ACT leader David Seymour delivers ‘State of the Nation’ speech

Source: Radio New Zealand

The ACT leader has distinguished his party from its coalition partners in a state of the nation speech, giving a blunt assessment of how tough things are at the moment, especially for young people.

ACT leader and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour took a swipe at “bureaucratic” governments that aren’t balancing their books, turned an old call for a smaller government into a campaign promise, and rejected the “endless blame game” of scapegoating one group after another.

Seymour spoke to around 200 party supporters at a venue in Christchurch while around 30 Free Palestine protestors gathered outside, alongside a police presence.

Some protestors were also heard chanting inside the venue, with sirens being played during his introduction by deputy leader Brooke van Velden.

Seymour said the number of people leaving the country was a “flashing light on the dashboard of New Zealand”, and he used his speech to specify the “hard choices” needed to “turn down those lights.”

He spoke of five warning lights that needed to be “overcome.”

ACT’s five warning lights

First, he mentioned the cost-of-living crisis, but called it a productivity slump instead, saying wages hadn’t kept up with inflation.

“People work their guts out only to find that they’re further behind, and it’s no wonder that people are getting jaded and angry.”

Related to this, he said, was the problem that the government wasn’t balancing it books, saying the country was on a collision course with bankruptcy unless “we find the courage to change our spending habits.”

“If there are no nasty surprises for the next five years, we’re on track as a government to post a small surplus by 2030, but after that, our aging population will put us back in the red for more decades of deficit spending, where the red ink carries on.”

Seymour highlighted the risk to democracy throughout the world, because people find governments “frustrating and unresponsive”.

While he didn’t think democracy was in serious danger in New Zealand, “we are subject to the same frustrations.”

“People lose faith and trust in our institutions. They see government is so damn bureaucratic and unresponsive.”

He said New Zealanders don’t have a “positive, inclusive sense of who we are”.

“This experiment of dividing ourselves into a treaty partnership between Tangata Whenua and Tangata Tiriti has been a disaster.”

Lastly, he said an entire generation felt let down by those problems, and young New Zealanders who look at their student loan, wages, taxes and the housing market, “they can’t make the numbers add up.”

“No one is saying that the boomers had it easy. Baby Boomers worked hard for what they have, but they worked hard because hard work was a rewarding strategy.

“That deal feels broken.”

He returned to those who were “voting with their feet”.

“It’s a great failing to fail at the expectations of your own citizens.”

He said ACT would be the party to “tell it like it is,” and take on hard issues and provide brave but constructive solutions in order to “set the country up for success”.

He drew a clear line between the current government and the “potential next government” of Labour, Greens and Te Pāti Māori, which he said frightened him.

“I listen to Chris Hipkins, and I hear Jacinda Ardern ‘light’ – a lilting voice that says all the right things, promises Nirvana, but never says how we’ll pay for it or tackle the key issues.

“He reminds me of what I imagine an anesthetist would sound like, just before he gives you the injection to knock you out and make you forget about the pain.

“I listen to the Greens, and I wake up quickly.

“They used to speak for the environment, but increasingly, they channel the young generation’s fear and frustrations, which are legitimate, by blaming others’ success and even bleeding into disgusting and unforgivable anti-semitism.”

He also mentioned Chlöe Swarbrick directly, calling her the “drag down merchant.”

“I listen to Te Pāti Māori and they sort of frighten me, but they also bewilder me,” said Seymour.

“If they want to be living as Māori, well, that’s ka pai.

“If they want everyone to live in a Māori society with themselves as tangata whenua, sitting atop a hierarchy of identity, that’s where we part company.”

He said ACT’s first mission was to keep them out of power. Seymour said if he’d had a dollar for every person who told him they’d leave New Zealand if Labour got back into power, ACT’s fundraising would be done for the year.

He explained he didn’t receive money each time he’d been told, so if people wanted to donate, there was a QR code on the table.

But he also drew a distinction between his own party and his partners in government, in which ACT is now polling lowest. In the latest Reid Research Poll, from January, National was on 31.9 percent, New Zealand First was on 9.8 percent while ACT was on 7.6 percent.

Seymour said on Sunday ACT had spent the past two years proving it was up to the job of “fixing what matters” and that it had an “outsized role” in making savings.

He cited the new school lunch scheme, pay equity changes and that the party had “knocked $200 million off” the cost of the Waikato Medical School.

“We calculate that if you gave your party vote to act last time, then you have saved the taxpayer $57,000.”

He highlighted work done by ACT ministers in government, “Brooke is fixing the Holidays Act, even as she fixes unfair employment laws and restores common sense to Health and Safety law by focusing it on critical risks”.

He highlighted the work done by ACT ministers in government as “competent managers.”

He also highlighted Act policy wins such as reinstating mortgage interest tax deductibility.

He mentioned the Treaty Principles Bill, which was defeated at its second reading, saying “we may have lost the vote, but we won the debate”, and that the first vote won’t be the final say on the legislation.

ACT’s solutions

He proposed the party’s solutions were based on three ideas to “break our country’s slump”:

• 1. Equal rights for all citizens, “so we can all feel like we’re part of a country with a positive and inclusive identity”
• 2. Positive-sum thinking, rather than “scapegoating some small group of New Zealanders,” before listing farmers, firearm owners, supermarket operators, landlords and bankers
• 3. A smaller, more efficient Government “that you can trust to deliver services for taxes you can actually afford”

Seymour said the country needed an accurate and uplifting story, “we are not two peoples.”

“We are many peoples united by a common story,” he said, referencing a nation of settlers, “we don’t see wealth as something to divide, but something to create.”

He also rejected the “endless blame game”.

“Scapegoating one group after another hasn’t solved a single problem. We believe that most people, most of the time, are just trying to make the best of their time on earth, and we should start with that spirit.”

Beyond that, he said the books still needed to be balanced, wages raised, and faith restored in democracy.

He highlighted again a long-standing ACT party call for a smaller, more efficient government. In May last year, Seymour criticised the ministerial line-up as looking “bloated” and full of “meaningless titles”.

The pime mnister rejected the criticism at the time. However, late last year the government announced a mega ministry which will take on the work of housing, transport, and local government functions.

He said ACT would campaign this year on a smaller government, which would be made up of:

• No more than 20 ministers, who all sit in Cabinet
• No more than 30 departments, so most ministers have only one
• No department answers to more than one minister
• No minister has a portfolio; there are only departments with budgets to manage

He said it was an idea “whose time has come”, and the party would be campaigning to ensure it “happens completely.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand