David Farrar talks Christopher Luxon’s second confidence vote and what National needs to do now

After prime minister Christopher Luxon survived his second confidence vote this year to remain National Party leader, a political commentator says National needs to get back to announcing policies again because they're at risk of the public thinking they’re too focused on themselves, which could be "lethal."

Speaking after Wednesday's caucus meeting Luxon said he survived a second confidence vote, and he has "the full support" on National's caucus.

Political commentator David Farrar told interest.co.nz that if National did nothing for the next few days, people would keep talking about this so the party needed to show they had a policy programme. Farrar is the owner and director of Curia Market Research and has worked as a parliamentary staffer to several National leaders.

He said what happened with National and the second confidence vote was messy.

“Having two leadership votes in three months is not good but they’ve chosen stability, and that’s what they now just have to get on [with],” Farrar said.

“They've made the decision. They've got 90 days till the election. The big risk is the public think they're too focused on themselves, and that can be lethal. So they need to just get back announcing policy again and saying ‘no, we are focused on what matters to you.’”

“The discipline has to be, fair to say, a lot better than it has been,” Farrar said.

Political commentator David Farrar. Image source: Mandy Te/interest.co.nz

And what would you do if you were the Opposition?

"Very little, which has generally been the approach, to be honest," Farrar said.

Knowing there would be a couple more days of bad headlines for National, opposition parties could either say nothing so that the focus remained on National. 

"Or if they were a bit brave and bold, they could come out with a big shiny policy themselves to say, 'hey, these guys have been infighting. We are focusing on the public.'"

While the details of what happened in the caucus room aren’t fully known, Farrar said there could have been “quite a tongue lashing” where National MPs potentially spoke about how they couldn’t keep having confidence votes - and this one, would be the last one.

He said it’s always unsettling for voters to have speculation like this.

“But if you look three months ago, when Luxon called the surprise vote and won it, he actually had a really good two or three months.

“He was much sharper. They were releasing policies. They had been dropping in the polls. They bounced back a wee bit and Labour has been sliding a bit lately. So, you've actually got a bit of history where yes, but probably fair to say, second time around, that's a bit tougher.”

In terms of polling going forward, Farrar said people may see some movement but it was the cost of living, the healthcare system and the economy that were the dominant topics.

“It's why the race is so tight because people are still struggling, and they voted out the last government, and there have been changes, there have been improvements. But the question is going to be, has it been enough for them not to go back to the former government?”

Names like Chris Bishop and Erica Stanford were tipped as potential leadership contenders and Farrar said if people assumed there was a vacancy, those two would be leading contenders.

“I think that's probably a quite fair assumption. But I suspect the vast majority would much rather stay where they are and keep doing well in [their] portfolios. Of course, they probably would all like one day to be [leader] but they're in their first term."

“So I think it's just because there has been a bit of unsettlement that that's why the names have started to come up.”

‘Both an opportunity and a risk’

If National had voted for change, a different leader may have had some voters thinking they would give the new person a chance.

“But also there’s a real risk that you could plummet in the polls where the public would just think ‘you focus on yourselves, you’re infighting … you’ve rolled your prime minister in your first term’ and it could have been a disaster.”

Farrar said National could also have got a new leader that did well for a few weeks but then made some stumbles, and when you’re new you have an uncertain brand to the public.

“So, any change would have been very risky but could have been beneficial. That's what the MPs presumably were weighing up: opportunity versus risk.”

Farrar said the reality is, in caucuses, there would be people disgruntled with party leaders.

“What’s untidy is that it went public enough for it to be necessary to do a confidence vote … I think that’s just a real lesson for National and all parties is, if people aren’t happy, you've got ways to resolve it that don’t involve the media.”