Christopher Luxon: ‘People don’t always understand the plan’
Saturday, 20 December 2025
Christopher Luxon has a plan. And if the plan is stuck to, seen to and delivered, that’s what will matter.
That’s the plan anyway.
It has been a tough year for the prime minister. The National Party has been polling at around 30%, there have been rumbles about the leadership and it has mostly stemmed back to one thing: a flat economy.
It simply hasn’t come right as quickly as Luxon and National thought that it would. But as we chat in the prime minister’s largely monochrome and spare ninth floor Beehive office, he thinks that might be turning up.
“I think as you're seeing, as we get to the close of the year, the media - even the media - now reporting positive news about good things that are happening within the economy.
“And I think, I think generally, you know, we've had a good plan from day one. People don't always understand that plan, but I think people are starting to recognise that now.”
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The explanation hits upon two things that have clearly frustrated Luxon this year. The first, that the commentariat (and others) have been talking New Zealand down and not appreciated the good things that are going on that he enthuses about.
That, and execution.
“The way we've looked at it and talked about it as a team is, you know, we're very clear on what the problem we inherited was and is - we've then put together a common sense sort of plan. We know that that plan needs to be executed daily, yearly, year in, year out.”
Christopher Luxon is very fond of saying that he doesn’t do regrets and he repeats this after being asked what he could have done better during this tough year.
“So, you know, I never have and so you know, there's nothing I'd look back and I'd say I regret doing.”
However, he does say that he is “probably not the perfect person with a sound bite”, which he says is something he has to work at.
But, for the PM, that clearly is not the main game.
“But I think also New Zealand's had prime ministers that have been wonderful communicators but terrible deliverers. And so for me, I'm always going to lead with delivery, delivery and getting a team working, and getting people delivering and delivering those results.
“But you know continuing to work on, you know, explaining to New Zealanders where we are and where we're trying to get to.”
Execution. Delivery. Results.
But politics is a difficult game in which to measure results. It is a mixture of both popularity and respect - getting the things done you promise to and the public broadly agreeing that those were the right things to do.
Luxon has leaned heavily on his credentials in business, but I put to him that a big part of the job of a PM is convincing people that your party has the right plan and that you are the guy.
Luxon says to look at his record - what he has done since leading the National Party and where he has taken the party from.
“I mean, I just say to you, you’ve got to think about how I came into politics, right? I mean, I came in 2020 … one of our worst results in 80 years. A year later, we'd had five leaders in five years, actually doing even worse than the election the year before, and the National Party was in a civil war.
“So I'm quite used to the noise of people talking about the soap opera and drama of the National Party, but for me, I know our team and what we've done to rebuild that. I think we did an exceptional job driving from 21% to 37% and found a pathway to win in that 20 month period, and then formed a Coalition government.”
Luxon thinks, given all of this, that people have and will continue to underrate his political chops.
“So to be honest, the political media here, based here in Wellington, will often have views about that and and I personally think, you know, that they will continue to underestimate my political skills, because I'm not from here, and I haven't been a career politician, but I just… look at the record, and I feel quite comfortable with what we've done and what we've built.”
Luxon also says that in Wellington the media don’t see what he really does most of the time.
“My job is to make sure that I'm out and about across the country, which I am most days, most weeks, many of the media here don't actually see, though, that side of me and how I do communicate that out to people. We're going to continue to do that.”
For his best achievements for the year, Luxon nominated his busy international schedule of trips where he spruiked New Zealand, engaging in some diplomatic work on the side.
“I think the work that we've done internationally has been really important you know, that has been a big focus, because that is money coming through the front door, through New Zealand, selling its products and services to the world.”
Luxon also nominates the Government’s spending reprioritisation as a highlight. He claims the savings have been hard won, but good for the country.
“It was hard work to try and get $44 billion worth of savings out of the back office of the public service so that we could go off and get extra doctors, nurses, corrections officers, and spend that money on the front line. That's quite a bit, you know, it's a hard challenge to do.”
But while the Government has moved around what it spends money on, the overall spend from Government has continued to increase under his watch. Debt is forecast to grow by another $72b over the next five years and core Crown spending has risen from nearly $139b in 2024 to $142b in 2025 and is forecast to rise to $150 billion in 2026. That’s up from $108 billion in 2020.
In common with his finance minister Nicola Willis in her Treasury forecast briefing on Tuesday, he also casts the National Party as taking a considered line on spending and hewing between what he considers to be the two extremes.
“You’ve got two choices. You carry on the tax more, spend more, borrow more, which got us into the mess that we're in, which is just laying up the problem for our kids and grandkids. And actually, you do the sugar rush economics, and it has a lot of hangover and pain, and that's what we've been going through.
“On the other hand, you get a lot of people on the other side saying, well, let's chuck the car into reverse and go into full on hard austerity, massive cuts, blood everywhere. And we know, when we look at examples around the world, and we look at our own experience in New Zealand, that's not the way forward.”
This is shaping up as a key Beehive selling point for voters in election year.
But looking forward, it is clear that public service reform is going to be a continued focus for the Government under Luxon. He - and the senior levels of the public service - view reform as essential to delivering the goods for New Zealanders.
Luxon’s message is simple. More work is needed.
“I think it's quite a far … quite a bit behind. Obviously. You know, government activity is a significant part of the economy, and I think there is a huge opportunity in the second term to really modernise the public service.
“My vision is that I want large service organisations that are very customer-focussed and technology enabled. And for that to happen, there's got to be a lot more embracing and digitising of government.”
I ask what he has found fun about the job this year. He demurs for a bit and says he loves getting out and meeting “so many cool New Zealanders” each and every week, but that school children provide some of the best moments.
“Actually getting into the schools and seeing kids, you know, to be honest, they say the funniest things, and you get to hang out with them and get some of their enthusiasm.“
Luxon will be taking a pretty short summer break and expects to be back at work by January 5.
“Getting in the T-shirt, shorts, cranking up the music, having a lot of friends and family through the house, and hopefully getting to a beach and getting out on a boat doing a bit of fishing would be quite good.”