Luxon’s precarious hold on the prime ministership was tested last weekend as National edged from idle gossip into what Andrea Vance calls “2.7 on the coup scale” (4 being a new leader installed). According to her fascinating Sunday Star-Times piece (republished in Stuff) – which, it should be emphasised, was an unsourced opinion column, not a standard news story – the attempted putsch centred on Chris Bishop, the minister widely viewed as Luxon’s most credible internal rival, and reached its peak at a November 21 party in parliament, where the room was abuzz with talk that the prime minister was about to be rolled. It marked the culmination of weeks of chatter about Luxon’s future, compounded by an Ipsos Issues Monitor survey showing voters had lost trust in National on the economy and other key issues.
So Luxon struck back. Reporters were abruptly told he would make an appearance at a regional party gathering on Sunday 23rd in Upper Hutt, Bishop’s home turf. That decision was designed to make a point, Vance claims. Deputy leader Nicola Willis, a close ally of Bishop, provided the clincher: “a speech full of over-cranked praise” for Luxon, followed by a joint stand-up in which she sold the government’s KiwiSaver policy beside him. The message was clear: Willis had picked a side – and it was not Bishop’s.
Why Bishop failed
For all the chatter about a Bishop coup, the numbers just didn’t stack up. Vance reports that Bishop couldn’t muster even a third of caucus, and both top potential deputies-in-waiting failed to back him. For a Bishop-Willis ticket, Vance writes, “the political maths was brutal: two liberal Wellington MPs could never lead a party that needs to win Auckland while keeping its rural spine intact.” A Bishop–Willis pairing would also force concessions to conservatives, likely costing Willis her finance role.
Auckland-based Erica Stanford, seen as Bishop’s other likely pick as deputy, also declined the opportunity, mindful that a failed coup could harm her own chances of getting the top job in the future, Vance claims. There were other factors against Bishop, including “lingering mistrust, fair or not, over [his] role in the disastrous Todd Muller coup of 2020,” Vance writes. “And lastly, MPs are clinging to a faint but growing belief that the economy might be about to turn a corner,” lessening the need for a leadership change.
A PM in waiting?
Bishop denied last week that he was after Luxon’s job. But many colleagues – and a not insignificant number of voters – clearly see him as a potential leader. As Tova O’Brien put it in Stuff: “He’s got many of the things Luxon lacks. Political instinct. Clear answers in interviews. Confidence in the House. A fairly normal wealth situation.” In Newsroom, Laura Walters’ profile expands on that picture, depicting him as a hard-working, deeply experienced politician with the ability to explain complex reforms with fluency and ease. All of this explains why Bishop remains Luxon’s most plausible successor. The PM may have survived this round, but a credible alternative has very clearly been identified.
National leadership coups: an underwhelming history
National’s recent leadership history offers no comfort to would-be plotters. Since 2018, the party has churned through Bill English (resigned), Simon Bridges (rolled), Todd Muller (resigned) and Judith Collins (rolled), before settling on Luxon. The warnings from prime ministerial history are even clearer. Three prime ministers in recent memory – David Lange, Geoffrey Palmer and Jim Bolger – were rolled by their own caucus, and each time it ended in electoral defeat. Bolger himself, reflecting decades later with RNZ’s Guyon Espiner, was blunt about the lesson: without a previous general election win, “the public obviously doesn’t buy [the] argument” that the new PMs make for their own legitimacy. If he wants the top job, Bishop may ultimately conclude that patience is the only route that doesn’t end with him back in opposition.
