There has been plenty of turmoil for him to deal with at home this year, from the problematic school lunch programme to protests over the now discharged Treaty Principles Bill. Despite protestations to the contrary, there are also clearly tensions both between the coalition partner parties, and in their relationship with the National Party Mr Luxon leads.
And his Finance Minister Nicola Willis is in the final stages of preparing what promises to be a difficult Budget, as scarce taxpayer resources will seemingly struggle to match or exceed taxpayer expectations of what the government can deliver them.
With all that stress and anxiety going on, is it any wonder that Mr Luxon seems to enjoy himself when he gets away from it all? It is certainly the impression he gives, looking almost ebullient on his recent trip to India, embracing that country’s leader, playing street cricket for the cameras, and also seemingly making substantial progress towards a trade deal with one of the world’s largest economies.
The most recent trip overseas by Mr Luxon, which has included the Gallipoli commemorations and the funeral of Pope Francis, was a more sombre affair but the prime minister looked entirely at ease in such unfamiliar surrounds.
At Gallipoli, at services which for various reasons New Zealand’s Prime Minister has been unable to attend for some years, Mr Luxon struck an appropriate tone at the dawn service, noting that some 16,000 Kiwis served on the peninsula at a time when just one million people lived in the country: "what happened here scarred generations of New Zealanders."
Soon after, at Chunuk Bair, Mr Luxon noted that New Zealand’s MPs are seldom far away from a reminder of Gallipoli: "[we] walk past a painting of Chunuk Bair as we enter our debating chamber. Inside, a plaque bearing Gallipoli’s name hangs above us. And a few hundred steps away from our Parliament sits a stone from this very memorial."
Mr Luxon also cut a suitably sober figure at the papal funeral, an off-schedule event which it was entirely fitting for the prime minister to alter his schedule to attend.
The first stop on Mr Luxon’s trip had been the United Kingdom, where he seemed to get on splendidly with Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and King Charles III. The visit yielded few tangible results, but its purpose was to reinforce the long-standing friendly relationship between two countries with relatively new leaders.
Further foreign policy challenges await Mr Luxon. Although he hosted Chinese Premier Li Qiang in New Zealand last year Mr Luxon has yet to visit the People’s Republic. There has been some ruffled feathers between New Zealand and its largest trading partner in recent months and Mr Luxon has work to do on that relationship.
Much of that is due to New Zealand having drawn closer, in a geo-political sense, to our second-largest trading partner, the United States.
Mr Luxon is also yet to meet the new US president, although it is still early days in the Trump 2.0 presidency. Given the tariff war Mr Trump recently set off, and New Zealand thus far getting off relatively lightly, it might be best to avoid the mercurial president just at the moment.
Both were at the Pope’s funeral, but Mr Trump was otherwise occupied with the vexed issue of ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict. The two men’s paths will cross again at the various annual international forums each country’s leader attends and what in the trade is called a "pull aside" might be the best option for New Zealand at this stage, so that two leaders with business backgrounds can talk fundamentals and establish a basis for further discussion.
