Mike's Minute: Luxon had belief and came out a winner

Author: Mike Hosking ,
Publish Date: Thu, 13 Aug 2026, 10:43am

Not for the first time have too many people read what happened yesterday completely incorrectly.

"It was over", they told us. "The numbers were done", they told us. "Tuesday night was it", they told us.

"There wasn’t a caucus meeting required". Wrong.

"Mark Mitchell was Erica Stanford's deputy". Wrong.

"The idea that Luxon could do this twice was impossible". Wrong.

One of the great sadnesses of the modern media and its lack of institutional knowledge is too many people talk to themselves, or don’t recognise when their sources are stitching them up, or they put too much of their own agenda into the coverage.

This is not to say Luxon didn’t have trouble and that members of the National caucus weren't whining. But it is to say that that doesn’t mean when push comes to shove you pull a trigger on what almost certainly was a gargantuan political mistake.

To repeat from yesterday; the polls are fine, Luxon's issues are not sackable, and the economy is turning. The S&P just upgraded our GDP for God's sake.

This is no time to panic, and this is no time to put your burgeoning aspirations as a backbencher to the test.

I'm thrilled for Christopher Luxon. He deserves a lot better than he has got. The foibles, if you want to put them like that, are not sackable offences.

The fact Peters last time, and Seymour this time, spoke well of what he has done in a tricky first-of-its-kind coalition deal is not to be underestimated.

Oh the irony that opponents can see what his backbencher moaners can't.

This is not and was not a crisis. This was a self-centred, naval gazing, bitchathon from National MPs who should know how to behave better.

Remember where you heard it first – when National win and the Coalition enter the second term, and the Luxon era of leadership issues vanishes, because that’s what happens with victory, it will be a moment to savour.

The easy thing for Luxon to do would have been to walk, and a lot would have.

Belief is a sadly rare, but powerful trait and whatever you say about him he clearly has it.

Staring them down for a second time might just be the nail in their coffin.

He is a better man than they.