Positively polarising

Otago Daily Times

a day ago

Controversy has never done Act New Zealand leader David Seymour any harm in the past, and he does not think it will do him any harm in the future either, he tells political editor Mike Houlahan.
As David Seymour settles into a comfy chair in a warm Dunedin hotel, a hundred or so of his bitterest political foes are standing outside in the cold wind decrying the policies of he and the government he is a part of.
Polarisation seems to pursue the Act New Zealand leader wherever he goes, and today is no exception: the warm welcome he is about to receive at a Business South meeting is contrary to the frigid reception he would have received had he ventured outside and around the corner to meet the protest rally.
"I think, frankly, people want politicians at all levels who are prepared to stand for something and say what they believe in a way that's conciliatory and respectful, and that's what I seek to do," he says, shrugging off the suggestion that Act always needs to be polarising voters to ensure it maintains a high profile.
"There is actually a whole lot of change Act is doing that is not getting attention. These Bills have got a lot of attention: the Treaty Principles Bill got a lot of attention, and the Regulatory Standards Bill has actually got attention as a result of the Treaty Principles Bill.
"Most of my career I've supported the Regulatory Standards Bill and struggled to get people interested. Now people are interested because of political hype."
Few pieces of legislation have excited the general public in recent years as those two Bills — both in the name of Mr Seymour.
The first was voted down by Parliament, the second is almost certain to become law despite a procession of opponents to the legislation appearing before Parliament's finance and expenditure committee this week to decry it.
"The standards of debate need to rise, and frankly, so many people are saying things about the Regulatory Standards Bill that are just so demonstrably untrue. We need to be able to call a spade a spade," Mr Seymour said.
"If you look at our overall agenda, if you look at what Brooke [van Velden] is doing for holidays, the health and safety, labour law, contracting, Covid law, look at Nicole McKee on anti money laundering this week, firearms law, alcohol law.
"Karen Chhour is gradually reshaping Oranga Tamariki, Simon Court is doing the resource management law. Andrew Hoggard's playing a role in biosecurity agriculture, with a very safe pair of hands there, even though a few chickens had to die ... having me as the deputy prime minister, and according to most accounts, being a safe pair of hands, I think that helps reassure people that Act is a safe vote."
It is always dangerous reading anything in to polls this far out from an election — the day after speaking to the ODT the latest Taxpayers' Union-Curia Poll came out, which showed Act steady on 9.1% but overtaken by junior coalition partner NZ First, on 9.8%.
But Mr Seymour's contention that Act is no longer beholden to winning his Epsom seat has some credibility. Although the party has failed to poll in the mid-teens, as it did a couple of months prior to the 2023 election, it has equally never looked like dropping down anywhere near the 5% threshold ... and lest we forget, Mr Seymour's deputy Brooke van Velden now has an electorate seat of her own.
"I think we've had two polls under 7% in the last five years, and both of those were over 6. Every other poll, and there's probably literally been hundreds in the last five years, have had us at an absolute minimum of 7, some as high as 18," Mr Seymour said.
"So, yeah, I think it's fair to say we've been a long way from 5 ... but, you know, you can see Act looking to win more electorate seats at the next election. We're just casting around a bit at the moment."
Words which may well send a shiver up the spine of National party management, given that any seat Act may actively tackle is likely to be one that the senior coalition partner holds ... and the example of Ms van Velden in Tamaki shows that Act can walk the talk.
"We're not ready to say [where], but we are actively exploring," Mr Seymour said.
"Remember, the seats belong to the voters. So the question is, what's best for the voters? People in Tamaki decided that having Brooke represent them would be better than the alternative, and there may be other seats where people decide that."
Before we get to that election, there is the not inconsiderable matter of the local body elections to get past.
In a novel initiative, Act has decided to officially contest council election for the first time, and the party has been putting out a press release a day in recent weeks promoting its newest recruit.
The party has sometimes battled to find suitable candidates in the regions, and fielding in local body elections offers a low-risk environment where contenders for higher honours can test themselves and be tested in as real a simulation of a national election as can be managed.
From an initial 700 people interested in standing for Act, the party had whittled the list down to 60. Mr Seymour doubted the election, or otherwise, of any Act-aligned councillors will be an indicator of Act's possible support a year from now, and said the undertaking was an experiment.
"Number one, will people vote for a national level brand at local level? And that's what it is, although our candidates are certainly self-generated and local. We didn't pick them, they came to us from their local communities.
"The second thing we're testing is what's the appetite for basically three things that Act stands for at the local level. One is being tougher on rates and the role of local government in doing less and spending less. Two is we're pro-car and we want to be able to drive our cars and not be basically forced to pay for modes of transport we don't use and have our carparks taken away.
"And three is we believe in equal rights. We oppose the numerous genuflections that councils are making to what we view as a misconception of the Treaty. So it will be a test of the applicability of that brand and those concepts to local government.
"But I suspect that next year's election will be about quite different issues and central government where people are more familiar with us."
In 2023 — and most of 2022 for that matter — Act campaigned relentlessly, holding hundreds of town hall meetings, many of which Seymour spoke at.
Act's 2026 election campaign will have to be different: the party is in government now and the deputy prime minister cannot be in Wanaka or Roxburgh as often as he might like.
"The other way is digital media, and we'll do a lot more of that, but I love getting up and talking to people, and it's a great way to test where you're up to with the audience," Mr Seymour said.
"And often the mood of the crowd and the responses you get and the questions they ask are a really good way of testing where people are up to."
No doubt his friends outside could give him a sense of where some people are up to.
"We know who our likely supporters are, and they're much younger than the people that come to the public meetings. I don't know why that is," Mr Seymour continued.
"I suspect it's because people with children generally don't go to public meetings. One of the reasons I knew we were on to something in 2020, for the first time ever, I saw people with prams and push chairs at our public meetings.
"I thought, that's someone who is making a really big effort ... That's when I realised that people were engaged in politics, and they wanted to engage with us." Freedom of speech upheld despite controversy
Act New Zealand proudly proclaims itself as being the party of freedom of speech.
There could be few better examples of that than when party deputy leader Brooke van Velden made unwanted history in May by using the "c" word for the first time in parliamentary debate in New Zealand.
Few people knew that Ms van Velden was going to quote quite that verbatim from a newspaper column on pay equity law changes which had greatly offended her and other opposition MPs ... but party leader David Seymour did.
Knowing that Speaker Gerry Brownlee suspected what was about to happen, Mr Seymour made a point of order to ask that Ms van Velden "be given a full opportunity to respond the way she wants to" — which, eventually, she did.
"It was entirely her and her office, and I talked to her about it," Mr Seymour said.
"I said, 'well, if you're absolutely sure it's what you want to do, then we of course support you. I think she took a stand against what was really a form of bullying, and I'm very proud of her for doing that."
Mr Seymour said that Ms van Velden had thought the column and associated reporting was "disgraceful" and that it was completely in his deputy's character to be prepared to take decisive action to draw a line under those tactics.
"I think it was a very impressive piece of politics from her."
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