Paddy Gower: Amanda Luxon is a decent Kiwi with the answers to our divided society and our politicians can learn from her

Wednesday, 16 April 2025

Paddy Gower calls Amanda Luxon “real good” after hearing her speak on politics and respect. He praises her message of unity and self-reflection in a time of division and anger.

OPINION: How good is Amanda Luxon? I reckon she is really good.

Why? Because “the Prime Minister’s wife” has given one of the best takes on the polarisation of politics I have ever heard.

These are Amanda Luxon’s words: “We seem to have lost the ability to hold differences and still be friends.”

I wholeheartedly agree. Kiwi society just keeps getting angrier and more angsty.

So after a recommendation, I started listening to Amanda on Petra Bagust’s podcast Grey Areas and could not stop.

Amanda Luxon says she won’t “grow as an individual” unless she challenges her thinking.

It revealed her as incredibly down-to-earth, grounded, principled and thoughtful.

She bemoaned the lack of critical thinking in modern New Zealand - something I also worry about.

Amanda said: “I will seek out people who have a different stance on something. I’m not going to grow as an individual unless I challenge my own thinking.”

That is great advice, and something I actually wish I did more of myself.

Speaking about New Zealand, she said: “We are way closer than we are apart.”

Amanda Luxon’s biceps prompted a flood of social media musings on election night 2023.

Again, this is something I truly believe - but New Zealand just does not feel that way right now.

As I listened I wondered why I found Amanda so surprising. Had I judged her? I hate to admit it, but maybe I had. I hope not - it certainly made me reflect.

At the very least I didn’t know much about her. I’d only seen women’s magazine articles, selfies on Christopher Luxon’s Instagram and the clickbait about her election night biceps.

But I really liked what Amanda was saying to Petra.

Amanda Luxon appears in selfies on her husband’s Instagram page, including this one from Ellerslie Racecourse.

And it came with a certain authority from the uniquely cursed position of a prime minister’s partner, where the person you love is hated by a lot of people.

The partner tends to cop it too. In the past they have been judged, labelled, put in a box or even the victim of cruel rumours and outright lies.

As Petra put it to Amanda: “Some people will listen to this to not like you. You are the ‘baddie’ and your husband is a ‘baddie’.”

I learnt from the podcast that Amanda had spent a lot of time understanding how different personalities work, as a workplace consultant using the Myers-Briggs test.

The test basically diagnoses personalities and shows that your way of thinking might not be the same as others - but you can get to the same place in the end.

What I really liked was her talking about “taking the stress and anxiety of conflict away”.

Her thesis on this was that disagreement with bad intent was destructive, but disagreement with good intent was productive.

Some people will say that these all sound like meaningless platitudes, but that would just fall into the same divisive and angry trap Amanda is talking about.

If we take a step back and are positive they are simple truths. And if we followed them it would make us better.

I honestly could not agree more with her vibe: Amanda was talking about choosing positivity over negativity.

“Focus on what we have that's similar, and then work with respect through the disagreement,” she said.

So thank you Amanda. You sound like a decent Kiwi with positive vibes. I reckon lots of us - including many of our politicians - could learn a lot from you.

Watch more of Paddy’s great ‘How Good’ opinion pieces here. To listen, find and follow his podcast feed Paddy Gower’s TFN, wherever you get your podcasts.