Twinkletoes Seymour gets his act together
‘‘You can have as many ideas as you want but, ultimately, you’ve got to earn the right to be in power to implement them.’’ ACT leader David Seymour
After much soul searching, ACT is going back to basics – fighting against big taxes and big government – in an effort to improve on its devastating result in the last general election.
This weekend’s ACT conference will be the party’s chance to talk about its new direction.
In last year’s election ACT received just 13,075 party votes – 0.5 per cent of the vote – with leader David Seymour coming back to Parliament alone, after winning his Epsom seat in Auckland.
Since then, the party’s lone MP has connected with the membership, who have expressed a desire to go back to the party’s roots: focusing on less tax, less government spending, and smaller government.
Seymour acknowledges the party has tried to do too much; it has tried to be everything to everyone.
Now is the time to get back to the core of what the party stands for – a move Seymour hopes will provide some clarification to potential voters.
Seymour said tomorrow’s conference would be ‘‘a bit of a pre-launch to our relaunch’’.
‘‘Obviously we need to do something different,’’ Seymour said.
While Seymour’s likeability ratings were not bad, that wasn’t the same thing as someone voting ACT.
Over the past term, ACT, via Seymour, has been an ideas party.
There have been charter schools, the euthanasia bill, and plans to reduce prisoners’ sentences as a reward for learning to read.
While the small, hardcore ACT base understood what the party was trying to do, it was confusing for many.
‘‘You can have as many ideas as you want but, ultimately, you’ve got to earn the right to be in power to implement them,’’ he said.
‘‘And the analysis that’s come out is that we need to be clearer.’’
Some members thought Seymour and ACT were trying to be ‘‘too cute’’. ‘‘Our historical mission is to beat back the inexorable growth of tax and regulation ... That’s what our new initiative will be: something that attempts to drive a wedge between the parties who aren’t clear where they stand on that issue.’’
NO MATES
It has become a common refrain in the House of Representatives to hear an MP from another party have a dig at Seymour’s loner status. He is the only member of ACT in Parliament, and does not sit in a coalition partnership.
And after the election, former National Party leader Bill English said he wouldn’t be joining hands with Seymour.
If NZ First had chosen National as a coalition partner, they would not have needed ACT’s support to form a government, and English wouldn’t have asked for it.
There was also the complicating factor that David Seymour and Winston Peters said they refused to work together.
Historically, ACT and National have been coalition partners and for the past three elections National has done a deal with ACT – essentially stepping aside in the Epsom electorate to make sure they have a guaranteed extra person on their side in Parliament.
And while Seymour maintains he would win the Epsom seat without National’s endorsement, National openly refers to the ‘‘Epsom deal’’, which has been in play since the John Key-John Banks teapot tapes saga of 2011.
Seymour said he still looked at National as a potential coalition partner, with similar interests.
‘‘We need each other, there’s no question about that.’’
Seymour said he and new National Party leader Simon Bridges had the same challenge: how do you offer a compelling reason for people to vote for you that aren’t voting for you now.
‘‘He may have 44 per cent more in the latest poll than ACT does but we’ve both got the fundamental problem of how do we get another 2 per cent.’’
ACT was on 1 per cent in the latest TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll.
Meanwhile, Bridges said he believed there was a place for a party to the right of National.
A party that emphasised tax, compliance, and ‘‘getting government out of your life’’ appealed to a small number of New Zealanders.
As for the Epsom deal, the two leaders had not formally discussed it but at this stage it was still on the cards.
‘‘I don’t think there’s anything at the moment that would suggest we wouldn’t come to arrangement that we’ve come to in the past around the seat in Epsom and the ACT party,’’ Bridges said.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
Part of the official relaunch, which will take place at the ACT annual meeting planned for February or March, will be a decision on whether to change the party’s name..
The idea of a name change had been contentious, Seymour said.
Some people believed a rebrand wasn’t worth the time and money – it was better to focus on changing behaviour.
Others said it wasn’t clear what ACT stood for, and a name change would help clarify the party’s purpose.
‘‘The problem with ACT is that it’s not immediately clear what it means … Nobody knows it’s the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers.’’
Seymour’s personal preference is to change the name.
He likes the idea of a reform party. ‘‘I think if you really wanted to get to the core of what ACT is, and what it was founded as, we’re the reform party.
‘‘We’ve had a reform party before. And our founders were reformers. And most of our agenda is to reform stuff.’’
No matter what, ACT is keeping the yellow in its colour brand.
David Seymour is now a familiar face in family rooms across the country, but this wasn’t the case heading into last year’s election.
Earlier in this year he took up an offer to participate in the starspangled reality television series Dancing with the Stars.
Seymour said he knows the exposure won’t translate into votes but it was a start.
‘‘I was so bad at dancing but I almost certainly would have been the top-rated contestant on text votes every week,’’ he said.
‘‘There’s not other way that someone as bad as me could stay in. ‘‘So that was positive.’’ He describes the exposure as ‘‘political gold’’. ‘‘But it doesn’t win votes, it just puts you in the conversation to win votes.’’
Some nights there were more than 200,000 Kiwi eyeballs on the hot lycra mess that was Seymour on Dancing with the Stars.
‘‘Ultimately, I’ve got to face the reality that not a huge number of people knew who I was at the last election.’’
Going into the 2020 election, it’s unlikely that will still be the case.
Seymour said he expected about 100 people to attend the party’s conference this weekend in Auckland.
They are charging attendees $100 a pop, and there will be a cash bar.