If you believe Prime Minister Chris Luxon economic growth will solve our problems and, if this is not just around the corner, it is at least on the horizon. It won’t be too long before things are “awesome” again.
If you believe David Seymour the country is beset by much greater problems than National is prepared to admit and they won’t be solved quickly without some big, serious changes to the way government operates.
In the meantime, he says, the country is at a tipping point. Since Covid lockdowns were lifted, 116,000 people have left New Zealand. If many more opt for Australia Seymour says we will face a long period of left wing governments which he describes in a joking-not-joking way as “shoplifters and sandal wearers.”
Seymour has long believed the population is divided into people who do things that add value and people who drag the country down. He has honed his definition and description of the two groups. New Zealand is now, “a country of two invisible tribes,” he says.
“One, I call ‘Change Makers’. People who act out the pioneering spirit that built our country every day. We don’t just believe it is possible to make a difference in our own lives; we believe it’s an obligation.
“Change Makers load up their mortgage to start a business and give other people jobs. They work the land to feed the world. They save up and buy a home that they maintain for someone else to live in. They study hard to extend themselves. They volunteer and help out where they can. They take each person as they find them. They don’t need to know your ancestry before they know how to treat you.”
During the last election campaign Act described itself and its supporters as ‘Change Makers’. Change Makers are “brave and patriotic.”
The other tribe are people who, Seymour says, value conformity over truth.
“People building a Majority for Mediocrity. They would love nothing more than to go into lockdown again, make some more sourdough, and worry about the billions in debt another day.
They blame one of the most successful societies in history for every problem they have. They believe that ancestry is destiny. They believe people are responsible for things that happened before they were born, but criminals aren’t responsible for what they did last week.”
Like most political events staged on a weekday the audience for the Act leader’s speech was dominated by retirees but, as he usually does, Seymour addressed one of his favourite demographics – young professionals.
“A few more good people leaving is all they need for their Majority of Mediocrity. The more that aspirational, hardworking people get up and leave New Zealand, the more likely it is we’ll get left-wing governments in the future.
“That’s why I say we’re at a tipping point.
“There’s another reason why the mediocrity majority is growing, young people feel betrayed and disillusioned.
“A new generation looks at the housing market and sees little hope. Imagine you’re someone who’s done it all right, you listened to your teacher and did your homework. You studied for a tertiary education like everyone told you. Now you have $34,000 in debt, you start on $60,000, and you see the average house is $900,000 or fifteen times your (before tax) income. Nobody can blame a young person for wondering if they aren’t better off overseas.”
Act party functions and rallies have their own style. There is a dress code. For male MPs it is a blue suit often accompanied by a pink tie. Female MPs often wear pink jackets (as deputy leader, Brooke van Velden, and children’s minister Karen Chhour did this time.)
Imagery in video screens usually features Seymour and van Velden. Yesterday the main image was the leader and his deputy standing on the steps of parliament fronting up to last year’s hikoi.
There were some subtle differences this year. Seymour nearly always gives his State of the Nation speech in his fortress, Act’s bastion, the Epsom electorate. Yesterday’s venue was the Akarana events centre, a waterside pavilion in Brooke van Velden’s Tamaki electorate. Perhaps the move was to underline the significance of Act taking two electorate seats in the 2023 election – an election in which Act seriously underperformed its own hopes and expectations.
Seymour and van Velden have long been part of a mutual admiration society. This enduring political romance was on show again yesterday.
Van Velden: “I have known David for 10 years, worked with him for seven years….and never met a more principled person. More and more Kiwis want a leader with vision.”
Seymour: “I think you’re the Government’s most quietly effective minister….I actually think Brooke is too cool for Act. It is easy to forget Brooke is 32. She has the biggest future in NZ politics.”
Seymour’s increasingly honed political skills came into play as he outlined our poor economic performance, and still cloudy outlook, without raining on Luxon’s parade too much. But the ‘faint praise’ was obvious.
“The short-term outlook is sunny, but only because Labour was so bad. By that standard, 2025 will be a success. Interest rates will be lower. The Government will have stopped wasting borrowed money, banning things, punishing employers, landlords, farmers, and anyone else trying to make a difference, with another layer of red tape.
“The truth is, though, it’s easy to do a better job [than] Labour over 12 months. It’s much harder to muster the courage to keep making difficult decisions over several years, even if they’re not immediately popular.
“Our nation is in a century of decline. Just stopping one government’s stupid stuff and waiting for a cyclical recovery won’t change the long-term trend. We need to be honest about the challenges we face and the changes needed to overcome them.”
Seymour sees government debt as perhaps the country’s biggest immediate problem.
“This year the Government is planning to borrow $17 billion, about $10 billion is for interest on debt, and we’ll have to pay interest on that debt the following year. Next year, government debt will exceed $200 billion.”
While further cuts to spending are required, the Act leader says there are things that we do need to put our hands deeper into our pockets for – defence and infrastructure.
Previously, Seymour has told Newsroom he considers New Zealand to be practically defenceless apart from “the SAS and some P8 Poseidon aircraft” and we can expect pressure from Australia and maybe the US.
“We spend less than one per cent of GDP defending it [New Zealand] while our only ally, across the ditch, spends twice that. Put another way, we’re a country whose government gives out $45 billion in payments each year but spends only $3.2 billion defending the place. Does that sound prudent to you?”
On infrastructure, Seymour played to the room full of Aucklanders. “We haven’t built a harbour crossing for nearly seven decades.
“Four hundred people die every year on a substandard road network. Beaches around here get closed thanks to sewerage overflow, but we need more core infrastructure. Sections of this city are being red zoned from having more homes built because the council cannot afford the pipes and pumping stations.”
New money has to come from somewhere and Seymour reverted to an old idea – privatisation. Cameras buttoned on, reporters scribbled in notebooks. Seymour urged everyone not to be squeamish about the “p word.”
“….There’s the $570 billion, over half a trillion dollars of assets, the government owns. The one thing we know from state houses, hospital projects, and farms with high levels of animal death, is that the government is hopeless at owning things.
“But did you know you own Quotable Value, a property valuation company chaired by a former race relations conciliator that contracts to the government of New South Wales?
“What about 60,000 homes? The government doesn’t need to own a home to house someone. We know this because it also spends billions subsidising people to live in homes it doesn’t own. On the other hand, the taxpayer is paying $10 billion a year servicing debt, and the Kiwi Build and Kainga Ora debacles show the government should do as little in housing as possible.”
Later, at a media conference, Seymour was quizzed by reporters on whether he would sell all state houses. He replied that if Luxon made him “king for a day,” he would. Then, in that way politicians do, he joked he couldn’t be king because we already had King Charles.
Perhaps not surprisingly, reference to the highly controversial Treaty principles bill came very late in Seymour’s speech and positioned as “something like it can proceed in the future.”
He gave the example of former National MP Michael Laws “going down in a screaming heap” when he introduced the Death with Dignity Bill in 1995.” Seymour’s own End of Life Choice Bill passed in Parliament in November 2019 – 24 years after Laws’ failed attempt.
Given the onslaught ACT has sustained over the principles bill, Seymour needed to find some upside for the party faithful that didn’t anticipate the 40,000 strong protest march and record number of submissions over the bill. He said the bill had given a voice to people “who want equal rights for all New Zealanders… It also shows something else, that Act is the party prepared to stand up when it’s not easy and it’s not popular. That’s exactly the type of party our country needs in our government.”
