Speaking at Parliament today, Luxon said the ability to communicate clearly is \u201cabsolutely\u201d important for any Prime Minister, but argued New Zealanders care far more about economic outcomes than political commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAbsolutely. And that\u2019s why I\u2019ve got so many media engagements in any given week,\u201d he said. \u201cNew Zealanders out there are not talking about polls. They want to know about the economy and what we\u2019re doing to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luxon acknowledged the past week had been challenging but rejected any suggestion he had held conversations about his leadership with party members. \u201cI can assure you I\u2019ll be the leader going into the election on November 7,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He did, however, confirm he had spoken with ministers about the poll result. \u201cI talk to ministers every couple of days, if not every day. Of course we talk about topics of the week. There\u2019s no perfect week in politics. Last week wasn\u2019t the perfect week, and it\u2019s not surprising that I\u2019ve raised that in passing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Luxon again framed himself as an outsider to political culture, saying he would never deliver the \u201cperfect sound bite\u201d and that voters were more interested in delivery than polish. \u201cI\u2019m not a career politician. I\u2019m not going to have the perfect sound bite\u2026 We\u2019ve had prime ministers in the past that are fantastic communicators but don\u2019t deliver, and New Zealanders are over that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finance Minister Nicola Willis, who last week described the poll as \u201cnot a good number,\u201d stood by that assessment today. \u201cI think I simply spoke the truth,\u201d she said. \u201cOf course the Prime Minister, me, and the National Party want to be polling a lot better than that number, because we want New Zealand to have the government it deserves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the pressure, Luxon maintained he is focused on \u201cbuilding a great team\u201d and delivering results, insisting the Government\u2019s agenda \u2014 not political turbulence \u2014 will define the months ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has moved to steady his leadership after a bruising week, insisting he remains the right person to lead National into the November election despite a sharp drop in polling and renewed scrutiny of his communication style. Speaking at Parliament today, Luxon said the ability to communicate clearly is \u201cabsolutely\u201d important for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[225,113,257],"coauthors":[709],"class_list":{"0":"post-10831","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-christopher-luxon","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10833,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10831\/revisions\/10833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10831"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cvnznews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=10831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}