Thomas Coughlan: NZ Herald political editor on Chris Luxon confirming he's backed by his Caucus

The Prime Minister says he'll comment no more on speculation about his leadership - calling it a media soap-opera - after saying his job's safe. 

Chris Luxon delivered a prepared statement to media, revealing he's backed by his Caucus, saying it passed a formal motion of confidence at today's three-hour meeting.

NZ Herald political editor Thomas Coughlan unpacked the 'unusual' circumstances behind this release. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Thomas Coglan is The Herald's political editor who started off
this latest drama with the story that he broke on Friday,
and he's with us.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, Thomas here the good afternoon.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Did you make it up?

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I promise you, I promise you. I did not make
it up. Somewhat dissatisfyingly, I cannot reveal the sources who
provided information for the story. The story said it was
based on three sources, which included people who are in
caucus and not in caucus, and that is about as
far as we can go. Obviously, you can understand and

(00:33):
appreciate why people who are giving this information to the
media can't put their names to it, as frustrating as
it may be, but you can also trust that for
us to get to the point where we would publish
something like that, we have to be one hundred percent
sure that it's true, and we are one hundred percent
sure that it's true.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Prime Minister's office has today released a statement which quotes
Stuart Smith as saying that it never happened and he
never tried to contact the Prime Minister like your report.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Your report claimed, Yes, they did release release that It's
the first time Smith has commented, he was asked to
comment in our story. We continue to know that our
story is correct. They haven't asked for a correction, do
you think to my knowledge, sorry, carry on, And to

(01:21):
my knowledge, none of the other media outlets who also
substantially had the story have been asked for corrections yet either.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Has he been. I mean, it is curious that he
didn't turn up at all at caucus today and then
put out a statement four days after the event, and
when he had multiple opportunities to deny that that had happened.
Has he been forced to release the statement backing up
as Prime minister?

Speaker 1 (01:43):
It is? It is suspicious and it would appear that
the Prime Minister's office has has gotten involved. Certainly the
statement came from them them sorry. It was also unusual
that last night The Post, another media outlet, they did
get in touch with Stuart Smith, and last night he
told them that he was trying to get to Wellington.
He had struggled to get to Wellington because the weather
is pretty pretty dire at the moment, and then he

(02:04):
intended to get to Wellington this morning. We had someone
at the airport that this morning from six o'clock he
didn't get in there were no, he was not any
of the flights coming into Wellington today. And then of
course we got the statement today saying that he was
actually skipping caucus because of a long standing personal appointment,
and it appeared it appears that this long standing personal
appointment is perhaps not as long standing as they're saying,

(02:25):
because last night when he was reached by media last night,
he had every intention of coming to Wellington, presumably for
the caucus meeting today.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Okay, so what is your understanding. Were there five of
these troublemakers like the Prime Minister's claimed or more?

Speaker 1 (02:41):
I believe there are probably more of them. These five
names have been floating around for a while. We have
published these names because truth be told, we actually haven't
gone to all of them to ask them whether they
are trouble makers or not, and would probably want to
go to them first just to see what they had
say about the allegation that they are trouble making. Those

(03:02):
names have been going around. I think camp Slater included
some of them in a post on X a few
weeks ago. My head heard those names before. I wonder
whether there are more troublemakers. I know that there are
more people than this who are dissatisfied in caucus. Whether
whether or not that debt to satisfaction extends to troublemaking,
I think is an interesting question, but that is one

(03:24):
will be asking.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
All right, listen, Thank you very much, Thomas, appreciate your time.
That's Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editor. By the way,
the list of five are silly because the list is
a lot longer than that, and it doesn't take a
lot of Google searching to find it.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
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