National’s Stuart Smith tight-lipped on alleged ghosting by Christopher Luxon
Monday, 20 April 2026
National’s chief whip Stuart Smith has neither confirmed or denied a report that the prime minister ghosted him when he had bad news about his support among National MPs to share.
Smith tried - and failed - to tell Luxon he was losing the support of his caucus before Easter, according to an article published by the NZ Herald on Friday.
Luxon denied this had happened on Friday afternoon, saying, “I was with Stuart all day Tuesday and it was not raised.” Asked directly if Smith had been trying to get in contact with him, Luxon said “no”.
The Post was unable to reach Smith on Friday but he did pick up the phone after Luxon’s weekly post-Cabinet media conference on Monday afternoon.
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Smith confirmed he was aware of Friday’s news report but would not comment on it.
“I’m not commenting on anything,” he said.
Asked if he could confirm or deny the substance of the report, Smith repeated only that he would not be making any comment.
When asked again about the substance of the story at his post-cabinet press conference, Luxon said he was not aware of Smith trying to get into contact with him and it had not come up during a day-long trip to North Canterbury with him last Tuesday.
'He hasn't reached out to me. There has been no engagement with Stuart Smith from my office or with him,' Luxon said.
'I spent all day Tuesday with him. I was talking with him all through the course of the day. It wasn't raised with me.'
Luxon then suggested said he was not aware of 'the letter' - despite media not suggesting any such letter existed.
'I'm just saying to you, I'm not aware of the letter,' Luxon said.
When media attempted to query what this letter was, Luxon said he was just referring to the communication described in the NZ Herald story.
Luxon said he had not been in contact with Smith since the story came out on Friday.
Smith's Facebook page suggests he met National Party campaign chair Simeon Brown, National minister Nicola Grigg and National MP for Banks Peninsula Vanessa Weenink on Saturday.
His social media posts also show photos of the day Luxon and Smith spent together last week in which Luxon insists Smith would have raised concerns with him if he needed too.
Smith - MP for Kaikōura - said he hadn’t made it to the capital on Monday due to widespread flight cancellations due to the bad weather.
National’s caucus is due to meet at Parliament on Tuesday morning, as is usual on a sitting week, where Luxon has promised to address discipline and popularity.
“'I’m sure we'll have a conversation about this, given the media interest that has been sparked over the last few days.”
Asked if there would be consequences for those who’d leaked to the media, Luxon said the party’s culture was in a good place.
“We have pretty good culture that we built in the National Party over the last two and a half years…as we've rebuilt and unified our party. We'll have a good conversation in caucus.”