Christopher Luxon has confirmed he is absolutely staying on as National's leader ahead of the election after the Prime Minister was forced to dispel quitting rumours.
Jacinda Ardern was recently forced to bat away rumours she was planning to quit ahead of next year's general election. Ardern has been Labour leader for five years but is facing increasing pressure and a decline in popularity. She's also heading into a difficult election as Kiwis face high inflation and a cost of living crisis.
Speaking with AM on Monday, Ardern told co-host Melissa Chan-Green she has no plans to resign.
"I've heard this. This rumour has floated around my entire time five years in Government. I have no plans to change my role as leader, I am not going anywhere. I've said this on the show a number of times," she said.
And in the spirit of fairness, National leader Christopher Luxon was also asked whether he was planning to step down.
"Oh absolutely not," he told AM's Melissa Chan-Green on Wednesday. "I mean we have got a lot of work ahead of us to make our case to the New Zealand people and that's what we intend to do."
Luxon took over leadership of the National Party in November 2021 after a tumultuous period which saw several leaders come and go in a short period of time.
The National leader was also forced to defend his party's tax policy while speaking with Chan-Green, after analysis by the Council of Trade Unions found for every $1 in cuts the bottom half of earners would get, the top 5 percent gets $10.
If elected National has promised to adjust tax brackets to account for inflation between 2017 and 2021.
The party would also scrap the new highest tax bracket of 39 percent for income over $180,000 a year, bin the extension of the bright line test and reintroduce the ability for landlords to deduct interest costs from their tax bills.
Luxon said the policy is about helping reduce extra tax being paid because of inflation.
"The major component of our tax policies that we've announced this year is to say, 'Let's just take the inflation, the thresholds that exist for tax today and then move them up by the amount of inflation'.
"That means for someone on the average income, they're going to get about $800 to $1000 per year just by making sure that we inflation-adjust tax thresholds."
Luxon said the plan isn't radical and tax brackets are already adjusted for inflation yearly in many places.
