After vaulting the party from rock bottom and back into office, incoming prime minister Chris Luxon has been lauded by National party faithful, past and present.

First elected to New Zealand parliament three years ago, Mr Luxon was one of a handful of new National MPs joining a demoralised caucus following the party’s catastrophic 2020 poll.

But after taking the reins in late 2021, the 53-year-old transformed the centre-right party with corporate know-how and discipline, completing a political turnaround job with haste few thought possible.

When he takes office, Mr Luxon will be the only MP in New Zealand history to become prime minister after his first term, snatching a record from his mentor and friend John Key.

“Chris will have gotten there as the fastest in modern-day history. David Lange and I both got there in six years. He took three,” Mr Key tells AAP.

“He didn’t have a big infrastructure to rely on, he didn’t have a big caucus and the leader’s budget was very depleted.

“And he didn’t have the depth of talent that I had. That makes his win all the more remarkable.”

Mr Key was one of hundreds of Nationals basking in the blue glow of the party’s success on Saturday night at Auckland’s Shed 10.

The three-term prime minister was one of the first to discover Mr Luxon’s political ambitions and possibilities.

The pair met in 2013, after Mr Luxon moved his executive career home after almost two decades abroad with Unilever, including a stint in Sydney in the 1990s.

Mr Luxon is fond of saying “If I couldn’t be a Kiwi I’d be an Aussie,” pointing out proudly his son William is Australian-born.

Moving up from sales, to marketing and then senior roles at Unilever in the UK, US and Canada, the Christchurch-born executive was headhunted by Air New Zealand and saw it as the right role to move home.

“Very quickly then I got to know him,” Mr Key said.

“It was pretty obvious right from the start he was politically on our side of the fence, and very interested in politics.

“He used to watch question time, ring me up and ask me about it and I’d say ‘for goodness sake it’s theatre. we’re not actually there to answer the question’.

“Very few (business) people I thought could jump to politics and he was really the only one I thought that would make the personal sacrifices required and go all the way.

“He’s very driven. He’s ‘s a very deep thinking guy, reads a lot, and a lot of political history books.”

Mr Luxon’s taste in books was briefly an election issue, after he said in a leaders’ debate his favourite book was self-help guide ‘The Inner Game of Tennis’.

Of bigger interest to voters was Mr Luxon’s rumoured fundamentalist Christian beliefs, particularly when he agreed that abortion was murder in an interview early in his leadership.

He has since pledged to resign before any tightening of New Zealand’s abortion laws.

Mr Luxon declines to elaborate on his “deeply personal” faith, a position Mr Key says has been politically exploited.

“He’s not some religious zealot. He himself will tell you he hasn’t been to church for five years … Bill English was a lot more religious than Chris,” he said.

Supporters point to his record as Air New Zealand chief executive – when he supported staff through gender transitions, won the airline LGBT-friendly Rainbow Tick accreditation, and promoted women through executive ranks – as evidence he is a moderate.

Mr Luxon also has his oddities.

He prefers to write emails in a blue comic sans font, telling AAP he intends to do so as prime minister.

He’s relentless, saying he sleeps five hours a night and wakes at 4:30am each morning, and includes an eight-kilometre run, “or run-walk”, to his routine.

He’s exacting, with campaign staff privately confessing anxiety “CML” could call or message at any moment about any issue.

Not only teetotal, he says he has never drunk alcohol, citing “the damage it did” to an alcoholic family member.

It is also fair to say that while Kiwis have elected his party, they are yet to truly warm to him.

Polls had Mr Luxon at 25 per cent as preferred prime minister, and with a negative score in net trustworthiness.

He has also endured countless run-ins with the media, particularly over the six-week campaign, by refusing to answer questions directly or engage on issues outside his talking points.

Pointedly, he refused interviews with all but one Maori outlet in the lead-up to the October 14 election, citing time constraints.

Mark Mitchell, shadow police minister, said media battles sharpened his political antenna.

“He absorbed a hell of a lot of negative media pressure,” he said.

“If anything it prepared him even better for the campaign.

“He steadied the ship, got us united, he’s been relentlessly on message. This result is a direct result of his leadership.”

Shadow Attorney-General Chris Penk said his performance as leader has been “outrageous”.

“When he came in, we were frankly in disarray,” Mr Penk tells AAP.

“Honestly, I didn’t think he would have anything like the meteoric rise that he did … it’s unbelievable what he’s done. He’s got no right to have done that.”

National MPs have responded well to his corporate style, with Mr Luxon assigning each of them KPIs to meet, and offering regular check-ins.

“He’s an appropriate man for the time,” justice spokesman Paul Goldsmith tells AAP.

“He has proven managerial skills that the country needs at this difficult time and I think people recognise that.”

Mr Luxon has vowed to continue setting KPIs for his ministers and senior public servants in a radical change designed to shake up Wellington’s bureaucracy.

“We love targets and we love KPIs,” Mr Mitchell said, without a hint of sarcasm, ready for the job ahead.