ZB ZB
Opinion
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Luxon and Stanford boost school fuel crisis support; address caucus dissent

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Mon, 20 Apr 2026, 3:59pm

Luxon and Stanford boost school fuel crisis support; address caucus dissent

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Mon, 20 Apr 2026, 3:59pm

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford will front media after the Government’s weekly Cabinet meeting today.

The pair will unveil measures to help schools grapple with rising fuel costs triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the war in the Middle East.

Luxon will also likely take questions on dissent in the National Party after days of reports on unhappiness in his caucus, and a 1 News-Verian poll showing National’s support dropping to its lowest level since Luxon took over as leader.

National was on 30% in the poll, or 29.7% before rounding. The poll also showed the coalition would be out of office if the election was held today.

Luxon’s personal support crashed to 16% as preferred prime minister, the first time a sitting prime minister has scored below 20% in TVNZ’s poll since November 1997, when Jim Bolger notched up a similar score.

He was soon rolled by Jenny Shipley.

On his Monday morning media round, Luxon claimed five “moaning and frustrated” MPs had been leaking to media about unhappiness in the party.

“We need to reiterate the case for why we need discipline because we’ve seen the cases as we’ve had experiences as a National Party where we broke the party essentially in civil war, that’s just counterproductive, we’re a long way from that,” he told Mike Hosking Breakfast.

Any sign of that should be stamped out “early and hard”, the National leader said.

On Friday, the Herald reported National whip Stuart Smith had attempted to contact Luxon before Easter about flagging support within the caucus.

Luxon could not be contacted by Smith at the time, though the pair later met in north Canterbury.

Ministers arriving in Wellington for Cabinet pledged support to Luxon.

Cabinet minister Simon Watts said the poll demonstrated New Zealanders had a “degree of frustration with the economy”.

Watts said he “absolutely” had confidence in Luxon, saying he was doing a “fantastic job” fixing the economy.

Watts said concerns over MPs leaking to the media was “a conversation for caucus and that’s where it will stay”.

Cabinet ministers Paul Goldsmith and Chris Penk put their support behind Luxon as they arrived at Wellington Airport on Monday morning.

Goldsmith said he was “rock solid” behind Luxon and that National was “going to do well” at the election.

He said he has “no idea” who had been leaking against Luxon.

“We’re very determined to get focussed on doing well and fighting hard,” Goldsmith said.

“If you look at the polls, it’s always tight in an MMP environment,” he said.

Penk said no one had approached him as part of a coup attempt.

He was not aware Smith had tried to contact Luxon to warn him about flagging support in caucus.

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you