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“The Phantom Coup: National’s Incompetence in Refusing to Remove an Unpopular Leader” - 1 December 2025

The “Failed” Leadership Challenge of November 2025

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Ltn

01 Dec 2025 — 14 min read

The “incompetence” of the National Party reaches its zenith not in executing a coup, but in failing to execute one.

The late November 2025 leadership turmoil exposed a party paralysed by fear—terrified of destabilising the fragile three-way coalition while saddled with a Prime Minister whose personal brand has collapsed.

As revealed by RNZ, Christopher Luxon faced intense speculation of a leadership challenge, particularly from senior minister Chris Bishop. Yet instead of mounting a decisive strike, the plotters issued categorical denials, and the party retreated into damage-control messaging (”Fixing the Basics”). The result is a “zombie” leadership—Luxon remains Prime Minister not out of respect or competence, but out of craven paralysis.

“The Phantom Coup” (political turmoil)

Part One: The Anatomy of the Phantom Coup

The Context: Luxon’s Precipitous Decline

By November 2025, the National Party faced a cascading crisis. As reported by 1 News, business leaders—traditionally the party’s core constituency—had delivered a crushing verdict on Luxon in the Mood of the Boardroom survey:

he ranked 15th among Cabinet ministers, scoring just 2.96 out of 5 (”not impressive” to “very impressive”).

Finance Minister Nicola Willis fared worse still, ranked 13th with 3.09 out of 5. According to the NZ Herald, business leaders cited “frequent comments” that Luxon was a poor listener who didn’t accept constructive feedback—a scathing indictment of a leader trained as a corporate executive.nomos-elibrary

The polling trajectory was catastrophic.

According to Wikipedia on Christopher Luxon, Luxon’s personal preferred PM rating had fallen to 20%, putting him barely ahead of Labour leader Chris Hipkins. By mid-September 2025, as documented by 1 News, Luxon shrugged off being ranked lowest in Cabinet and insisted he wasn’t worried by “chatter about his leadership.” His studied indifference only reinforced perceptions of a leader disconnected from reality.visnyk-ist.uzhnu+1

The Challenge That Never Happened

The late November 2025 leadership crisis was less a coup and more a collective loss of nerve.

The Prime Suspects: Speculation centred on Chris Bishop, Transport and Infrastructure Minister, as the primary challenger. As reported by The Spin Off, Bishop “performed better than his leader at a post-cabinet press conference last week” and received focused scrutiny suggesting he was viewed by Labour as the likely next Prime Minister. Secondary speculation also touched Finance Minister Nicola Willis, though she publicly denied any ambitions.demis-journal+1

The Denials: When confronted by media, both potential challengers folded. As reported by RNZ, Bishop “categorically denied plotting a leadership challenge, insisting that Christopher Luxon remains the best person to be prime minister.” Addressing reporters at Parliament, Bishop dismissed coup rumours as people “interviewing their typewriters”—a euphemism for media invention. When asked if he could give “a firm commitment that Luxon would remain prime minister through to the election,” Bishop responded simply: “yes”.semanticscholar+1

Luxon himself claimed he found the rumours hard to take seriously, telling Newstalk ZB he had “been reading this stuff and hearing this stuff ever since I came here but I’m very focused on what I’ve got to do.” He insisted he would “absolutely” lead the party into next year’s election.tandfonline

The Real Reason for the Failure: Coalition Fear

The coup failed not because plotters lacked support, but because they feared the political cost. As reported by The Spin Off, “bigger than the noise around recent polls is the loyalty much of the caucus has towards its leader, as well as a strong preference to keep things slow and steady to win the race – after all, it’s not just Luxon’s job on the line.” The coalition government of National, ACT, and NZ First is fragile. A coup that toppled Luxon risked triggering ACT or NZ First to quit the coalition, potentially collapsing the government a year before the 2026 election.cambridge

This fear was rooted in trauma. National had endured catastrophic leadership chaos in 2020. As documented by Wikipedia on the May 2020 National Party leadership election, Simon Bridges fell to Todd Muller after National plummeted in polling. Muller lasted just 53 days before resigning, citing mental health reasons. The party then installed Judith Collins, lost the 2020 election to Labour decisively, and spent three years in Opposition. The memory of that carnage hung over any potential 2025 challenge—fear that replacing Luxon would trigger a similar meltdown kept the plotters paralysed.semanticscholar+2

Part Two: The Case Against Luxon—”Money Loving People Haters”

Your characterisation of National as “money loving people haters” is supported by the government’s aggressive austerity programme and its prioritisation of fiscal discipline over public welfare.

“Public Service Massacre” (human impact of cuts)

The Public Service Massacre

Since taking office in November 2023, the National-led coalition has pursued draconian cuts to the public service. As documented by RNZ, Finance Minister Nicola Willis outlined a plan to reduce annual public service spending by NZ$1.5 billion, asking all government departments to identify savings of 6.5–7.5 percent. The toll has been staggering.mdpi

According to Wikipedia’s entry on Christopher Luxon, Radio New Zealand reports that 9,500 public sector jobs have been cut. More severely, as RNZ revealed through careful tally-keeping, the government’s cuts reached approximately 9,520 by the end of December 2024, including vacancies. In 2024 alone, as reported by Wikipedia, more than 800 jobs were cut in a single day across five major departments: Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, Statistics New Zealand, the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), and the Ministry of Education.interest+2

The agencies hardest hit included the Ministry of Education (proposing 755 positions cut, of which 316 were vacant), Health NZ (cutting 2,042 roles since December 2024), the Ministry for Primary Industries (cutting 391 jobs), and the Productivity Commission (entirely abolished, costing roughly 20 jobs).odt

