Mr Luxon and a host of senior MPs were in Mosgiel on Saturday for the party’s southern region conference, a gathering at which he is guaranteed a receptive - if on this occasion a not exactly rapturous - reception.
Delegates listened carefully as Mr Luxon set out why last week’s Budget did not deliver what National thought it should and explained why his party would be better than Labour on core policies such as education, law and order and health.
"We need to be clear-minded about the challenges we have got because all we do is keep talking about them," he told the Otago Daily Times after his speech.
"How do you (the Government) literally spend $5 billion more on education and get less kids going to school and worse academic outcomes? That’s not a pathway for success."
Mr Luxon hammered away at Labour’s fiscal approach, particularly its level of spending and rate of core debt.
Although aware that such rhetoric might sound negative, Mr Luxon was adamant that he and National’s message was a hopeful one.
"I have tremendous hope and belief in the future of New Zealand. I feel more hopeful and optimistic about our future than I did two years ago because you see amazing people doing incredible things, you see innovation, you see fantastic talent and the opportunity to do well, so that’s great.
"You look at all the conditions and the metatrends and the consumer trends of what is happening out in the world and you say that New Zealand can do well - there’s no reason why we can’t.
"But whenever you are doing a turnaround job, and I’ve done a lot of them, you have to have tremendous hope that you can get yourself to a different and better place, but you also have got to confront the brutal facts of your reality, whether you like it or not, in order to get to that place.
"If it’s all just hope and not confronting the reality of the problems that you are encountering, then that doesn’t get you there."
Which sounds a good prescription to campaign on, but it is one which also reveals Mr Luxon’s Achilles heel.
While he has managed to maintain a solid preferred party vote for National in opinion polls, after his new leader bump the trend has been gradually downward for Mr Luxon.
The latest Newshub-Reid poll had the two parties level at about 35% apiece, but Mr Luxon’s personal popularity had slid to just 16.4%, a figure just below what previous leader Judith Collins was rating before she lost the last election.
Despite those figures, Mr Luxon was insistent that this was another turnaround job he was able to take on.
"I think we have made tremendous progress compared to where we were 18 months ago. We have improved 10-13 points and Labour has come down about 15 points. It is going to be close, we get that, and we have work to do.
"Being leader of the Opposition is a really hard job; it is hard to get cut-through at times and you have got to work really hard at it. But I am working hard at it — I’m up and down the country each and every week meeting New Zealanders ... We have a long way to go."
