Wellington, New Zealand:

New Zealand’s prime minister was forced to take a commercial flight to Japan after his air force plane broke down while refuelling in Papua New Guinea, his office said Monday.

Christopher Luxon switched late Sunday to a scheduled flight from Port Moresby to Tokyo via Hong Kong because of a technical issue with the New Zealand Defence Force Boeing 757 aircraft he had been flying on.

A problem with a command module for a small flap on the wing meant the aircraft could not fly as high or as fast as normal, affecting its range, a defence spokesperson said.

It was detected while the plane was on the ground in Papua New Guinea.

A delegation of business leaders and journalists accompanying Luxon had to wait until Monday to fly on the air force 757 to Brisbane and then catch a commercial flight to Tokyo, the spokesperson said.

Luxon is expected to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida during his four-day visit.

In March, the New Zealand leader had to fly commercial to Australia for meetings with Southeast Asian leaders after a problem with the landing gear grounded his defence force plane while still on the tarmac in Wellington.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Representational image of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

The New Zealand defence force plane flying New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon to Japan broke down on Sunday, forcing the Prime Minister to take a commercial flight, his office confirmed on Monday.

Mr. Luxon is spending four days in Japan, where he is expected to meet with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and spend time promoting New Zealand business.

New Zealand media reported that the Boeing 757 broke down during a refuelling stop in Papua New Guinea, leaving the business delegation and journalists stranded in Port Moresby, while Mr. Luxon flew commercial to Japan.

Ageing aircraft

The New Zealand Defence Force’s two 757s are more than 30 years old and their age has made them increasingly unreliable.

New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins told radio station Newstalk ZB on Monday that the consistent flight issues were “embarrassing” and that the ministry was looking at flying Mr. Luxon and his delegation commercially from now on.

New Zealand’s defence force is struggling with ageing equipment and retaining sufficient personnel. The government has said it would like to spend more on defence but is also trying to reduce spending as the country faces economic headwinds.

Wellington:

New Zealand’s incoming prime minister is a wealthy teetotaller and lover of country music who rose to prominence when he ran the national airline.

Christopher Luxon was poised to be the country’s 42nd leader on Saturday after his centre-right National Party secured a large lead in general elections.

He is expected to take the helm of a two-party coalition with the ACT party, ending six years of Labour rule ushered in by its former “rock star” leader Jacinda Ardern.

The 53-year-old Luxon, who claims to sleep only five hours a night, completed a rapid political ascent four years after leaving one of the country’s top executive roles.

Luxon spent seven years as chief executive of Air New Zealand, and was hailed a likely future leader upon entering politics in 2019.

National hoped he could repeat the “glory days” under John Key, a former Merrill Lynch broker who won three elections for the party and served as prime minister from 2008 to 2016.

Key was known for his affable persona — an image fellow multi-millionaire Luxon sought to channel upon replacing Judith Collins as National’s leader in November 2021.

Luxon sold himself as a family man with a fondness for do-it-yourself home renovations, waterskiing and country music.

He said New Zealand was “heading in the wrong direction” under popular then-prime minister Ardern and that his business acumen was the panacea for a faltering economy.

“I came to politics because I know how to solve problems and get things done,” Luxon said in his maiden speech.

“I have built a career out of reversing the fortunes of under-performing companies and I’ll bring that real-world experience to this role.”

Global businessman

The eldest of three sons, Christchurch-born Luxon was raised by a Roman Catholic family and met his wife Amanda at a church youth group, aged 15.

Luxon earned money as a hotel porter while studying for a master’s of commerce degree at Canterbury University, and attended many of his father Graham’s lectures about sales.

His career path accelerated when an internship at multinational consumer goods company Unilever took him around the world as a brand manager.

Luxon became president and chief executive of the company’s Canadian operation before turning 40, but he wanted to raise his two children in New Zealand.

His time at Air New Zealand was marked by the carrier’s record profit growth aided by a booming tourism industry but also what was described as Luxon’s unrelenting desire for growth — coming at the expense of strained relations with unions.

Having forged one of the highest public profiles in New Zealand business, Luxon became a commercial ally of the Key government.

The pair became close — Luxon would routinely question Key about political events of the day.

Key later said: “In Chris’s case, I was absolutely convinced from one of the very first times that I met him that he not only would be a politician but that he would be prime minister.”

Seven houses

The owner of seven houses, Luxon has found it hard to fend off accusations of being out of touch during a period of financial hardship for many New Zealanders.

