You know exactly how today is going to go.

The Prime Minister does the media rounds this morning. There will be no shortage of cortisol spiked journalists hanging off every word, double dissecting every pause and utterance—many of them desperate to write something disparaging about a man they’ve already decided they dislike.

I wouldn’t be Luxon for quids. He’s been dealt a shit hand.

Worse than the media, though, are the stirrers inside his own party. The selfishness and bare knuckle self preservation on display is disgraceful.

You buy into a deal in life and you stick to it. You join a company, take a job, make a promise—whatever it is. In an MP’s case, you’re part of a three year deal. During that time you are honest, transparent, hardworking, loyal, and dedicated.

Clearly—and history backs this up—National has a recurring issue here. Right now, we have a few people who appear willing to put themselves and their own survival ahead of the collective.

As I said on Friday, nothing is coming of this. Luxon isn’t quitting. There is no coup. They don’t have the numbers—and they don’t have the stomach for it.

Here’s the truly absurd part of their foolishness: even if there were a major problem (and there isn’t), there is no obvious answer.

National’s strength is that it has depth. There’s real talent and a solid group of capable operators—Willis, Bishop, Stanford, Mitchell, Brown, Penk, McClay. They’re good at their jobs. But no one among them is some mythical tide turner. This isn’t a Little to Ardern moment, it's a Shipley to Bolger or Lange to Palmer moment. History tells us that when parties panic, they almost always regret it.

There is, in fact, nothing fundamentally wrong with Luxon. No, he isn’t John Key—and he’s not Gandhi either—but he is competent, effective, and successfully leads a workable three party collaboration.
National sitting around the low 30s is not evidence of failure. It’s the natural outcome of governing with three solid parties. The era of easy 40% peaks is over. That reality shouldn’t be played out publicly through destabilising nonsense by people who can’t accept it.

Peters and Seymour should be just as concerned. They’re surrounded by amateur political operators within National who are perfectly capable of dragging all of them back into opposition.

So yes, we’ll ask the questions. But in an increasingly troubled world, isn’t it painfully small town New Zealand to be bogged down in village level idiocy—driven by self serving nobodies whose vision extends no more than two centimetres in front of their noses—rather than focusing on genuinely important issues of global consequence and how we navigate our way through them?

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Mike's Minute: National's internal stirrers need to quieten down

The Mike Hosking Breakfast