Bad poll fuels flickers of doubt about Luxon’s future

With Chris Hipkins overtaking him as preferred PM, his position has never been shakier. But is a leadership spill really possible?

Mōrena, and welcome to The Bulletin for Tuesday, March 11.

In today’s edition: Stocks fall again as US recession fears deepen; Education ministry wants to see daily proof of school lunch quality; Wellington council knew about safety risks at waterfront but failed to act, says coroner. But first, Duncan Garner may have been the loudest, but other commentators are also voicing doubts about Christopher Luxon’s future.

Hipkins pips Luxon for preferred PM

For the first time since the election in October 2023, Chris Hipkins has overtaken Christopher Luxon as the preferred prime minister in a key poll – though only by a hair. The latest Taxpayer’s Union-Curia poll has Chris Hipkins jumping 3.1 points to 20.7%, beating Luxon on 20.3%. Perhaps surprisingly given the increasing number of negative headlines about Luxon’s leadership in recent weeks, Hipkins’ gains come not from Luxon – the PM only dropped 0.4% points from last month’s poll – but rather from Greens co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick, who fell 4.1 points to 4.8%. David Seymour dropped 1.4 points to 5.0%.

As for party support, Monday’s poll (conducted March 2-4) shows increases in support for National, Labour and Te Pāti Māori, with Act, the Greens and NZ First sinking. The poll again shows that, were the election to be held today, the left bloc of Labour, the Greens and TPM would be able to form a government.

Where is Luxon going wrong?

While the TPU-Curia poll was in the field after Luxon’s car crash Hosking interview, it was completed before speculation about his leadership really picked up steam. In yesterday’s Bulletin we picked out a couple of choice quotes from Duncan Garner’s excoriation of Luxon in the Listener (paywalled), but doubts about the PM’s future are being raised elsewhere as well. In the NZ Herald (Premium paywalled), Matthew Hooton focuses on Luxon’s alleged mishandling of the global investment summit – Luxon’s brainchild – which opens this Thursday. The summit is now in Chris Bishop’s hands, Hooton writes, and “the best that can be expected is that Bishop has managed to put some lipstick on Luxon’s pig”.

Over in Newsroom, Peter Dunne argues that what was, pre-election, one of Luxon’s greatest strengths – his ability to be a “clear-thinking, decisive leader” – today comes across “more and more like staccato, rote-learnt messages being recited in a robotic way”. Still, Dunne isn’t convinced by Garner’s claim that Luxon is living on borrowed time. “For National, winning and holding power is its dominant political aspiration. Every time they have changed leaders during a term of government – 1957, 1972, 1997 and 2016 – they have lost the next election. They are not going to tempt fate once again.”

‘As if someone tricked a labrador into putting on a suit’

But let’s just imagine Luxon were to go – who would replace him? According to Danyl McLauchlan in the Listener (paywalled), it would ultimately come down to Nicola Willis or Chris Bishop. (Side note: apparently they’re a '“power duo” sometimes referred to as “Bishola”?)

In Willis’s favour, “her admirers argue her talents are more suited to the leadership role than the technocratic grind of the finance portfolio. And National struggles with women voters: if her caucus saw evidence she could turn that around, she would be hard to argue against,” writes McLauchlan.

“But Bishop has been the more impressive minister. He cuts a somewhat dishevelled figure – as if someone tricked a labrador into putting on a suit – but he’s a shrewd strategist and formidable debater with a knack for seeing the systemic issues behind a problem.”

Related:

• Jenna Lynch: The PM needs his political radar to flick on - urgently (Stuff)

• Christopher Luxon’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. (The Spinoff)

• The curious case of Christopher Luxon’s Bayly equivocations (Gone By Lunchtime podcast)

Have thoughts? Join the conversation in the comments.

Stocks fall again as US recession fears deepen

If it’s been a while since you checked on your Kiwisaver, maybe don’t open your app this week. The US sharemarket tumbled again overnight in reaction to a weekend interview with Donald Trump in which he refused to rule out a recession due to his tariff policy, CNN reports. Stocks have seen selloffs for the past fortnight on the back of the president’s on-again off-again tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, and his threat to impose a global regime of reciprocal tariffs starting on April 2. After sliding 3.1% last week – its worst week since September – the S&P 500 saw another 2.7% drop overnight. Tesla was one of the worst performing stocks, down 13.7%. The stock, run by Trump lieutenant Elon Musk, has now lost all of its 91% post-election gain, reports Forbes.

Education ministry wants to see daily proof of school lunch quality

The Ministry of Education has instructed the School Lunch Collective to publish daily visual evidence of the new school meals’ quality, delivery times and waste, a spokesperson tells RNZ’s Checkpoint. The collective, run by international company Compass, will also have some of its performance reporting requirements brought forward.

Meanwhile Food Safety New Zealand is investigating after a Gisborne student received second-degree burns from a Wattie's cottage pie meal that splashed on his leg. The Watties meals, which have now been removed from the programme, were also a problem for Christchurch principal Peggy Burrows who says they appeared to have been “almost nuked” shortly before arriving at her school.

Read more:

• The A-Z of David Seymour’s school lunch disaster (The Spinoff)

Join us at The Spinoff Book Club

The best way to enjoy a book is by yourself, the second best way is with a theatre full of people. Books editor Claire Mabey will lead a conversation with avid writers and readers Duncan Sarkies, Carl Shuker, Courtney Johnston and more. Join us to hear about their favourites, their recommendations, and what to look out for in the year to come.

Click and Collect

• Wellington City Council knew about identified safety risks at the downtown waterfront but failed to act on them, according to a coroner’s report on the drowning of 30-year-old Sandy Calkin in 2021. (NZ Herald)

• Christopher Luxon departs for India on Saturday, taking with him a large prime ministerial delegation aimed at promoting trade and security ties. (RNZ)

• Meanwhile Winston Peters will spend a week in New York and Washington DC meeting with UN officials and political figures including secretary of state Marco Rubio. He leaves on Thursday. (1News)

• At yesterday’s session of the parliamentary inquiry into banking competition, ANZ’s CEO defended the bank’s $2.1 billion profit last year as “a fair return for our shareholders”. (RNZ)

• Canada’s new prime minister is Mark Carney, a former governor of both the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. In his first remarks as PM he vowed to defeat Trump’s trade war. (CNN)

• Wellington Water chair Nick Leggett is keeping his job – for now. (Stuff)

• Crime in Gisborne’s CBD is down 60% to its lowest rate since 2022. (1News)

Right now on The Spinoff

Gabrielle Baker explains what’s going on with the Whānau Ora overhaul. Shanti Mathias discovers serious questions about funding and scalability as New Zealand aims for the Predator Free 2050 goal. New kidult show Secrets at Red Rocks is a delightful dive into nostalgic waters, says Tara Ward. There's never been so much Canterbury on screen – Alex Casey finds out why. Thomas Giblin rounds up the best movies and TV on streaming services this week. Shanti Mathias reviews new play A Mixtape for Maladies.

Thanks for reading. Want to get in touch? Join the conversation in the Substack comments section below or via email at thebulletin@thespinoff.co.nz if you have any feedback on today’s top stories (or anything else in the news).

If you liked what you read today, share The Bulletin with friends, family and colleagues.