ACT hopes to downsize govt
ACT Party leader David Seymour has a new bill that would cut 20 MPs from Parliament and reduce the number of electorates to 54.
The private member’s bill will be Seymour’s first big move to cement a new direction for his party, following its poor election result last year.
ACT received 13,075 party votes in the election – 0.5 per cent of the vote – with Seymour returning to Parliament alone, after winning his Epsom seat.
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 announced the start to his policy plan during the party’s conference in Auckland yesterday.
The bill would reduce the size of Parliament to 100 (from 120), reduce the size of the executive to 20 (from 31, including ministers outside Cabinet and parliamentary under-secretaries), and reduce the number of electorates to 54 (from 71).
Each prospective MP would also have to stand in an electorate – whether they were list or electorate MPs.
If they lost in the electorate, they could still get into Parliament on the list but they would have an established electorate office, and would be expected to actively help people within their electorate.
List MPs who weren’t particularly active in their local electorates ‘‘could actually do with helping a few people, coming in with real problems’’, Seymour said.
‘‘It’s the Epsom model.
‘‘It works for me and Goldie but we haven’t seen David Parker in Epsom since the election.’’
The changes would also save millions of dollars.
The exact cost of downsizing Parliament, and Government, is disputed.
But a Parliamentary Library report from 1999 found cutting the number of MPs from 120 to 99 would result in a cost saving of at least $7.1 million a year.
That’s a 9.4 per cent reduction in cost for a 17.5 per cent reduction in the number of MPs.
Or $3 per voter saved, every year.
Seymour said this bill was a clear signal of the direction the party was headed in over the next two years.
‘‘The real point of it is, who is prepared to draw a line in the sand on the expansion of government? And if you can’t do that, then what real commitment is there?’’ If the changes were to come into effect, the bill states they would be confirmed by referendum.
Seymour said he expected to get the support of NZ First and Winston Peters, as Peters had long talked about reducing the number of electorates by abolishing the Ma¯ ori seats, and cutting Parliament to 100 MPs.
During NZ First’s party conference in July last year, Peters said if he was in Government, he would hold a binding referendum asking these two questions.
Peters did not win his fight to abolish the Ma¯ ori seats as part of the Labour-NZ First coalition deal but that did not mean NZ First would not support ACT’s plans to reduce government.
Yesterday, Seymour came to the podium to a standing ovation from the 50 or so party faithful who packed into the conference in Auckland’s exclusive Orakei.
He quickly launched into a rolling speech that began with a poke at the current climate around free speech, the National Party and the current government.
The audience was receptive, engaged and entertained by their leader.
Seymour began by focusing on the future of ACT’s key policy, charter schools and the importance of winning in 2020 to preserve the party’s status.
A Parliamentary Library report from 1999 found cutting the number of MPs from 120 to 99 would result in a cost saving of at least $7.1 million a year.