His beliefs were closely critiqued upon entering parliament, including his conservative view on abortion.

Asked in a 2021 television interview whether he believed abortion was “tantamount to murder”, Luxon appeared to agree with the premise: “That’s what a pro-life position is,” he said.

He later toned down his response and rejected an evangelical Christian label, describing himself as non-denominational.

At ease in public settings, he is seen as less certain in interviews, often resorting to business-speak and prone to the occasional blunder.

In June, he was criticised for saying New Zealand had become a “very negative, wet, whiny, inward-looking country and we have lost the plot”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Conservative Former businessman Christopher Luxon will be New Zealand’s next Prime Minister after winning a decisive election victory Saturday.

People voted for change after six years of a liberal government led for most of that time by Jacinda Ardern.

The exact makeup of Luxon’s conservative government is still to be determined as ballots continued to be counted. Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, who spent just nine months in the top job after taking over from Ardern in January, told supporters late Saturday he had called Luxon to concede.

Mr. Hipkins said it wasn’t the result he wanted.

“But I want you to be proud of what we achieved over the last six years,” he told supporters at an event in Wellington.

Ms. Ardern unexpectedly stepped down as Prime Minister in January, saying she no longer had “enough in the tank” to do the job justice. She won the last election in a landslide, but her popularity waned as people got tired of COVID-19 restrictions and inflation threatened the economy.

Her departure left Mr. Hipkins, 45, to take over as leader. He had previously served as education minister and led the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

With more than two-thirds of the vote counted, Mr. Luxon’s National Party had about 40% of the vote. Under New Zealand’s proportional voting system, Mr. Luxon, 53, was expected to form an alliance with the libertarian ACT Party.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party that Hipkins leads was getting only a little over 25% of the vote — about half the proportion it got in the last election under Ardern.

And in a result that would be particularly stinging for Labour should it lose the seat, National wasin a tight race for Ardern’s old electorate seat, Mount Albert. The seat has long been a Labour stronghold and was also held by another former Labour prime minister, Helen Clark.

The National Party candidate for the seat, Melissa Lee, told The Associated Press she was feeling excited but also nervous about the final result in Mount Albert.

“It’s been Labour since 1946. It has been the biggest, safest Labour seat forever,” she said. “It would be fantastic if we won it.”

Ms. Lee said that when she was door-knocking, people had told her they were tired of the current government and were concerned with the state of the economy and the spiraling cost of living.

David Farrar, a longtime conservative pollster, said there was still a good chance that Labour would end up holding the seat once all the votes were counted. However, he said, his initial impression of voting throughout the country was that it was turning out to be a “bloodbath” for the left.

Mr. Luxon has promised tax cuts for middle-income earners and a crackdown on crime. Mr. Hipkins had promised free dental care for people younger than 30 and the removal of sales taxes on fruit and vegetables.

Also at stake in the election is the government’s relationship with Indigenous Māori. Mr. Luxon has promised to axe the Māori Health Authority, which he says creates two separate health systems. Hipkins says he’s proud of such co-governance efforts and has accused Mr. Luxon of condoning racism.

Within days of taking the reins in January, Mr. Hipkins found himself dealing with a crisis after deadly floods and then a cyclone hit New Zealand. He quickly jettisoned some of Ardern’s more contentious policies and promised a “back to basics” approach focused on tackling the spiralling cost of living.

Warm spring weather in the largest city of Auckland seemed to encourage voters, with queues forming outside some polling places. Early voting before Election Day was lower than in recent elections.

During a six-week election campaign, both Mr. Hipkins and Mr. Luxon travelled the country and hammed it up for the cameras.

Earlier in the week, Mr. Luxon, who served as chief executive of both Unilever Canada and Air New Zealand, told an energized crowd in Wellington that he would crack down on gangs.

“I’ve gotta tell you, crime is out of control in this country,” Mr. Luxon said. “And we are going to restore law and order, and we are going to restore personal responsibility.”

Mr. Luxon also got cheers when he promised to fix the capital’s gridlocked traffic with a new tunnel project.

Mr. Luxon is relatively new to politics but held his own against the more experienced Hipkins during televised debates, according to political observers. But Luxon also made some gaffes, such as when he was asked in a 1News debate how much he spent each week on food.

His answer of “about sixty bucks” (U.S. $36) was ridiculed on social media as showing him being out of touch with the cost of living.