I Finally Finished This Article About Seeing David Seymour Speak In Person Like, Months Ago

A key ritual of attending many an event is sidling down the rows, finding a good spot, taking your seats and probably fiddling with your phone. In this case, we get that rare addition: leaflets under us promising action on three key pillars. Cost of living. Crime. Co-governance. This makes it confusing why a man stands up and starts speaking about roads and potholes. The best he does to engage us with himself is noting that, if the rain hitting the Avon outside seems bad here, Auckland was worse where he just came from.

We're not the only ones who have scampered out of the rain into this shelter. When I saw Raf Manji, that really was a community meeting with a few dozen neighbourhood locals in a library. When I saw Chris Luxon, there were a lot more (grey) heads but, again, at the local bowls club. This really is the Christchurch Town Hall, and while there are some older people this is a significantly younger audience than what National could draw.

We’re almost full up all the way from the front to the back of the room, and as a call-and-response notes, we have some farmers from north Canterbury towns like Rangiora, Woodend and Kaiapoi, though none from the south. It never hurts to remember this party was a zero popularity punchline not so long ago.

The man talks about his experiences with Waka Kotahi Twitter announcing this or that isn’t working all of the time. His solution is a tolling system, based on what works great overseas - the first of several hints that the way a party like ACT views the world is very different from insular nationalists like NZFirst, even though both could be lazily grouped together by some metrics.

The question I’m left with is where the political benefit lies here. Fixing roads is a problem, but as with all transport (peep Auckland light rail), sourcing money doesn't seem like the key roadblock. Waka Kotahi will find the money in yearly budgets, or a politician will come along and promise a bunch of new bridges to win votes, so why bother?

The speaker, ACT MP Simon Court, is clearly serious about public policy, but soon I catch on. I write down the following on my notepad:

And Tanya nods her head. David is not here yet, even though we walked past him on the way in - not shaking hands or chatting with the ACT volunteer table that said hi to us, but presenting to a media camera, backs to us. (Cheap shot: David missed the vote on firearms law reform for the same reason.)

When he takes over from Court, whose excitement has proved anything but infectious, Seymour instantly demonstrates the high energy that has propelled him through tough times to the middle of this brighter future. Before we know it, he’s calling for change and got the support of an awkwardly loud clapper from the back left corner.

Seymour has sensed what’s in the air, and he asks us to consider other countries like us, with their nice weather (uhh) and their islands (I mean, sure). Fiji, Cuba, Jamaica…these are countries that choose to look inwards. His choice of words is interesting: that they select particular values over others. This is a curious position for a libertarian more reminiscent of politics you hear out of America, and I don't mean that in an "ACT are far-right Republicans" way - countries like America place a far greater emphasis on visualising and actualising "freedom" and "hard work", and it’s way more the NZ way to focus on the little folk’s idea of fair rewards for that hard work, left or right.

It’s not long before we do hit something I can ding him for: “[inflation is] happening more than people want to talk about”. What? Normally I hit politicians for applying sleight of hand but it’s not even correctly done here. Cost of living is obviously the biggest concern for the most people. There is the standard spent more, got less rhetoric, probably done a little less artfully than Chris Bishop, but Seymour also brings individual examples. On one level they feel petty, but on the other hand it’s not David’s fault they’re absurd, it’s the government’s.

Giving credit to BVV for her work on healthcare, Seymour complains about all the RATs the government bought that are now just lying around. He mocks the sincerity of the war on plastic if they’ll ban supermarket bags but get all of these. It’s really bad that the government won’t distribute those out or ship them off, fair play, but…would you rather the government didn’t overprepare for the worst with COVID?

His next example is a “beautiful” booklet on restraining kids now circulated amongst teachers - based on the testimony of a few, but David claims there’s a lot concerned about how it restricts their ability to deal with kids. There are similar nitpicks about the regulatory state back on health; David says he was just talking to a GP, but, curiously, gives no elaboration about the GP’s experiences. Once again, there’s that sense of a missing link in these standard bits of politician fare. To his credit and then his not, Seymour acknowledges “This [booklet] is not the biggest problem facing NZ today, the fact that it’s even possible is maybe”.

