PM Christopher Luxon defends cancelling regular TVNZ Breakfast appearance

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has defended cancelling his weekly appearance on TVNZ’s Breakfast, saying he’s “pretty accessible” compared to other leaders around the world who only speak to media when needed.

Luxon’s team announced last week he would not be doing a regular interview with Tova O’Brien on the show, saying Kiwis now consume media on many different platforms.

He would still appear on the show on a case-by-case basis.

Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking asked if the move meant he was “chicken or running for the hills”.

Luxon said while he had “reset how I want to engage with media”, that was no different from what previous prime ministers had done.

“I think Bolger cancelled press conferences, I think Key and Ardern made decisions about where they would go on,” Luxon said.

But he also spoke of a “second issue” - referring to National Party whip Stuart Smith’s reported run-in with TVNZ reporters last week.

“We respect the role of media, but it’s also important that there are some standards and rules in Parliament,” Luxon said.

“We’ve had an issue with TVNZ around that and we’ve made that clear to TVNZ management.”

The move is reminiscent of former PM Jacinda Ardern’s decision to ditch her long-standing weekly interview with Hosking.

PR experts have called the move “strange”, bold and potentially risky, but former Today FM boss Dallas Gurney had harsher words in an opinion piece in the Herald at the weekend - calling the PM a “coward” who was scared of O’Brien.

Several Breakfast interview snippets have gone viral in recent weeks, including O’Brien correcting the PM’s claim he was the CEO of New Zealand, and a stumble when asked how many of National’s Cabinet ministers were Māori.

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