Others, perhaps of a dramatic disposition, regard the imbroglio over the FTA — which National touts as a towering triumph and which NZ First blasts as a bad deal for all concerned — as a sign of government instability.
The answer probably lies somewhere in between.
Mr Luxon would no doubt have far preferred NZ First leader Winston Peters — until recently his deputy prime minister — to have been in wholehearted support of the FTA.
However, he has now worked with Mr Peters for long enough to recognise that while the NZ First leader is a senior Cabinet minister, he is also first and foremost the leader of a political party.
NZ First has long had concerns about this country ceding too much to potential trade partners during FTA negotiations.
The most famous example of this was the agreement with China, which Mr Peters felt took too long to phase in tariff reductions and offered too much in technical assistance to the already highly developed People’s Republic.
He has similar issues with this proposed FTA. India has not significantly dropped tariffs on dairy products — something which New Zealand producers would have deeply loved and which Mr Peters felt our negotiators should have pushed harder on.
Mr Luxon has glossed over this objection and focused on the other limb of NZ First’s opposition to the FTA: its proposal to grant about 1600 highly skilled temporary work visas to Indian workers annually, in areas where New Zealand is short of labour such as computing or health sciences. In a clause which might have been written with Mr Peters in mind, the visas are time-limited and are non-renewable.
While the visa issue is surely one which Mr Peters cares about — it took up about half of the press release he put out explaining why NZ First would oppose the FTA — it would be wrong to characterise his opposition as being down to a single issue.
Characterising Mr Peters’ objections, as Mr Luxon did, as being due to his "long-held view around immigration issues" is a touch disingenuous and does not tell the whole story of this split in the Cabinet ranks.
That said, Mr Peters seems unlikely to tear the government down over the issue — and Mr Luxon, perhaps banking on that, is prepared to take a relaxed approach to his handling of the issue.
When NZ First has stepped away from government before it had done so on the bedrock principle issue of asset sales. While some sections of the National Party — let alone fellow coalition partner Act New Zealand — would love to flog off some state assets, Mr Luxon knows better than to poke that bear.
Mr Peters has carefully framed his opposition as an "agree to disagree" position rather than a last-ditch objection. He has also been at pains to stress that his reservations are to specific areas of the draft as opposed to a deal as a whole.
As Foreign Minister Mr Peters has put a lot of time and effort into trying to improve New Zealand-India relations and he would not wish that to go to waste. One of the ironies of this dispute over the FTA is that reaching the agreement as its stands is partly due to Mr Peters’ efforts in this area.
Mr Peters has long argued that the media — and by extension the public — has a poor understanding of the workings of MMP, and rushes to catastrophise what would otherwise be politics as normal.
To borrow a clever analogy from The Spinoff, Mr Peters has seemingly mastered the art of being in government and being in opposition, at one and the same time.
However, it takes two — or in this case three — parties to tango, and National in particular, as well as Act, have to be prepared to allow Mr Peters to preserve his patch without regarding every disagreement as a slight against the government.
That the coalition still stands is evidence that agreeing to disagree can work. It also offers hope to the other side of the House that a mature three-party coalition of its own may be sustainable.