The rest of Seymour’s plan on economics is clear: they’re proud of their fully costed alternate budget, and they plan to slash through much of the red tape consuming the private sector, like fair pay agreements, which, he warns, could affect “every single worker”. Which is what their design is premised on. It’s also amusing to hear the ultimate deregulator talk about how he’ll issue his “stop work notice” to all bits of government work wasting money. Sure, all of this makes sense from the party’s perspective, but the complete explanations aren’t coming out.

“Does anyone even care [about crime]”, is what David says he thinks people are thinking. And it’s a fact he knows because people tell him that. He visits lots of places. My head hurts. What are his key examples? Good example: migrants from India are going back home, though his claim that export education is shrinking “cos they read the papers and they’re scared” is a bizarre way to word the claim. Bad example: even in the expensive suburbs, they can’t sell jewelry safely anymore.

To my surprise, the Auckland shooter is mentioned amongst other examples of crime out of control without giving him any special focus, let alone dogwhistling. Seymour handles that appropriately and prefers to reserve his ire for KFC and Maccas as negotiating tools for youth on the roofs of Oranga Tamariki - where, curiously, his mocking concern is again for the plastic involved, this time in fast food.

Seymour gives credit to Labour for matching their corrections target, and that’s true! From here, he could take the easy wins on “they let too many criminals go and we’ll make you safe”. He could do the right thing and explain “we need to keep people safe from this short-term crime wave, and we also need to make our rehabilitative system work”. And to his credit, he says he’s all for rehabilitation, with a goal to “change [rehabilitative institutions] into places of self improvement”, and the party’s long-standing policy to reward learning life skills like a driver’s license with a reduced sentence.

Nonetheless, I’m left baffled. His justification for the three strikes act is that maybe it’s bad luck to commit a crime twice - what??? From a tough on crime, right-libertarian perspective, to see somebody make a bad and harmful choice, and then proceed to do it again - I mean, we've been talking about serious crimes! Is it bad luck to go beat up a second redshirt in a plastic-filled Maccas?

And his plan for what they’ll make youth offenders do is…clean graffiti, apologise, and maybe they get an ankle bracelet if they’re really bad. The audience is largely happy with him and yet I'm left so confused. Is this really your tough on crime, law and order champion? Because the polls clearly show he's the best messenger the right has for those who want a real crackdown.

Seymour continues this softly-softly approach as he moves to the last pillar: he doesn’t like to bring up co-governance. And yet he must. “This we must have the courage and also the courtesy to humanely and rationally debate.” Yeah, the guy actually said this sentence, word for word. He doesn't charge into this segment and he makes it clear that the Treaty of Waitangi is not bad (which leaves the call for a referendum on keeping it somewhat confusing), but he's pretty clearly got a stance he’s here to advocate.

Seymour acknowledges that he doesn’t usually speak te reo, but at Waitangi, “This year, the trust board’s decided all the speeches must be in te reo”. There is unhappy rumbling about this fact in the crowd. He ignores it. When he was informed, “I told him he had good news” - Seymour had been brushing up and, as you may know, he delivered a whole speech in te reo Māori. That’s to his credit, but Marama Davidson said “27 years of ACT and you pick this year to pull that stunt”. David points out the fact that when he says her name, people in the crowd laugh; he dismisses her as “very upset” and muses about how the Greens have had a “humourotomy”.

This isn’t courageous, humane, rational debate. This is more of politicians bickering like children. I would like to hear him analyse why ACT hasn't engaged with te ao Māori this much until now. Instead, he’s aggrieved that, at a time of high racial tension he's clearly on one side of, his extended hand was viewed with suspicion.

