National leader Christopher Luxon claims five “moaning and frustrated” MPs are leaking to the media amid ongoing leadership speculation.
Luxon made the comment on Monday morning after being asked about an exclusive story from the Herald last week which revealed the National leader could face a move against his leadership this fortnight.
That story reported three sources – it later grew to four – as saying National whip Stuart Smith had attempted to contact Luxon prior to Easter about flagging support within the caucus. Luxon could not be contacted by Smith at the time, though the pair later met in north Canterbury.
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Asked on the Mike Hosking Breakfast about that report, Luxon said he had read it and admitted “there’ll be a handful of people who’d understandably be disgruntled”.
He said there were five “that are moaning and frustrated”.
“Of people that I could think that could possibly be talking to media about their frustrations, that’s all I’m saying,” Luxon said.
“We need to reiterate the case for why we need discipline because we’ve seen the cases as we’ve had experiences as a National Party where we broke the party essentially in civil war, that’s just counterproductive, we’re a long way from that.”
Any sign of that should be stamped out “early and hard”, the National leader said.
Luxon said discipline would be discussed at Tuesday’s caucus meeting.
“The feeling is that when you get disunity in a party and people talking about that publicly, that just says to the New Zealand public or to anybody that actually if you can’t manage yourselves, you can’t run the country.”
He said people may be ”frustrated" as they could have missed out on a promotion, or those who were in a marginal seat could be “understandably concerned and worried”.
“I want all of those MPs in my caucus returned to Parliament. I think they all have something to offer and they all work incredibly hard and all are pretty smart.”
Chris Bishop is often discussed as a potential leadership contender but has himself denied wishing to “upend” the party or that he is mounting a coup. Luxon said he had received the National minister’s reassurance and backing.
The comments also follow a 1News-Verian poll on Sunday night which showed National down 4 points to 30%. The coalition would also lose power if an election were to be held today and these were the results.
In the preferred Prime Minister rankings, Luxon recorded his worst result since becoming National Party leader in 2021, dropping 4 points to 16%. Bishop was up one point to 2%.
MPs were publicly backing Luxon when asked by media on Monday morning.
National minister Simon Watts said the poll demonstrated New Zealanders had a “degree of frustration with the economy”.
Watts said he “absolutely” had confidence in Luxon, saying he was doing a “fantastic job” fixing the economy.
Another minister, Paul Goldsmith, said he was “rock solid” behind Luxon and National was “going to do well” at the election. He said he had “no idea” who had been leaking against Luxon.
New Cabinet minister Chris Penk said no one had approached him as part of a coup attempt.
He was not aware that Smith had tried to contact leader Luxon to warn him about flagging support in caucus.
Penk was asked about Luxon’s remarks that about five MPs were being disloyal.
“The perfect number is zero,” he said. “I don’t know how many there are.”
Speaking to TVNZ’s Q&A with Jack Tame on Sunday, Bishop denied knowing about the “ghosting” incident or that he would run for leader if the position was vacant, insisting Luxon was the man for the job.
Rumours of disquiet in the party have stirred since the dire polling of early March.
The Taxpayers’ Union-Curia poll then showed National at 28.4%. That bombshell poll position was only a couple of points above its disastrous 2020 wipeout, when Judith Collins led the National Party.
More recent polling by Talbot Mills had the National Party about the same, at 29%.
Labour was ahead on 36%, NZ First was on 15%, the Green Party was on 7%, Act was on 8% and Te Pāti Māori was on 2%.
Talbot Mills also polls for the Labour Party.