He is a former Air NZ chief executive, millionaire and committed Christian, but Luxon remains a bit of an enigma
Photograph: Ivan Tarlton/AFP/Getty ImagesPhotograph: Ivan Tarlton/AFP/Getty ImagesHe sold deodorant and ice-cream, and ran an airline, as a top corporate executive who relished “turnaround jobs” for flagging businesses. On Saturday, as New Zealand’s election resultsin waiting, he appears to have found success with his sales pitch to voters: that they should choose his once ailing centre-right National party to steer the country out of a cost of living crisis.
“He won’t be going into a following wind, but into a headwind,” says Craig Renney, director of policy for the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions. “There will be a real question about the extent to which he’s able to push a really strong agenda.” “It seems it has become acceptable to stereotype those who have a Christian faith in public life as being extreme,” Luxon said in his maiden speech to parliament. He described his faith as “personal” and frequently rebuffed requests that he further explain his views. Dogged, too, by his anti-abortion views, Luxon vowed in June that he would resign from the premiership rather than allow change to abortion’s legal status in New Zealand.
New Zealand’s elections are not presidential; voters select the party they want in government, with the names of leaders absent from ballot papers. But in ousting Labour for National, New Zealanders have opted again for a wealthy former corporate leader promising a managerial approach, as they did when John Key – a former banker and National leader – won the premiership in 2008.
But Luxon seemed to shine – and rise in the public esteem – when he was seeing and meeting the public. “He seems like somebody who’s more interested in people than in issues or data,” says Ben Thomas, a political consultant and former National staffer.
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