The family moved around the North Island during Luxton's childhood and she was raised mainly in Gisborne, where she attended Campion College and Lytton High School.

[1] When their marriage broke up, she began working for Playcentre and had a twenty-year career in early childhood education before her election to Parliament in 2017.

Her maiden speech highlighted her views that education "needs to be free and accessible to everyone [because] it could mean the difference between living a decent life and contributing to society in a positive way, and ending up in our overcrowded prisons.

[10] She was briefly responsible for a member's bill, previously in the name of Sue Moroney, which proposed to reinstate a general legal right for workers to have meal and rest breaks; this ultimately was adopted as government legislation.

[19] She announced salary increases for early childhood educators in August 2023, although it was reported that the government knew in September 2023 that it had a $253 million shortfall in ECE funding, which was not publicly known until after that month's election.

[24] Labour did not remain in government and, in late November, Luxton was appointed opposition spokesperson for agriculture, biosecurity and rural communities in the Shadow Cabinet of Chris Hipkins.

[25] On 5 December 2023, Luxton was granted retention of the title The Honourable, in recognition of her term as a member of the Executive Council.

[27] Luxton has stated that she would be voting in favour of the End of Life Choice Act 2019 during the 2020 euthanasia referendum, citing her belief that people should be able to die with dignity and the experiences of her terminally ill mother.