Luxon pushes moderation

National Party leader Christopher Luxon used his first few hours in the job to hew back to the the party’s traditional values and confirm his intention to lead a ‘‘moderate’’ and outwardlooking institution.

It would be, he said, a party that keeps the urban liberal and rural conservative factions in the caucus in the same tent.

Luxon, 51, was elected unopposed as the leader of National after a frantic few days of phone calls among the party leadership. Just before 2pm yesterday Simon Bridges withdrew from the race, leaving Luxon unopposed.

Wellington-based list MP Nicola Willis was elected as deputy leader.

Luxon has had the shortest term as an MP before being elected leader of a major political party in modern New Zealand history.

The new leader began a media round in earnest yesterday evening, crafting a new narrative about a National Party that has moved on from the division of the past three years, by eschewing the factional battles since Bill English resigned in 2018.

‘‘It’s about things like personal responsibility. It’s about caring for others. It is fundamentally about, you know, that if you’re going to work hard, you deserve to do well. That freedom, choice, all those traditional values,’’ Luxon said during an interview at Parliament last night.

‘‘We are a country built on bicultural traditions, but we are also a modern multicultural country that needs to look forward, go forward and get out in the world,’’ he said.

Luxon said that he spent the first few weeks of the last lockdown reading a history of National to work out what made the institution tick.

‘‘An urban liberal piece, a rural conservative piece, and that has been in the traditions in our party of moderate liberal, moderate conservative, moderate being the operative word.

‘‘What’s also been important is that we actually represent all the communities of New Zealand.

‘‘It was called the National Party, because it was supposed to. It does act in the national interest, and that’s why it’s there.’’

Luxon has his work cut out. More than 400,000 voters left National at the last election and the party has not polled more than 30 per cent since.

The former CEO said that he plans to bring his business experience, forged while working his way up the ladder at multinational conglomerate Unilever and at Air New Zealand, to wrangle the disparate National caucus into working together.

He would not, however be drawn on whether he was going to push for more diversity in the National Party caucus line up.

Luxon’s predecessor Judith Collins put a considerable amount of effort into her ‘demand the debate’ campaign, a centrepiece of which was opposing a report produced within the public service called He Puapua.

The new leader indicated that he would be moving on from He Puapua, but also took aim at identity politics.

‘‘Look, we’ve turned the page, we’re going forward, we believe fundamentally in a very inclusive New Zealand. And I do think there’s a lot of identity politics across the political spectrum.

‘‘And we are each and every individual actually much bigger than our individual identities. And that’s what we’ve got to focus on, actually how do we collectively, as a whole New Zealand, take our country forward.’’

Luxon said that the conversations with caucus members over the past few days were not about portfolios or positions.

‘‘It was actually everybody saying, yep, this is our moment to turn the page to demonstrate to the New Zealand people that National is back to go out to those 413,000 voters that have left us and actually say to them, ‘Hey, we’re back’.’’

Nevertheless, the new leader acknowledged that working with a caucus, where a person can’t easily be sacked , and managing a large business are different. But he thinks he’s the man to make it work.

Earlier in the day at his first media conference he was asked about his Christian faith, which some have made an issue of since he entered politics.

‘‘I want to be very clear, we have separation between politics and faith, people shouldn’t be selecting an MP because of their faith . . .

‘‘It’s important that everyone understands I am here to represent all New Zealanders, not just if people have one faith or one interest.’’