Luxon

[Lilith7]

Bottom feeder =  an opportunist who seeks quick profit usually at the expense of others or from their misfortune.

My take on it is that Luxon, while having many media advisors and speech writers, is badly tone deaf when it comes to slang and metaphors. He's used to getting away with vague meaningless talk, and in this instance was trying for a dogwhistle and it has  backfired.

That could well be it - he just grabbed at a much used term without stopping to consider any possible consequences of using that particular term.

Perhaps not the best idea for any politician to use derogatory  terms if possible, since it could be seen as creating an 'us & them' situation.