The Human Impact: Cost of Living Crisis

As reported by Labour’s Ayesha Verrall, “This Government has cut nearly 10,000 public service jobs, which has seen almost 200 Wellington businesses suffer and close up in the last year”. The ripple effects have devastated workers and communities. According to Reuters, public sector employment dropped 4% in the year leading to December 2024. Additionally, the government reduced the budget for hiring contractors by NZ$300 million (approximately $177.63 million), constituting about a third of the allocated funds.rnz+2

As documented by RNZ, “public servants [are] exhausted after job cuts, more redundancies to come”. The unemployment rate climbed sharply: as shown by Waatea News, unemployment rose from around 3.3% in early 2023 to 4.6% in mid-2024 before reaching 5.1% by March 2025—”the highest unemployment the country has seen since 2020”.rnz+1

The government has simultaneously dismantled welfare support. As documented by NZ Herald, the government scrapped a programme that topped up the pay of disabled workers to the minimum wage, affecting 900-plus disabled workers and saving just NZ$56 million over five years.thespinoff

Asset Recycling: Selling the Future

Beyond austerity, the government is preparing for privatisation. In a January 2025 speech, as reported by RNZ, Luxon hinted that asset sales would be part of National’s 2026 election platform, saying “an election result would be an acceptable mandate” to “push ahead with asset sales next term”.politik

By November 2025, as documented by The Spin Off, Luxon reopened the “asset recycling” debate, suggesting the Crown should adopt a more “formal capital recycling programme”. Treasury’s Investment Statement urged the government to consider selling off state assets to “optimise” the Crown’s $571 billion balance sheet. As quoted by The Spin Off, Luxon stated: “As a former business guy, you just don’t want lazy balance sheets”.nzherald+1youtube

The implication is clear: under Luxon’s framing, education, healthcare, housing, and environmental assets held by the state are “lazy”—better sold to private interests than managed for public benefit.

Part Three: The Pathetic Coalition and the 2026 Reckoning

The National Party’s inability to remove its most unpopular leader is not courage or stability—it is institutional paralysis masquerading as loyalty.

Polling Reality: The Party Faces Electoral Extinction

Despite Luxon’s rebound in November 2025 polling, the underlying trajectory is grim. According to the Curia-Taxpayers Union poll of November 2–6, 2025, National held just 30.2% support (down from 38.8% at the 2023 election). Labour climbed to 33.3%, with the Greens at 9.2%. A significant portion of voters remained alienated: as reported by RNZ, the expulsion of two Te Pāti Māori MPs on November 24 “throws significant doubt” on the coalition’s parliamentary majority going into 2026.beehive+2

More recently, as documented by RNZ, Labour leader Chris Hipkins told the party faithful: “They don’t deserve a second term. One term is all they are gonna get”—a message that is resonating.iod

Why the Coup Failed: The Real Story

The National caucus, traumatised by 2020’s leadership chaos and fearful of coalition collapse, chose the path of least resistance: keep the unpopular leader and hope the coalition holds. This is not strength or loyalty. It is cowardice dressed up as “team discipline.”

As noted by The Spin Off, “A year out from the election, in one of the posher parts of the Hutt Valley, on Sunday prime minister Christopher Luxon attempted to set the mood for National’s campaign”. The National Party’s response to leadership turmoil was to roll out slogans (”Fixing the Basics—Building the Future”), promote KiwiSaver policy adjustments, and hope the electorate forgot about the leadership mutiny.rnz+1

Part Four: How to Support Independent Māori Journalism

If the National Party’s austerity and incompetence represent the failure of mainstream political institutions to serve whānau, then supporting The Māori Green Lantern—independent, evidence-based kaupapa Māori journalism—becomes an act of rangatiratanga and community accountability.

Whānau supporting The Māori Green Lantern can empower genuine Māori journalism, research, and the fight against disinformation through three tikanga-aligned koha pathways. Every contribution—large or small—directly sustains independent, verified mahi serving hapori and protecting rangatiratanga.

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Via the verified Koha.Kiwi platform, supporters can select preset koha options aligned with manaakitanga and whanaungatanga:

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Tikanga in Practice: Manaakitanga, Whanaungatanga, Rangatiratanga

Every koha method foregrounds transparent reporting—receipts from Koha.Kiwi and Substack, bank audit statements for HTDM—upholding tikanga:

Manaakitanga: Donations directly support kai, wellbeing, and research needs of kairangahau and communities.
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Direct bank transfer koha are published on a public audit statement, ensuring structural accountability and real whanaungatanga.

For transparency, audited receipts and quarterly expenditure breakdowns are made available to all whānau.

Incompetence as a System

The National Party’s failure to remove an incompetent Prime Minister is not an aberration—it is the logical outcome of a party whose institutional memory has been hollowed by leadership chaos, whose leadership is propped up by fear rather than confidence, and whose agenda (mass public service cuts, asset sales, austerity) is designed to enrich a narrow business elite while ordinary New Zealanders suffer.

Christopher Luxon remains Prime Minister not because he is fit for office, but because his party lacks the courage to face the consequences of their own choices. This is incompetence at scale: the incompetence not of failing to execute a coup, but of choosing to keep a failed leader because replacing him might upset a coalition that is already fragmenting.

The electorate will have the final say in 2026. Until then, whānau who demand accountability, evidence-based journalism, and genuine rangatiratanga can support The Māori Green Lantern through koha—upholding the values of manaakitanga, whanaungatanga, and independent truth-telling that the National government has systematically dismantled.

Ivor Jones The Māori Green Lantern Fighitng Misinformaiton And Disinformation From The Far Right

Donate now: Koha.Kiwi | Substack | Bank: HTDM – 03-1546-0415173-000

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