Being prime minister is the hardest job in New Zealand. It requires presence, vision and the willingness to be publicly answerable for everything – to parliament, citizens, the party, business, the media. You can’t be accountable to one and not the other. Yet that’s what Christoper Luxon chose this week when he scolded the media and told them he would no longer engage with them on questions about his leadership.

For most of the last year, National, the lead party in a three-way coalition government, has been trailing the opposition Labour party in the polls. In January 2026 the gap was just 0.67% of a percentage point on average. Three months later, it widened to a 5.86% average with no signs of bottoming out.

The party is facing the possibility of being the first one-term National-led government since the party was founded in 1936. This prospect is embarrassing for its leadership, current and past. National has never led for less than three terms, ever.

Leader popularity is a major factor in voter choice. High leader ratings correlate with increased party support. As a general rule, low preferred-prime-minister ratings can drag a party down by 2-4%.

In New Zealand this can be the difference between government and opposition. Luxon’s net approval rating has plummeted from +11 in February 2024 to around -19 in March 2026. He’s in life or death territory.

Not unexpectedly, the dismal polling has fuelled rumours and speculation about Luxon’s leadership, and if he should be the one who leads National into the 7 November general election.

On Tuesday, in a high stakes National caucus meeting, Luxon moved, and won, a formal motion of confidence in his own leadership. Emerging two and a half hours later, he delivered a two-minute prepared statement declaring the matter “now closed”. He told the media if they “want to keep focusing on speculation and rumour, I’m not going to engage”.

After describing the interest in his leadership as a “media soap opera”, he walked away without taking a question.

It was a masterclass – just not in the art of leadership.

Luxon may have intended to come across as a schoolyard head-boy delivering a stern word to recalcitrant first years. It had the opposite effect. His curtness and blame deflection said more about how bad it got in caucus than any questions he might have answered afterwards.

In chastising the media, Luxon broke one of the cardinal rules of political leadership: don’t shoot the messenger. The press may be brutal, ask awkward questions, and go down rabbit holes where there is nothing to find. But with freedom of the press a fundamental right, you censor them at your peril.

This was no media beat-up. In questioning Luxon’s leadership capabilities, the media was reflecting the public mood. When Luxon walked away from the mics, as waiting reporters peppered him with questions, he was effectively telling voters he wasn’t interested in their opinion of him. Not smart.

The following day, coalition partner and New Zealand First leader Winston Peters, who will jump at any chance to poke the bear, said it would have been wise for Luxon to have forewarned Peters about the confidence motion.

National’s deputy leader Nicola Willis and later Luxon retorted that a vote for New Zealand First was a vote for Labour.

The rarity of both National leaders actively counter-attacking Peters is telling.

Luxon and Willis have been wary of criticising the party that holds the dice in the next coalition negotiation. With National bleeding votes to New Zealand First, the National caucus will have instructed Luxon and Willis to fight Peters if he comes at them. Stem the bleed, or you’re toast.

Luxon likes to present himself as the CEO of the government, not understanding that the role of prime minister requires so much more of him. A CEO answers to a board. A prime minister answers to everyone.

Paradoxically, if Luxon was a CEO reporting to a board and his staff engagement score was under 20%, his board would be asking the same questions as the media about his fitness for office.

Luxon may have survived his own confidence vote but this is not the same as re-gaining the confidence of voters. He is a leader on notice who is yet to learn that when that notice is served is not up to him.

• Dr Claire Robinson is a political commentator and author of Promises Promises: 80 Years of Wooing New Zealand Voters