The Dom Harvey Podcast
Amanda Luxon On Christopher, What Really Goes On At Home & Being Married To A PM
01 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
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That's dom.co.nz. Look for the orange button. Thank you. Hey, I'm Dom. Thank you so much for choosing to listen to this episode of my podcast, the Dom Harvey podcast. Coming up, Amanda Luxon.
I don't bow to that pressure, which actually is probably good because that same feeling is implemented now when things are thrown at me. It's like you're not within my sphere of influence. So I'm not going to ask advice from you. So I'm not going to take your criticism. So I know within myself who I am.
I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I've got a very close group of people around me that I respect and love me and will speak to me what I need to hear.
Amanda Luxon is probably best known as the wife of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, but she also has her own story, her own perspective and a really thoughtful way of looking at life, relationships and what really matters. Not to mention some really strong opinions on critical thinking and why that's important.
Amanda is a self-described introvert and typically does her best to stay out of the spotlight, which makes this podcast appearance a rarity. Now, due to the nature of politics, you might already have an opinion on Amanda Luxon. This long-form conversation will either change your opinion or reinforce what you already think, and either of those outcomes are fine.
I just appreciate you being here with an open mind to give this podcast episode a listen. Some of the ground we cover in this conversation includes what it's really like living alongside one of the most demanding jobs in the country, the reality behind the negative headlines, the polls, the rumours, and how you make a relationship work when one person is essentially on duty 24-7.
Amanda shares some of the philosophies that shaped their children, from teaching them whose opinion actually matters, to why the first thing you say to your child when they screw up is more important than anything that comes after.
And there are some really human moments in here as well, from dance parties in the kitchen, to Christopher's annoying habit of sharing memes, and the story behind that viral election night photo of her biceps. This conversation is honest, it's reflective, and it gives you a side of public life that we don't often get to hear. This is the Dom Harvey Podcast, and here is Amanda Luxon.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Amanda Luxon share about living with a Prime Minister?
The most important thing is that you then work with an instructor afterwards to help you decode that. You can do those things online and you get a wee blurb and you read through it and it's like, yeah, you don't really understand – what information it's giving you and how it's going to help you.
And really, it just helps you understand, you know, why does my husband get into the car and just drive without actually knowing where he's going? You know, or something like that. Or why does my partner leave everything to the last minute? Or why are they really good at starting projects but not finishing projects? And so sometimes I find that if we've got a framework or an education around it,
it kind of breaks down a lot of angst, a lot of conflict, because you sit there and you go, oh, yeah, babe, I know what you're doing. And here's a map so that when we get halfway to where we're going and you don't know where to go next, we'll have it. So it's just a lovely way of enhancing communication and relationships.
And the other big thing I think that's important is, say I've got a message I want you to receive. And I'm sitting here and I want to get you to understand what I want you to understand. If I give it to you in the way that is meaningful to me and I understand, then it might not be the way that you receive it. You might not get or understand what I'm trying to say to you. But if I can go, oh...
He's much more interested in feelings than processes or things like that. So with my children, if William was a big feeler, Olivia more on the thinking continuum. And so if I didn't like something William would go, I'd say, William, that makes me incredibly sad that you did blah, blah, blah. and his little face would go.
If I'd said, William, I don't think that that, you know, is the right moral thing for you to do, he would have looked at me, but it wouldn't have sunken in the same way and the reverse for Olivia. If I say, you know, I need to say to her, look, on principle, this is not the best way to do that, and she gets it. So it's tiny little things like that that you can implement
On an everyday basis, it goes, I want to enhance my communication and my understanding of you. And by understanding you from your point of view, it helps. Yeah. So I love it. I love it as a tool. Yeah. And you can use it in lots of different environments.
Well, it seems to have served you well. From what I know about you, your kids still talk to you on a regular basis. They do, actually.
My daughter very regularly. And I remember that.
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Chapter 3: How does Amanda Luxon define her role as an introvert?
Yeah, that's a thing where you're going to throw in like carrots or incentives for the day. That's it, that's it. Maybe paying for the partners as well if there's partners on the scene.
That's it, that's it. They want to come and they want to bring their friends too. So that's all good. So I love that, yeah.
So how's life been for you the last couple of years since Christopher got the job at Promenade? Are you an empty nester now? Has it been lonely, I guess is what I'm asking.
Oh, Look, I think it's interesting. I'm not an empty nester because William is still with us. However, the decision has been made that he will be finding its time. Again, being the introvert, actually, I don't mind time to myself. That's fine. So I don't have a big problem with that. I'm doing that. William is around, which is really nice.
And yeah, when there's big periods of time, there can be weeks at a time that maybe Christopher and I don't have good, meaningful contact. And it's not that I'm lonely. It's just that you want to have that contact. But his schedule is really up and down. He can be, you know, one week he can be away three or four days, one week he can be away two. And I've got a lot going on in my own life.
So he's not the only thing in my life.
And I suppose you just accept it's a limited time. However many years or terms it may be, it does have an expiry date on it.
It absolutely does. And that's a really important point, Dom, because when we went into this, there were a whole lot of things that we said, this is a season. And in this season, there's going to be a whole lot of unexpected things and there's going to be a whole lot of things that maybe would happen that might not happen in another season and that that is all okay.
So I'm on the phone the other night and it's half past seven and he was due home at like, you know, quarter to eight or something in from Wellington. And so, you know, I've done the good thing. The fish pie is sitting there. I'm very proud of the fish pie. I know he likes fish pie. He's had a hard week. And I said, oh, how far away are you? And there was sort of silence on the end of the phone.
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Chapter 4: What are Amanda Luxon's thoughts on critical thinking and public perception?
