For three years, Christopher Luxon has occupied the Prime Minister’s office — yet for almost that entire time, it has felt as though he was not the one truly steering the ship. He has survived not one, but two attempts to remove him as leader, a stark signal of the fragility at the heart of this Government. And when you examine how this coalition was formed, and whose priorities have actually driven policy, it becomes clear why so many New Zealanders see a classic case of the tail wagging the dog.
From day one, Luxon ceded ground on matters of national and constitutional importance to keep his coalition partners on board. He personally described ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill as “divisive” and “over‑simplistic” — yet he agreed to vote for it at its first reading and send it to a select committee, purely to satisfy David Seymour. In a striking display of where power lay, he even left the country for an APEC summit to avoid the vote, leaving his caucus to support legislation he stated that he did not believe in.
Winston Peters and NZ First also extracted a heavy price. Their demand for a sweeping review of Treaty principles resulted in 19 separate Acts being amended, watering down Te Tiriti obligations across legislation — replacing strong commitments like “give effect to” with the far weaker “take into account,” and removing explicit references to the Treaty. This was not National’s election promise; it was the bottom line of a smaller party, reshaping our constitutional framework on their terms.
The consequences of these compromises run deep. The cumulative effect has been to fracture relations between Māori and the Crown, and to systematically unwind more than fifty years of hard‑won progress — progress built on recognising Te Tiriti o Waitangi as the founding document of the nation. Dismantling co‑governance structures, disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora, and making Māori wards harder to create has sent a clear message: that the partnership affirmed in 1840 is no longer something to be nurtured, but something to be constrained.
At the same time, corporate interests have been allowed to take precedence over public and environmental good. Legislation reported to have been drafted with industry input was introduced to block climate change liability lawsuits against big emitters, effectively shielding major polluters from accountability. Tax cuts skewed toward the highest earners were passed, while the largest donors to National’s 2023 campaign came from property development and finance sectors. The Smokefree 2025 repeal — never a national policy — was also pushed through at coalition behest, trading public health for political survival.
When Peters publicly told Green MP Lawrence Xu‑Nan to “go back to where you came from,” Luxon called the remarks “racist and offensive” — but then admitted he could not sack him, because Peters’ votes were essential to keeping the Government in power. The Prime Minister himself confirmed that his authority had limits: the junior partner could act with impunity, and he was powerless to intervene.
The phrase “the tail wagging the dog” could have been written for this Government. The party that won the most votes has allowed its smaller partners to dictate the pace, the tone, and the direction — on constitutional matters, on equity, and on climate action. As this term draws to a close, New Zealanders are left to ask: who actually led us? And what kind of country did they lead us toward? If the answer is one where minority priorities reshape our founding document, corporate donors get their way, and fifty years of Māori progress is unwound — then the dog has been wagged quite a long way from home.