We turn to another favourite button of his to press. Apparently he agrees with the chiefs of early 19th century iwi that they shouldn’t have let the tentacles of the government in, which is interesting, because like three sentences later he shares that “The British government was very into universal human rights that would never have happened before”. (This defense of an empire gets lots of applause - again, you’d think this would be weird for a libertarian party.) In Seymour’s view, if the chiefs understood the Treaty they would’ve said no, and if they were around today they’d vote ACT. That same Treaty needs to move away from “partnership between two races” and towards “same rights for all”. He is clearly explaining his principles but the bridging material feels levels below what he is enunciating.

“[Te Reo] shouldn’t be forced in a way that grows resentment”. That’s “neo-apartheid”. And “rich or poor, middle of nowhere, middle of Christchurch, you should still end up with unconditional care and a world-class education that means that you can go to Cambridge”. Look, call me anti-opportunity if you will, but I don't think our key priority is the richest and I don't think our key priority for the poorest in our country is getting them to Cambridge, I think it's getting them unconditional care, a dry home and a high school diploma. Good for you if you make it further, but I mention this because it’s little clues like this that suggest an international face to ACT somewhat out of sync with a "people are suffering from crime and costs day to day".

We’re done with the policies and we get to the pitch. Seymour shouts out the candidates here, and cites a poll to show ACT’s chances: that 50% of voters say there’s a 5 or higher chance that they’ll vote for ACT and 28% a 7 or higher chance. I’d love to hear the methodology on this - at those numbers, I would guess you could rank every party without mutual exclusivity, so presumably almost every National voter and a few others gave ACT an at least slightly positive rating (5+). Seymour promises that you can talk to ACT’s volunteers about getting involved, and sparks laughs by admitting “They’ll also take your money” - though that’s nothing compared to the $49 billion Grant Robertson will steal if given another three years.

In the Q&A segment, the first question is long and winding, and the person clearly has a point Seymour is willing to hear out. That doesn’t stop rows behind us making rude remarks about the questioner. Seymour engages in long and almost rambly answers to questions, surprisingly undisciplined for somebody so famously effective, and he really is open to a variety of questions to his credit. He makes jokes about how bad Auckland is - a sure way to our hearts - pledges to send money to Ukraine, asks a younger questioner if his father with him is his granddad and promptly laughs along to the response, and disparages epidemiologists while getting applause by calling for an inquiry into COVID measures and the vaccine rollout.

The questioners don’t stop toeing towards the fringe. One shares climate conspiracies, to which Seymour can only say “maybe you’re right, I envy your certainty” before moving on to his response. He derides the Greens for not preparing adaptation measures, leaving Hawke’s Bay exposed. The final question is about a supposed online “disinformation project” suppressing free speech, which gets claps too. The best Seymour can offer is concern about what the CCP is doing. And then we’re done, having gotten plenty of time with the big man and probably a lot more conviction for most of these voters.

My conclusion is that David Seymour is irritating. The thing is, I'm not interested in just pushing my take or venting my feelings here. I mention that partly because it's clearly affected the tone and delivery of this article, but also partly because I genuinely think this is a key benefit for Seymour. It's Trumpian - and, again, not to try paint him as a far-right Republican, but Trumpian in the sense that his opponents respond off-balance and his supporters love this stuff.

More than anything - more than bowing to the rich or providing opportunity for the poor, more than dogwhistling or pragmatic policy - the Seymour train seems to be based on saying that there is a desirable and sensible way of life, and it's the other lot being bloody silly that's stopping us getting - getting there or getting back, that might differ based on the voter's perspective, but Seymour can cater to both. I had hoped to ask him, and I was not able to, about whether ACT would wind up letting down its liberal or its conservative voters. The question remains valid, but we will only get the answer after the election.

Seymour has shown a talent for making his presentation greater than the sum of its parts. The little nitpicks left me a bit confused about how the mighty David Seymour could be so effective if he makes such little detours. But that's just the nature of being authentic and a fluid communicator. These little things don't matter, because he has that strongest talent a politician can have: the ability to make you hear what you want to hear.