Yeah, yeah, no, I never had it. And it was quite good because it was just coming in when the kids were sort of getting there and we sort of said to them, oh, you know, the security team at Air New Zealand have said you're not allowed to post and you're not allowed to... It was brilliant. It was absolutely brilliant.
So neither... We never had social media problems with our kids and so I'm very grateful and thankful for that. So... And I'm very disciplined in that I do not read any comments that come up anywhere because... For a start, most of the comments are ill-informed.
And I actually kind of think if you can sit behind a keyboard and make such awful comments about someone that you've never known, you don't really understand the issue. That actually you possibly lead a little bit of a sad life. Do you know what I mean?
And actually, I feel sorry that you can't get your self-worth from somewhere else other than being egregiously horrible to other people who are out there.
working really hard for your benefit so that's the frustrating thing so I read very little I don't I read very little media because I would tend to look at it at night and then if there's something that comes up that is horrendously unjust I then lie awake all night so
I mean, everyone says don't read the comments, but it does take a huge amount of self-discipline not to.
No, no, I never read the comments. If you get a sort of a news article that comes out and you go, that is just a lie. That is so not okay. And you are getting away with putting fabrications in there. And so that's what would get me going. I'm sitting there all night going, if I meet you, you know. So, yeah.
Yeah. You being a private person, how did you find election night in particular? Yeah. This is the photo that sort of went viral. It's a screen cap of you and William taking some Hell's Pizza and some savouries out to the media outside.
Yeah.
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Chapter 5: What are Amanda Luxon's thoughts on alcohol and personal control?
So it wasn't something that was necessarily part of my social scene in the beginning. And then Christopher didn't drink either. And so I never really developed the taste for it. But the real reason is I don't actually like the lack of control it gives me. I fundamentally give me a quarter of a glass of wine and I'll be dancing on the table. Yes.
It's a bit of a risk, I think, to give me any kind of alcohol. It goes through my system very quick. There was one thing. I have drunk on one occasion, and I was trying to be a really big girl. Christopher and I were on our first vacation away with his parents, and there'd been a little winery. So we thought we'd be really big people and go over and have dinner, and they had wine tasting.
I'm saying, what? I mean, it tasted like petrol to me and I never drank after it. But anyway, I literally had, I would say, a tasting glass, not a big one. I would say I had half a glass of that. And Christopher was seen walking me up and down the road before he could take me in. And then he puts me at a table in the corner. And I'm just, I can remember it really clearly.
I can remember sitting there just wanting to break down laughing the whole time over nothing.
Chapter 6: How does Amanda Luxon approach parenting and critical thinking?
So I think at that point I realized I possibly didn't hold my alcohol well. It didn't taste like petrol anyway. I didn't have, you know, a good control with it. So it never appealed to me. So that's really it. Yeah.
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. I've got no idea what it was like for a young girl in Christchurch at that time, but I talked about this with Christopher on the podcast, like to be like a guy in New Zealand in the 80s or the 90s and the decision not to drink, it takes a lot of strength of character because the peer pressure back then was immense.
Yeah. Yeah, and possibly even more for a guy even than a girl. But actually, I don't think that pressure has really changed terribly much. And I think because, you know, my kids went through that stage and we said to them, you get to choose. I don't believe in...
in an environment where you demand of children or you tell, I would rather educate children, empower them and then negotiate with them. And so I basically said, you get the choice to drink. Firstly, not until you're 18, because the law says no. And if you want to travel overseas, you don't want anything, you know, to do anything. So that was out. But once that, it's up to you.
Chapter 7: What unique parenting strategies does Amanda Luxon share?
But here's the research from Stanford University about what alcohol does to your brain. But you get the choice. And so neither of the kids drank, you know, through that time. And that was that she really stood out. But it really comes back to what is your own self-worth? And is that self-determined by what other people think of you or is it determined what you believe about yourself?
And so Olivia was in a great state because everybody would bring her non-alcoholic drinks. She would drive the car. She'd hold their head. So they mummed to her. And for me, it was the same. It was like, I don't actually, I don't bow to that pressure, which actually is probably good because that same feeling is implemented now when things are thrown at me.
It's like, well, hold on, that's your circus, your monkey, and you're not within my sphere of influence. So I'm not going to ask advice from you. So I'm not going to take your criticism. So I know within myself who I am. I know my strengths and my weaknesses. I And I've got a very close group of people around me that I respect and love me and will, you know, speak to me what I need to hear.
So it's all about self-concept, I think, with kids that if they feel good about themselves, then they don't necessarily need to do things for other people.
Chapter 8: How does Amanda Luxon view her relationship with Christopher?
And I think that's one of the things I'm really grateful for is both our kids kind of knew who they were and never really needed to be influenced by peer pressure terribly much. Yeah.
Yeah, it seems like you guys did a good job of parenting. There was a couple of things I read which I really liked. One was discouraging them from social media and saying you should pick 10 people.
Yeah, it was really good.
10 people as your circle of friends, and that gives you a range of opinions of people that will have your best interests at heart.
And another thing I really liked was- And we wrote them on a card and put them in their bags as well, yeah, so that they-
So who were they? Like mum, dad, sister?
Yeah, it was mum, dad, Nana, you know, those kind of things. And a few very close friends that we know really love our kids. We've got a beautiful group of friends that we sort of, you know, I've got daughters to another mother and those women have just got our kids' best interests at heart. So they'd be on the list and things like that. Yeah, so.
I like that one. And there was another one whenever you had people over for dinner, the kids had to sit at the table and ask them three questions. Yeah, it's really good.
But they're all little things.
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