Act New Zealand has risen to new heights in the past three years, literally and figuratively.
When the Otago Daily Times came calling on party leader David Seymour prior to the 2023 election his office was on the first floor, just above the Parliamentary Library.
These days he is on the seventh floor of the Beehive, and rather than the seemingly unlimited time he had to spare back then, this time he has to race off in 20 minutes and chair a Cabinet committee meeting.
‘‘I think people would have to say that we’ve made excellent progress in three years,’’ Mr Seymour said after rating Act’s performance this term as an eight out of 10.
‘‘We came into government with the key objectives being crime, cost of living, co-governance. On crime, I think it’s the place where we can point to the clearest victories, whether it’s things like Three Strikes that we campaigned on, ending taxpayer funding of cultural reports, getting rid of the prison target. There’s now 2000 more criminals in prison.
‘‘I think all three coalition parties would claim a hand in that, but I think Act has been the most clear in shifting responsibility away from, well, towards offenders and putting victims back at the centre, and we’ve got quite a number of policy wins that we can identify as having done that.’’
The cost of living, obviously, Mr Seymour said, was a much tougher topic for the government and for New Zealanders.
‘‘Some of it, I would say, we are to blame. We have not made the progress in reducing spending, reducing the number of departments, reducing the size of public service that the Act Party campaigned on.
‘‘But in many important areas, we can point to success if you add up everything from school lunches and the cost of the medical school and the car-charging network and the savings exercises that I’ve done as a Budget minister, the changes to pay equity. Altogether, the Act Party can point to about $14 billion of savings that we’ve driven over the four-year period.’’
Over a four-year fiscal period that equated to about $57,000 saved per party vote Act had received, which Mr Seymour argued was great value for money.
However, some might argue that its efforts in the realm of co-governance were less fiscally responsible. Quite apart from the expense of policing the largest protest march seen in Wellington in decades — a response to the Act-sponsored and ill-fated Treaty Principles Bill — the aforementioned legislation which Act ushered to first reading as part of its coalition agreement inspired a record number of submissions, chewing up a lot of Parliamentary staff time in the process.
‘‘People will say, well, the Treaty Principles Bill failed. That is true in a technical sense, but in terms of its objective of re-centring the debate, it’s a very different debate from what it was three, five years ago,’’ Mr Seymour argued.
‘‘Now it’s an open question, what does the Treaty really mean to us, and should it be more consistent with liberal democratic values? And most New Zealanders, when asked on the specific clauses, actually agree with them.
‘‘So that is a work in progress, but you look at the Māori Health Authority, the Māori wards, the need not race, just things like Pharmac no longer has different funding for different races, but for pre-diabetic medication. You look at the unelected representatives on council boards, you can point to the New Zealand history curriculum.
‘‘Our goal of reinforcing liberal democratic principles over a co-governance agenda, I think, they are an enormous success, and again, we’ve driven that.’’
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Act New Zealand’s key policies
- Scrap the Climate Change Commission and the Zero Carbon Act
- Three strikes for burglary
- Build a specialist national cancer hospital
- Shut down the Waitangi Tribunal
- KiwiSaver investment earnings would be tax-free
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As we spoke, a large gathering of people were outside on Parliament’s lawn for an event to mark Māori language week. It would be a fair bet that many of them would like to have words with Mr Seymour about his views on co-governance, let alone the policy announced earlier that week to scrap the Waitangi Tribunal after it had finished hearing historical Treaty
claims.
There is an argument that the Tribunal should stay to manage potential Crown breaches in the future, but Mr Seymour argues that the courts could and should handle such matters.
‘‘I don’t believe that Māori have rights different from the rest of New Zealand, including under the Treaty. Yes, we have the right to speak freely, live as we’d like to live and own property. We have rights against unreasonable search and seizure in the Bill of Rights.
‘‘I mean, these are all very important rights. But my simple question is, does New Zealand’s current framework protect New Zealand’s rights? If it doesn’t, then are we going to fix it for everyone or just have a special tribunal for some? And my answer is, if there is a serious problem, we should fix it for everyone.’’
Another thing which Act has driven — although National deputy leader and Finance Minister Nicola Willis has been equally as enthusiastic about it — is making cuts to the headcount of the public service.
Mr Seymour has long been a proponent of a smaller public service; earlier this year he produced a large diagram and waxed lyrical at a press conference about how many departments and ministries he would do away with — proposals which he still fervent about.
‘‘We’ve only consolidated a couple of departments into one, MCERT. We still have 28 ministers and two under secretaries. We still have 82 portfolios. In fact, we’ve created new ones,’’ he said.
‘‘So I would like to see a government of 18 ministers, 19 portfolios, and a portfolios department with a budget and with a chief executive that the minister can fire. It’s about transforming what it means to be a minister. You’re not a person there to virtue signal for the government, like, you know, we love the South Island or we love Auckland or we love hunting and fishing.
“You’re there as a person who is there to manage a budget on behalf of the taxpayer.’’
Taking the axe to spending still further, on the Taxpayer’s Union ‘‘Bribe’ometer’’, which has tracked election spending promises during the campaign, Act is the only party which is proposing to spend less if it attains power rather than more.
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Seymour on:
New Dunedin Hospital: ‘‘Anybody who’s visited hospital buildings in New Zealand would conclude the government should never build another hospital itself. It should outsource that.’’
Bed taxes: ‘‘Let’s be honest, it’s not tourists paying it. But to the extent that tourists do pay it, it raises the price of a New Zealand holiday versus another holiday, and that is going to reduce the amount of tourism.’’
AI data centres: ‘‘The most important thing we can do is improve the availability of abundant electricity. At the end of the day, it’s not just data centres, you know, it’s sawmills, it’s every kind of industrial process. So you can ban data centres, but you’re still going to have to solve the problem of energy supply.’’
The proposed Bendigo mine: ‘‘Sorry, but I find it ironic when Otagoites object to gold mining. Why the hell are they there in the first place?’’
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What’s more, Mr Seymour said, with balanced books achieved tax reduction would soon follow.
‘‘I wouldn’t make any adjustments to the tax system until the government’s balanced its books but, you know, I’d love to have an election fought on tax. It amazes me to see the National Party as the party of no new taxes, only months after I had to stop them introducing new taxes. We’ve killed three taxes, the bed tax, the stamp duty that they campaigned on for homes bought by foreigners, and the bank tax.
‘‘So we’ve got them to not introduce new taxes now they think it’s the best idea they’ve ever had. It just goes to show there’s no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t care who takes the credit.’’
Welfare reform and superannuation are other thing Mr Seymour, warming to his work, has in his sights.
‘‘The superannuation age must change. It will change. It’s just a question of whether we plan it or we get forced on it, forced on us by some fiscal crisis,’’ he said.
‘‘Similarly, the fact is that we still, at the end of the day, if you don’t want to get a job, we’ll pay you about $500 a week to stay home. And as long as you show up to meetings regularly and tell MSD you still don’t have a job, then nothing will touch you. We’ve got to start serious welfare reform.’’